A competent monitor at a fair price

I realized I have some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder when I started looking for a flat screen monitor. All I wanted was a basic, low-cost screen that would take up less space on my cramped desk than my old tube monitor. I ended up spending way too much time looking for something that a normal person would have just run out to the closest electronics store and picked up in 45 minutes. At any rate, I figure I should at least give away the benefits of my efforts to others.

Although I have an old computer, I wanted to get a widescreen monitor so that it will be useful in the future when I decide to get a new computer (which I would do right away if Microsoft Vista wasn't half-baked and overpriced). I ended up going with the 19-inch Samsung 906BW.

The Samsung is a very attractive widescreen (16:10) monitor and with the 19" screen size, the height is no smaller than the 17" conventional (4:3) monitor that it replaces. The monitor has a 2 ms response time and 1000:1 contrast ratio, as it clearly shows on the upper-right corner of the unit. Note to Samsung: printing those specs on the front of the monitor will make it look outdated in two years and significantly degrades the otherwise classy look of the front panel. There was a $40 rebate going on, which put the cost in-line to what I wanted to pay (even considering my personal $15 rebate hassle cost penalty)

The 906BW has a standard analog input connector, as well as a DVI input connector. Besides the power connector, that's it for the back panel. There is no speaker or any USB connectors on the monitor. The stand is basic, only the tilt angle is adjustable. I don't find that I need a height-adjustable screen and monitors with the height-adjust feature seem to sit too high even in their lowest setting. There is no swivel, so you can't turn the monitor lengthwise to work on documents... but I don't do that anyway. The picture is clear, backlighting is even. Viewing angle is reasonable. I have no complaints about the video quality at all, though I don't do anything that requires a stellar display. The monitor claims to be Vista compliant. I don't know what that means exactly, but if Vista survives I guess having the compatibility will be a good thing.

The monitor came with a power cable, analog video cable, and some kind of software CD which I didn’t use. There is no DVI cable included, which is a shame because newer video cards all have DVI outputs and DVI is superior to the analog connection.

I was quite a bit worried that a modern widescreen monitor wouldn't work with my 7+ year-old computer. The PC's video card doesn't have a setting for the display's native resolution of 1440x900. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the regular resolution I had been using produced passable results. It wasn't as blurry as I had feared. The display was stretched lengthwise, however, so circles showed up squashed a little. I would have been able to accept this result until I got a new computer. But, I then tried some software called "PowerStrip" ($30 with free trial) from EnTech which has the ability to somehow convince older video cards to output screen resolutions that they were never intended to. I was shocked to see that it worked in my case (Matrox G2000 AGP video card) and my PC could actually manage to generate the 1440x900 resolution. This gave me a crystal-clear and non-stretched picture. The process of using the PowerStrip software took some experimenting, and I was afraid of screwing up the video so badly that I wouldn't be able to go back if I had to. (In case the screen goes blank, I recommend writing down the hotkey sequence for reverting the resolution before experimenting.) I don't think PowerStrip will work with all video cards, but in my case it did. The only issue I have with PowerStrip is that the screen goes black (the Samsung shows a box telling me that the resolution is not set properly) between the time Windows begins to boot up and before the PowerStrip software kicks in. This is about 60 seconds in my case and was quite disconcerting until I realized what was going on.

Like I said, I spent way too much time looking at competitors. There is a lot of competition in 19" monitors. The 906BW seems to be in the class of products one step above the lowest cost products. I couldn't figure out Samsung's confusing array of products. Most companies have three or four grades of products. Samsung's web site lists literally dozens of monitor lines. Who knows why, it almost turned me off from Samsung... but local stores only had a few of those on the list. Circuit City, Staples, Office Depot... they all had the 906BW.

I also looked at competitors in the same price range... NEC ASLCD193WXM would have been my second choice except I couldn't find it in stores, it was uglier, and seemed to be a few months older in technology. It does have built in speakers, though. Viewsonic also had contenders, but their low-cost line seemed a little too low-cost. Viewsonic's higher cost line included speakers and an adjustable stand, but was a little more expensive especially considering that I heard the speakers stink and I decided I didn't need an adjustable stand. The Dell SE198WFP is cheaper, but it was definitely a step down in quality and I had recent negative customer-service issues with Dell that have caused me to now avoid the company. If I'd wanted rock-bottom cost, I probably would have looked more carefully at Acer. HP's products seemed over-priced. In the end, I picked the Samsung 906BW because it was a competent monitor with nothing to detract from it. I think I got the basic, low-cost screen I was looking for.

I have put the old CRT monitor in the basement as a back up and will probably hang onto it for another year, when there will be plenty of opportunities to dispose of it properly as a mass of unusable televisions will be recycled for the digital TV transition.