Samsung SyncMaster 213T review

You only need to glance at this page to see that 17in TFTs are now fully mainstream, and 19-inchers aren't too far behind. The only area where CRTs still hold sway is with users demanding resolutions above 1,280 x 1,024. CRTs over 19in are mainly used by professionals willing to put up with their physical size, and when Iiyama's excellent Vision Master Pro 514 costs just £482 inc VAT the case for a 21in flat panel could be viewed as flimsy.

But it's a case that Samsung is nonetheless attempting to make, with the new 213T offering a full 21.3in viewable diagonal. To be frank, though, the native resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 is disappointing, given that notebook displays are regularly matching this figure and in some cases exceeding it by a wide margin. The NEC Versa P700, for example, has a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 (see issue 103, p56). Given the screen's size, it's a shame that Samsung hasn't pushed the resolution boundary further.

However, that's not the only disappointment. For a monitor costing over £1,000, the 213T's build quality isn't up to scratch. The casing's silver-effect plastic creaks audibly when moving the panel, and the bezel of our review sample was starting to come adrift from its backing. In its favour, the tilt and swivel mechanism in the base is very smooth, and a silver finish earns it the new TCO 03 ergonomics and emissions standard certification.

Among the 213T's tricks is a Portrait mode, but due to its VESA-compliant wall-mounting feature - which dictates that the video and mains cables attach directly to the panel - rotating the screen causes the cables to snag on anything near the base. There's no rotation sensor, so you'll need to re-orientate the Windows Desktop manually, but that only takes a couple of clicks if you have a recent ATi, Nvidia or Matrox graphics card. A spanner in the works, if you're using Windows XP, though, is that ClearType font smoothing won't work correctly in Portrait mode, as it relies on horizontal subpixel RGB alignment.

The 213T's technical specifications are par for the course: a reasonable but not fantastic 25ms response time allied to a 170-degree viewing angle both horizontally and vertically. It's also not the most vibrant or saturated panel we've seen, and it's difficult to correct this. You can adjust the RGB colour when using the analog input, but there are no specific colour temperature settings, a strange oversight. When using the DVI input, the colour and gamma settings can't be altered directly from the panel - you'll need to use your graphics card drivers. However, there's an Image Effect mode with three settings: Sharpen, Medium and Soften. Sharpen and Medium look almost identical, but the Soften mode renders the display as if it were interpolated to a lower resolution, making things look fuzzy and giving relief from that ultra-sharp LCD quality.

The 213T has no glaring faults, but it's still underwhelming. It's not up to colour-critical applications, and as a presentation display it's a less practical prospect than a projector, albeit somewhat cheaper. If you must have a 21in panel and cost is no object, the Samsung is fine, but a decent 21in CRT is still a more suitable tool for the majority of high-end applications.

Author: David Fearon