Samsung Tv

Whether you want to view your computer's images, movies from a VCR or DVD player, or broadcast video from cable or antenna, the Samsung SyncMaster 171MP ($1,050 street) a 17-inch LCD, can do it all. In addition to the traditional monitor inputs, this clever panel also acts as a picture-in-picture TV tuner.

The 171MP can work with a variety of video signals, including component, composite, and S-Video. It also accepts HDTV signals including 1080i, 720p, and 480p. You can control the size and location of the picture-in-picture and easily park a video window on your desktop. The bundled tuner module slides into an expansion bay in the back of the monitor.

A pair of stereo speakers are built into the bottom edge of the panel's bezel, and the tiny chrome buttons give the controls a clean, fresh design. You also get a remote control and a CD that includes color-matching software for the Web.

The 17-inch panel has a native resolution of 1,280-by-1,024. Samsung rates the monitor for an 85-degree off-axis viewing angle horizontally and vertically, and our observations corroborated the claim.

We tested the monitor using images created by DisplayMate software (www.displaymate.com). An auto-sync button on the front panel did an excellent job of adjusting the image size, position, and timing. There were no apparent pixel defects, color tracking was excellent, and there were no signs of ghosting. Color ramps were very good (with only the slightest hint of banding), and there were only moderate motion artifacts, which is typical for wide-angle LCD panels.

The only weak point was that even with the brightness set to the maximum, the monitor was weak on the darkest gray shades, which means that it won't reproduce shadow details well. The 171MP won't scale down high-resolution signals, but it will scale up low-resolution images. Scaled images showed few artifacts, and text looked smooth without becoming fuzzy or unfocused.

Television images (both from a VHS tape and from a cable broadcast) looked very good, and even action scenes did not suffer greatly from the motion artifacts.

The tuner option pushes the 171MP's price into the premium end of the 17-inch LCD market. It does not have a digital input for computer images, and you don't get a portrait/landscape rotating option. But if you're looking for a monitor that is suited for work and play, then you would be hard-pressed to find a better combination of features in one space-saving box at any price.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.

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