Right off the bat, I had problems
with MagicTune intermittently failing to load
because the Vista Sidebar was also loading on
startup. Screen capture utilities like FRAPS
and SnagIt also gives MagicTune fits, whether
under Vista or XP. Your best bet is to configure
utilities like these not to load when Windows starts, then
launch them after MagicTune has loaded. Keep in
mind that if you close MagicTune after loading the
offending program and try to open MagicTune again,
it will fail—even if you close the other program and
then try to launch MagicTune again. You'll need to
reboot to get MagicTune squared away.
In spite of good blacks and colors,
the grays and whites had a noticeable bluish tint.
Running MagicTune’s calibration routine confirmed
this. The out-of-the-box color tone setting was
Custom. Normal didn’t offer much of an improvement.
Warm made the whites and grays too yellow. Cool just
made the blue problem worse. After spending a half
hour with MagicTune correcting the problem but still
not satisfied with the results, and another 30-45
minutes playing around with Natural Color Pro, I
finally came up with a monitor profile that gave me
the more neutral grays and cleaner whites that I was
looking for, which still had a slight twinge of
blue, but not as much as the display’s
out-of-the-box settings.
It’s game time!
I played through several levels of
Halo 2 for Windows Vista, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and
Oblivion. Then a complete circuit of Project Gotham
Racing 3 (two for Project Gotham—one daytime race,
one nighttime) and Forza Motorsport 2. I saved
replays of the races in both to review afterwards.
In the first gaming session, I played with Dynamic
Contrast on, and then with it off. For the second
session, I played with RTA enabled, then disabled.
When I first saw “3000:1 Dynamic
Contrast,” my initial reaction was “marketing
gimmick.” After experiencing it for myself, that's
still pretty much my feeling about it. While it
did improve the colors on Halo 2 for Vista and
made them look “snappier,” Dynamic Contrast was a
bit too heavy-handed with Oblivion, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.,
Project Gotham Racing 3 and Forza Motorsport 2,
over-saturating the colors to distraction. I can see
how SAMSUNG's Dynamic Contrast would benefit
big-screen LCD televisions. But with a number of
computer LCD displays with non-dynamic
contrast ratios of 1000:1 providing outstanding
image quality, you've got to ask yourself: is there
really a point in having a 3000:1
contrast ratio—dynamic or otherwise—particularly on
a 1680 x 1050 PC display?
Disabling RTA had no discernible
effect on any of the PC games, whether playing on
dark and nighttime, or well-lit and daytime levels.
Interestingly enough, I did detect faint ghosting
and a slight shimmering halo effect while reviewing
the Project Gotham and Forza 2 replays on the Xbox
360—particularly during the nighttime races in
Project Gotham. Turning RTA on again (which is the
factory default), eliminated it.
Overall, my gaming experience on the
SAMSUNG SyncMaster 226BW was more than
satisfactory.
Final Impressions and Conclusion
The
SAMSUNG SyncMaster 226BW could
really use an adjustable-height stand—even if
it's just a simple telescopic mechanism that
allows you to raise the panel up to an
additional 6 inches. Although it's not common for
displays this size and in this price range, it would
have really been great if SAMSUNG had integrated a
four-port USB hub into the 226BW (you can
keep the cheesy, so-called stereo built-in speakers,
though).
In spite of the slick, new interface,
MagicTune appears to be just as ill-mannered playing
with other background programs as it was when I
reviewed the
SyncMaster 244T last year—which kind of
defeats the purpose of it being an easier-to-use
alternative to the OSD. Although maneuvering through
the OSD's menus isn't difficult, if you find
the 226BW's image presets useful and
frequently switch between them depending on what
you're doing on your PC—it can be tedious. An
alternative to a software-based (and potentially
temperamental) solution that SAMSUNG should
consider, is a small remote that would allow
you to activate the OSD, scroll through and select
options, or change settings with the same ease as
the OSD on a television set. It would also be
incredibly cool!
If you haven't heard about the
controversy around the SyncMaster 226BW's “S”
“A” and “C” panels, just do a Google on it.
It turns out that the 226BW is
being shipped with at least three different
types of LCD panels, which can be determined by the
single letter code on the serial number label. Units
with an “S” code have genuine SAMSUNG manufactured
panels. Units with “A” and “C” codes have panels
manufactured by SAMSUNG’s outsourced partners, and
the quality of these units has ranged from good to
(mostly) terrible. Whether good or bad, it's
probably safe to say that none of them will have the same
outstanding quality as a SAMSUNG-manufactured
panel. As you've probably guessed by now, the
226BW displays with SAMSUNG's "S" panel, are the most difficult
ones to find. I don't know whether “The Great
SAMSUNG 226BW Panel Fiasco” is cost-related or a
supply-and-demand issue, but it is a self-inflicted
black eye that SAMSUNG could and should have
avoided. The one good thing to come out of this is
that more people will start using the calibration
software that comes with the display to check it
more thoroughly. Although it's safe to assume that
the line between unreasonable nit-picking and taking
issue with what is clearly a manufacturing defect
will frequently be crossed, if the end result are
better products and happier customers, so be it.
If your local store is good enough to
open a few boxes for you, and you luck-out and get
one of the highly-coveted and rare “S” panel
SyncMaster 226BW LCDs—congratulations and
more-power-to-you. But unless the panel you
get shows some serious image quality issues
or is otherwise defective—in which case you
definitely should return it for replacement or a
refund—I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. The
particular “C” panel I got wasn't anywhere near as
bad as I initially expected. As
always, whether you buy from a store or online, make
sure they have a hassle-free exchange/returns
policy.
With a street price under $350-$360,
not counting rebates that can bring the display down
to $300 or less, a widescreen native resolution that
doesn't require a $600+ video card to get the most
out of the latest and upcoming games, and a
three-year warranty, it's not unusual to find the
SAMSUNG SyncMaster 226BW LCD Display out of stock at a lot
of retail and online dealers. Which seems to speak volumes
about its true appeal and value more than any of its
shortcomings.
and
were played at 1280 x 768. All of the PC games were played with
4x antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering
enabled and all the visual effects cranked as high
as they would go. One thing I was particularly
interested in seeing, was how having RTA enabled and
disabled would affect gameplay. I also wanted to see
how much of a visual improvement Dynamic Contrast
would have.
