Samsung 2232BW - Anyone have this monitor yet?

[bennyprofane]

Just took a stroll through Best Buy to check out their new crop of monitors and came across the Samsung 2232BW. Out of all the LCDs they had lined up, it was the one that jumped out at me the most, picture quality/vibrance-wise.

1680x1050
2ms
3000:1
60Hz
170/170

Does anyone have this thing yet? Think it's too new to have many reviews out. Either that, or I'm just not finding them for some reason.

If you've got it, can you speak to whether or not it lives up to the specs it claims?

Also, is 60 Hz standard for LCDs? Are there any faster than this? The guy at Best Buy seemed to think the 2ms rating was the only relevant issue when it came to response time. Didn't feel like getting into that with him, nor did I think such a discussion would bear fruit.

And... I'm obviously looking for a good gaming LCD, so if this ain't it, do any of you have any good suggestions for <$500?

Thanks!
Benny

 

[chookman]

from my knowledge everything runs at 60hz in the LCD game.

judging by the response rate and the viewing angle id say this is a 6bit TN panel which generally means better for gamming not so good for colour reproduction. Although this is a TN panel alot of people have been complaining about input lag on Samsung panels... but i think this in generally on the 8bit type.

 

[bennyprofane]

Thanks. Color reproduction isn't a huge issue with me. I have a calibrated 214T for my photo work. This one will be used exclusively for gaming. I might have to wait for the reviews to come out to find out about the lag issue. Looking for an LCD with the responsiveness of a CRT. Or, at least as close as I can get to that.

 

[bennyprofane]

Sub Question:

If I'm running a dual monitor setup, when I run a game is the other monitor leeching power off the graphics card, thereby reducing performance?

Or does turning the other monitor off transfer all power to the active screen? Don't know how that works.

 

[shargrath]

I', probably mistaken but i think you can have a game in one monitor and windows desktop in the other im sure i saw one of my friends do it at a lan once... you may be able to deactivate one of the monitors when gaming but im not sure...OR you could have the game running in both monitors.

 

[bennyprofane]

Probably didn't state the question well enough.

I know what's possible. That is, I can play a game on my left monitor while leaving the the right one on (used to do that with WoW all the time -- would leave maps/boss strats on the monitor not running the actual game).

My question is: does the fact that I have two monitors hooked up to my graphics card, regardless of whether or not both are active (i.e. one is turned off), hurt gaming performance at all? In other words, if I only had one monitor hooked up, would my games run faster, or would it matter? Couldn't tell a difference with WoW, but then again, it's not all that graphics intensive, relatively speaking.

Make sense?

 

[chookman]

If you had 2 monitors hooked up but on disabled in gaming there would be no performance drop. If it was enabled there would be a performance drop, however, it would be neglegable if it were only running a desktop scenario

 

[lebrand]

Just an ergonomic note on the Samsung 2232bw. It is one of the few monitors sold that does NOT have VESA mounting holes. This means that you can't replace the crappy stand which only has tilt adjustment.

Product recommendation: I've got a Ergotron NeoFlex stand which is a terrific stand with height, tilt, rotate and pivot to portrait mode. Even though the box says for monitors up to 20", it works fine on my 22" Acer, but not on the 2232bw unfortunately since it lacks mounting holes on the back.

 

[AaronE]

Does anyone have the specs on this monitors power cord? I just bought one on ebay that came without... Cant believe how hard it is to find one of these... Basically I am wondering if I can just use any old 3 prong monitor/computer/speaker cable?

Thanks

 

[two bit hit]

I live with someone who has it, it's a great monitor, but he's only had it for a few days. Anyway, I think the maximum 'refresh rate' of the human eye is around 60Hz, which is why noone bothers advancing this on monitors. I'm pretty sure that this is the case, but you never know, I could be wrong.

 

[concept08]

I purchased this model monitor and i loved the thing.

The power cable is a standard computer PSU power cable meaning that any computer cable that plugs into a computers power supply and is rated for such use will be more then acceptable for this monitor.

Now onto my reviews of this monitor.

This monitor is great and i love it. i am a programmer. and i cannot imagine living without it.....

Ohh wait i can.

after 1 year and 1 month of solid 14-18 hour a day usage the monitor took the dive to the deep end and is now just an over glorified snazzy looking black paper weight.

So with this being said i contacted best buy. and they would not honor the warranty because it was just past the one year. so thinking the worst i called samsung. and they were really cool. they said it would not be a problem and they would dispatch out a RMA and more then likely they would be sending me back a new one. The tech was rather nice and told me that it was more then likely the power supply of the product was faulty.

My girlfriend purchased one of these but she does not use it nearly as much as i do and it is still working great.

As far as this monitor and gaming goes it works great. and it can manage up too 72 hertz (i believe) without any detectable problems to the necked eye.

Before rushing out and purchasing this monitor strictly for gaming, be sure that you have a powerful video card to power it. Running a video card at very high resolutions which this monitor LOVES requires a slightly better video card for production of all those added lines of resolution at seamless frame rates.

This monitor worked my last video card so hard i recently had to replace it because all my games were not seamless and the frame rates on a game such as WOW was at 13 FPS at max rez with all game settings maxed out.

One thing about this monitor was sitting close too it took some getting used too. from a 15 inc to this huge 20++++ inch monitor was a change.

Even though i got a faulty one. and i am still waiting on the RMA to finish successfully in my favor i would give it 4 out of 5 stars or a 8.5 out of 10. It looks good when in use. it has nice clean picture. the colors are bright clean and true. and the monitor is actually rather large but not too large where its over whelming. it handles the games good at high resolutions if you got a good video card. and in programming my lines of code are a mile long compared to my old resolution which i used to work on 1024 X 768 ( !!!). it has made my life better but is not flawless because i seem to have got a bad unit.

if i had the choice i would buy another one again