Samsung 960BF LCD

Product: Samsung SyncMaster 960BF 19" LCD
Provided By: Samsung Canada
Price: ~ $560 CDN (Pricegrabber.ca)

Introduction:

Samsung is one of the definite leaders of LCD technology.  They are not always the first to come out with a new product, but their products are generally high quality.  This Korean based company manufacturers their own LCD panels and by doing this has greater control over quality.  The LCD we have on the bench this time around is a higher-end model that features a resolution of 1280x1024 and refreshes at 4ms (grey to grey).  It has a unique design with a foldable base and can also rotate 90° for your viewing pleasure.  This LCD features a plethora of Samsung's new features like MagicSpeed, MagicBright², MagicColor, MagicTune, MagicZone and MagicRotation along with a software based OSD (On Screen Display).   Keep on reading to find out if this monitor is worth you hard earned coin.

First Look:

The 960BF comes with everything you need to hook a digital monitor up to any computer - whether DVI or standard D-Sub.  Samsung includes a DVI-DVI cable to keep everything digital, as well as a D-Sub to DVI cable for hooking up to older graphics cards.  Either of these connections provide a good quality picture and work fine.  If you don't have a DVI connector on your computer don't worry.  This unit can get the job done.

Also included in the bundle is a software CD that includes drivers for the display as well as software that allows you to make adjustments to the picture.  Also included is Pivot software which will automatically adjust your screen resolution when you pivot the monitor 90° as show in the middle picture above.  Lastly, the package includes a DC Power Supply that you will need to get this monitor fired up.  Some LCD's have a built in power supply and thereby take a regular power cord.  Samsung has opted to keep things thin and sleek, and move the PSU to an external AC/DC converter.

Closer Look:

If you clicked any of the pictures above you may have already noticed that the 960BF only has a single button on the front.  In fact, that is the only button on this whole unit.  There are no menu, auto, or adjustment buttons located anywhere on this glossy white unit.  It makes it look nice, but that's about all.

When I first took the 960BF out of the box, I closely inspected it for damage, defects or flaws.  I noticed that the "SyncMaster 960BF" logo on the base was not straight with the LCD panel.  It sits off about 4° and once you notice it, it will bug you.  It bugged me.  I can't solely fault the monitor based on the orientation of it's decals, but to me it shows that this particular unit was slapped together quickly instead of carefully.

All of the input's are on the bottom of the base.  As mentioned previously, there is a single solitary DVI input and Samsung uses a pair of cables for compatibility.  This way they only have to pony up and find a place to put one connector.  Not a bad idea.

Samsung uses a unique hinge mechanism on this unit that leaves the base attacted during shipping.  A lot of LCD's require that you assemble the base once you setup the display, but the 960BF requires only that you unfold the LCD to it's upright position.

Specs & Features:

Before we plug this unit in and see how many dead pixels it has (hopefully none), we'll take a look at the specs and features as claimed from Samung.

Please head on over to the next page to find out how we tested this unit and how it fared during testing.