Samsung 225BW 22 inch LCD

Product: Samsung SyncMaster 225BW LCD
Provided By: Samsung Canada
Price: ~ TBA

Introduction:

Widescreen LCD's have taken the world by storm over the past few months.  I even jumped on the bandwagon back in March with a 21" 8ms 1680x1050 Gateway display - which I love (Thanks Tia!!).  Today you can buy 19" widescreen units cheaper than 19" standard ratio displays.  This has prompted consumers to get into the widescreen mode, and companies have responded by offering bigger and faster displays at lower prices than ever before.  Samsung has announced the SyncMaster 225BW LCD, but has yet to bring it to market.  At this point you cannot get this LCD anywhere, so consider this review your first look at Samsungs new 22" HDCP 1680x1050 5ms LCD.  Is it worth getting excited about?  Read on and you'll find out.

Normally, I don't include a box picture of an LCD, but there is no information about this LCD on the web, so the specs listed on the box is your best way to see what this unit can do.

Imagine Infinity

Samsungs slogan with this display is "Imagine Infinity", and for those of you that have never used a large widescreen LCD, that slogan will pretty much ring true.  This is a large display that should be priced quite affordably for the average consumer.  Granted, there are larger 24" and 30" LCDs on the market, but most of us cannot afford to drop $2000+ on a monitor.  I'm guessing that this unit will hit the street for around $700 at launch and in a few months you should be able to snag it for less.

First Look:

This LCD ships in a very large box and weighs in at 15.2 lbs.  That is pretty hefty for a LCD but once you pull it out of the box it looks like it's worth it.

The 225BW comes with a standard bundle for a quality LCD.  Samsung includes some sparse documentation, a power cable, DVI-D cable, and a standard VGA cable.  They also throw in a CD that includes drivers, color tweaking applications and a full manual.  This LCD is HDCP ready so if you are in the mood to run some BluRay or HD-DVD video on your widescreen LCD, it is up to the task.  All you'll need is a BluRay or HD-DVD drive and a video card that is HDCP enabled.

The display has a height adjustable stand that also features a very wide side-to-side swivel.  It doesn't support pivoting to display 10:16 as some other LCDs do.  I believe that this can be a good thing as many people don't actually use the pivot feature.  Without including it Samsung should be able to keep the cost down on this unit and get it on the desks of more people faster.

Closer Look:

A few of the LCDs that we have reviewed from Samsung are adjustable by software only.  They were very stylish and had no buttons on the display, but under alternative Operating Systems, they couldn't be adjusted.  I'm very glad to see that Samsung has equipped the 225BW with menu buttons.

Menu Buttons!!

As you can see they are quite small and don't detract from the overall appearance of this display.  The buttons functions are as follows: Menu, MagicBright/Down Arrow, Brightness/Up Arrow, Enter and Power On/Off.  The Power Button is illuminated while the other buttons remain dark.

As we investigate the bottom of the display, we find the DVI-D input as well as the standard VGA input.  You can connect two different computers to this display and toggle between them.  This could be handy if you have a DVI-D BluRay video player sitting next to your computer and you want to watch movies on this display.  You could plug in your computer to the VGA input and also use it for general computer use.

The power supply for the 225BW is built into the LCD case and the unit takes a standard computer power cable to operate.  Located just beside the power input is a rocker switch that allows you to cut the power going into the display.  This is a great idea if you are leaving your computer off, or if you are going to be away from it for an extended period of time.  If you simply push the power button on the front of the display to power it off and there was a power surge, it could still possibly damage the display because the power is live inside of the unit.  With the power switch off on the back, the circuit is open and a power surge should have no affect on the display.  This is not a bad idea.

Specs & Information:

• Size 22" Diagonal (55,9 cm)
• Display area 477.7 mm (H) x 300.1 mm (V)
• Pixel Pitch 0.282 mm (H) x 0.282 mm (V)
• Type a-si TFT active matrix
• Synchronization: Horizontal 31 ~ 81 kHz - Vertical 56 ~ 75 Hz
• Display Color: 8 bit color (16.7 M)
• Optimum resolution 1680 x 1050@60 Hz
• Maximum resolution 1680 x 1050@60 Hz
• Input Signal, Terminated
• RGB Analog, Compliant Digital RGB 0.7 Vp-p ± 5%, TTL level (V high ≥ 2.0V, V low ≤ 0.8V)
• Maximum Pixel Clock: 165 MHz

On the next page we'll go through some of the menus and see how well this unit stacks up to a 21" Widescreen LCD.