First look: Samsung's new monitors

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Posted on 5 Mar 2008 at 12:44

Samsung has given the first public display of its new range of monitors at CeBIT 2008.

The "Crystal Design" series ranges from 19in to 25.5in, and boasts a glass-effect black bezel with a tastefully coloured curve at the bottom (red, green and blue models are offered). The units look more like classy televisions than computer monitors, and indeed, larger sized models are optionally available with a built in DTV tuner.

The pre-production samples on display at the launch produced some very vibrant and fluid scenes, with a company representative claiming a 5ms response time and a real contrast ratio of 10,000:1 (boosted to 20,000:1 by dynamic brightness adjustment)*.

We did, however, notice light bleed at the top and bottom of the image, suggesting these screens may not be at their best at maximum brightness.

More innovative, is the company's SyncMaster 2263DX package, also launched at CeBIT. It's a 22in LCD monitor that comes with a secondary 800 x 480 7in display that can be attached to any edge of the main screen or detached and positioned separately on your desk.

The smaller monitor is driven by USB, using Samsung's UbiSync system, and works within Windows as a standard secondary display. As one overenthusiastic exec gushed, "the possible uses are limited only by the imagination of the user."

*UPDATE: Put this down to an overexcitable demonstrator; we've since seen the specs and the basic contrast ratio is 1,000:1, not 10,000:1. Dynamic contrast is still an impressive 20,000:1, though.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith in Hannover