Every
time I stop by the local computer shop in my area, I take a quick stroll through
the monitor isle and gaze at all the new LCD monitors.... "One day, when
that Viewsonic P95F+ finally dies, I'll get a nice LCD monitor" I
tell myself. The beat goes on for that stubborn P95F+ CRT, but anyway's, from a gamers perspective the
biggest shortcoming of LCD screens has always been pixel refresh times. You know - ghosting, blurring, jittery & jumpy fast-paced rounds in first person shooter
games?
Average
LCD pixel refresh times of 35ms are just not up to snuff for late-nite owls used
to FPS'ing away at 250 frames a second. Lucky for you, technology has
finally caught up with the demand for "faster" LCD displays, and after
the slow introduction of 16ms panels, you guessed it... 8ms panels are now becoming widely available.
Consumers who shop carefully can easily find entry level LCDs in the 17"/19" range with sub-25ms pixel refresh
times.
The 17"
Samsung
SyncMaster 730B LCD display
PCSTATS is reviewing in this article is a good example - it's
intended for mainstream budgets, and it boasts an 8ms pixel refresh rate according to the
manufacturer. Also on the list of admirable qualities for the
SyncMaster 730B is a 600:1 contrast ratio, 0.264mm dot pitch, 300nits brightness value, and 160°/160° (Horizontal/Vertical) viewing angles. Environmentally, since we should all do our
part to use less energy (and pay less subsequently), it's comforting to know that
a display like the Samsung 730B consumes as little as 34W; less than half of what a
conventional 17" CRT draws.
The Samsung SyncMaster 730B
is available in black, which is nice because it wouldn't look nearly as good in beige. The 17"
display should look good right next to a Dell or HP PC, just as it would
next to a gamers case. The face of the SyncMaster 730B is very clean and the
bezel is only 18mm thick on all sides. At the bottom of the monitor you'll find
the power button along with the five control buttons for the display.
 The SyncMaster 730B weighs 3.6kg and can
be mounted on the wall or tucked into a corner of a desk with
ease, thanks to a compact footprint.
On
a wall, the Samsung 730B will stick out about 5.5cm, with just video
and AC power cables coming down. Of course should you decide to mount this LCD
display on the wall, you'll need to find an appropriate 75mm VESA wall mounting
plate as it is not included.
Probably the SyncMaster 730B's strongest suite is its price tag,
$430 CDN ($342 US). This 17" LCD display is very aggressively priced
considering its panel specifications. Oddly, although the 730B supports
both digital (DVI) and analog video connections, only the analog video cable
is included with the package!? This could mean that Samsung expect the Syncmaster 730B to be used primarily with older computers, but for those up us on a budget who
have a DVI output on our videocards, it would have been nice to
find a DVI cable inside the box. As it stands, if you want to use the DVI
connection you'll need to buy a DVI video cable first.
|
RSS Newsletter
