25 Aug 2001 claudio   » (Master)

Received my Samsung 570s TFT flat panel monitor yesterday, and here's a quick review:

  • First impressions: the box is not very cleverly designed. It has a plastic handler so you can easily carry it around, but only before you open the box for the first time. It's easy to unpack and set up, all cables, including two stereo audio cables, are included. Just plug the cables, turn it on and press the auto-calibration button.
  • Manual: very concise and straightforward. Most useful information is how to clean the screen.
  • OSD and controls: Complete set of adjustments, including RGB levels.
  • Resolution: 1024x768 @ 75Hz. Good enough for my myopia. Get the 17" panel if you need more.
  • Image quality: Absolutely great. Sharp image, no flicker, no distortions, no moire (and now I see how crappy my X fonts are), perhaps only a bit too bright. Scrolling can cause annoying persistency effects, like most notebook screens around. Tilt angle must be precisely adjusted to avoid brightness differences between the top and bottom of the screen.
  • Built-in speakers: Hideous. Horrid. Same sound as the cheapest speakers you can find around. It's good only for VoIP, you won't want to hear music on it. Plug the sound output to a stereo, and you'll be much happier.
  • Bottom line: I'm using it in a dual head setup with a cheap Samsung 500b CRT, and the image quality looks very poor compared to the TFT. Heck, a 19" Sony CRT image looks poor compared to the TFT. I'll wait for some significative price drop and build an all-TFT multi-head system >:)
Also found that my short-distance depth perception is almost non-existent with the new glasses. Tried to solder a serial cable, and the result was, hrm, crappy.

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