This 17-inch LCD breaks new ground in size, price and view
LCD monitors have been improving for years, but except for the overpriced large-screen size, users have pretty much settled for 15-inch diagonals. Now Samsung Electronics Co. has come out with a true 17-inch LCD at a price to make the rest of the market blush.
By John Breeden II
GCN Staff
LCD monitors have been improving for years, but except for the overpriced large-screen size, users have pretty much settled for 15-inch diagonals. Now Samsung Electronics Co. has come out with a true 17-inch LCD at a price to make the rest of the market blush.
The SyncMaster 700TFT's 17-inch diagonal display is all viewing area. Compared with the 17-inch CRT on my desk, the LCD has a lot more screen real estate'nearly equal to that of a 19-inch CRT monitor.
Once the plug-and-play installation is done, the first thing you notice is vibrant, accurate colors that make even high-end CRTs look washed-out by comparison.
Screen resolution goes as high as 1,280 by 1,024 pixels, suitable for any application. The monitor has innate intelligence, too, giving you a choice of natural or expanded mode. In natural mode, you see the image exactly as it was created.
Just about any monitor can do that, but
the Samsung also has an expanded mode, which blows the image up to full-screen size.
I have seen many LCD monitors that make a stab at this feature, but so far Samsung seems to be the only one to get it right. When an LCD image is expanded, usually either the distortion is too great or swirling patterns develop in the lighter areas.
All the angles
Nothing like that happens on the SyncMaster 700TFT. You can work with it exactly as if it were a CRT.
Another area that Samsung got right is the viewing angle. If LCDs could be viewed well from any angle, they would be more popular.
Samsung has not reached that level, but it did change the manufacturing process enough that a true 160-degree viewing angle extends from side to side. Even vertically, you get better than a 90-degree view. I have tested LCDs the same size as the SyncMaster TFT700 that boast a 160-degree angle, but they are prone to ghosting and their price tags approach $5,000.
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SyncMaster 700TFT Large LCD monitor Samsung Electronics Co.; Ridgefield Park, N.J.; tel. 201-229-4000 www.samsung.com Price: $2,500
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