Product Reviews

Samsung's SyncMaster 930MP is the latest 19in TFT display to combine a computer monitor with an LCD TV. In this case, the display also has a built-in FM tuner.

Any display that hopes to appeal to the living room as much as the office has to look good, and the 930MP scores well on this. Its silver case and speaker grilles, along with the black flip stand look slick enough to either sit on a TV unit or hang on a wall, with an optional VESA mounting kit.

Its suitability for television and movie viewing is limited by the fact that this is a traditional 4:3 aspect ratio display, though, rather than a widescreen, 16:9 screen. This means that widescreen movies and TV programmes are displayed in letterbox style, employing only about 40% of the vertical resolution of the screen. But it does sport an impressive range of inputs, including component, SCART, S-Video, composite, and antenna sockets for off-air TV and FM radio. Samsung has thoughtfully placed the S-Video and composite ports on the side of the monitor, rather than the rear, making it easy to connect a camcorder to it.

Other multimedia features include Virtual Dolby Surround, which simulates surround sound through the 930MP's 5-watt per channel stereo speakers. However, in practice we found that it made little difference. Audio performance on the whole was reasonable for such small speakers. It was crisp and fairly detailed but, obviously, lacked bass.

The feature set is rounded off by a decent remote control, picture-in-picture - so you can watch TV while working on your Mac - a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and five preset brightness controls for things like working with text and watching movies.

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can connect the 930MP to your Mac using either VGA or DVI. Strangely, there is no DVI cable included in the box, though there is one for VGA. If you want to listen to audio through the monitor's speakers, you'll also need to connect the included mini-jack cable to your Mac's headphone socket.

Setting up the 930MP to work with your Mac is straightforward, though it takes a bit of fiddling to get the most from it. There's a colour profile for the display included on an accompanying CD, but we had to calibrate it manually to achieve the best picture. Once that was done, colour performance was fine, although we were a little disappointed with the overall image. Set at its native resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels, there was a definite softness to the image on screen. Sony's MFM-HT95 is a similarly specified all-rounder and produced a much more pleasing picture - but at a significantly higher price.

The other criticism we have is of the 930MP's control system, which we found to be confusing. The on-screen display is navigated by pushing buttons arranged in a circle in the centre of the display's lower bezel. Our natural inclination was to press the button in the centre of the circle to select menu options. This is the power button, though, and resulted in us inadvertently switching the monitor off several times. This problem was added to by the fact that when it was switched back on, the 930MP took several seconds to display an image.

The killer feature, though, has to be the price. At £402, the 930MP is barely more expensive than a dedicated LCD television, without the added bonus of computer connectivity. Anyone working from home could be tempted to invest in a product like this, giving them the opportunity to not only save on space used by two separate units, but also to claim back some of the cost of a smart TV by offsetting it as a business expense. The only consideration is whether or not you can be sufficiently disciplined to ignore its 'entertainment' features when you should be working on your spreadsheets.

The Samsung 930MP is a bit of a mixed bag. It looks good, has some nice features and a wide range of inputs. However, the image quality leaves a little to be desired and the control system could be infuriating.