- The height and tilt of the screen are not adjustable, and the provided stand seems to impart a slight downward angle to the screen. In use, this has meant propping the monitor up on a 12″ stack of books so I can view it on-axis. While this may be great for my posture, I’d rather have a better stand.

- The gamma is highly dependent on viewing angle. This means that if you’re involved in graphic arts work, you’ll want to calibrate the position of your head along with the screen gamma.

- As noted in another review, this monitor does support VGA (analog) connectivity and has a sub-D connector for that purpose. HOWEVER, the DVI connector is a type DVI-D (digital only, not containing the analog signals even thought they’re clearly present within the monitor). In my case, this means I couldn’t use my previous DVI-I to VGA 10-foot cable, and their supplied cable is only 6 feet long. So I had to order a new cable. A minor point which likely will not affect most people.

I think I’ll go back to viewing Samsung as a TV maker.

Mrs. H

I wanted to replace a more professional and expensive monitor for my graphic design work and I needed an inexpensive display. This Samsung model was very attractive but a week’s use convinced me it had a few insoluble problems. Ergonomically, the touch-screen controls are terrible.

Obviously people use a monitor in darkened conditions–but the geniuses at Samsung apparently think that touch-control text printed in dark gray on a glossy black bezel is user-friendly. They are most definitely not and impossible even in room light to read or even see. There is no bump or indent of any kind to guide your fingers; it’s a crap shoot and you find yourself guessing where the on/off switch is, running your fingers across the bottom bezel endlessly, hoping you actually touch the right place (which you cannot otherwise find without a floodlight). A case of faddism over pragmatism, and the worst kind of fallout from Apple’s iPod Touch.

More to the point, the LCD screen was wildly uneven in terms of brightness, which remained distorted vertically no matter how much the display was tilted back or forward. The backlighting across the bottom of the screen was WAY too intense; it looked like a sunrise and blew out any text from about halfway down the screen, not desirable for a designer or even someone who works witn text a lot. (And this after calibration.)

Samsung has built in all kinds of “Magic” bells and whistles to counter this effect. They don’t really do much. This kind of distortion is the classic problem with LCDs, and a visually astute consumer should beware. I finally bought a (cheaper) Dell, which did not have these problems–and it had actuall buttons!

When I brought it home, I was really concerned about dead/stuck pixels but there were none to be had. Some reviewers have said the Samsung monitors don’t display text all that well and I found that to be the case if I wasn’t using the native resolution of 1920 x 1080. One of my computers couldn’t output to that and thus the text was a little fuzzy. My other two computers (using a KVM switch) could output to that resolution and the text looked great. I also hooked up my Mac Book Pro to it, and text looked good there too. Ultimately, the problem I had was with the color shifting. I noticed a faint pinkish hue on the right of the monitor which I just couldn’t ignore.

I’m going to return the unit and instead go with a new Dell U2311H. TN panels, like the one I’m reviewing, tend to have color shifting problems from what I’ve read so the U2311H with its IPS panel might be better for uniform color distribution. If you don’t care about the subtle color shift, this is a good panel. I didn’t want to get another one to see if the one I had was defective because I just don’t want to spend anymore time on a TN panel. I work in 3D programs and do graphic design (print and web) so space to work in AND color accuracy are important to me.

The first monitor that came to me would not turn on no matter what I did (I also used my own power cable in case it was just that with no success). So I returned it and decided to have them just replace it… which I am now regretting. Since moving in to a new apartment it has decided when it wants to turn itself off. Even when I am in the middle of using my computer (looking on the internet, etc) it’ll just go black and turn itself off. I wasn’t sure if it was because I only had it connected via Analog (because my computer is older and doesn’t have Digital), but it sounds like this is not uncommon for this monitor. It just totally sucks that mine decided to turn to crap after 2 months.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it because the other reviews that said they called Samsung directly sounded like they had limited success… but I also don’t want to blow the money that I spent on this goodbye.

So overall… DON’T buy this!