I just spent 2 hours with a Samsung 226BW.

D

Dogmapog

Gawd
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
546
Okay, so my buddy bought himself a 226BW last week, and I’ve just been over and had a good look at it…..I obviously wrote this after getting back to my 26 and comparing some of the images I just saw on the 22.

The good news is that it’s better than his 19in 2006 LG LCD he has next to it, the bad news is that it’s not anywhere near 8 bit panel league, that said, if you do have an old 19in CRT that’s lost it’s brightness or you’ve got a 17-19in LCD, you could upgrade to it and gain some value from it.

I tested a variety of video’s….
HDTV was very good to okay, but the 720p Ironman trailer looked a bit pasty at times….T2 WMV from the WMV HD showcase looked good, but it looks awesome on my 26in 8bit Acer.

SDTV looked “okay”, but nowhere near as good as on mine, and a 624x356 xvid looked very ordinary…I think it’s fair to say that you need to stick with HD content on these TN’s.

Hi res 1920x1200 wallpapers looked good, but again, don’t have the punch and vibrancy of my 26...1680’s also looked good.

We ran Dead pixel buddy and found zero problem pixels.
IMO, all PC LCD’s have backlight leakage….the 226bw was good in that regard, but nowhere near as good as HQ 40-46in LCD HDTV…..the colour uniformity appeared to be okay as well.

I think this was a C panel, and was way too bright, and also had a blue tinge which we adjusted accordingly…..IMO, vertical contrast shift is meaningless as the solitary user of the LCD, but 24’s might raise a problem…..personally, I wouldn’t dream of buying a 24in TN after seeing the 226bw.

We also fired up Doom 3 and Quake 4…..on small monitors, it won’t be as noticeable, but Q4 is a much better looking game than D3, also, neither D3 or Q4 looked as good as compared to my 26, and Q4 was at 16x10 on high.
There wasn’t a hint of ghosting, both games are darkish, so it’s hard to comment on shadow detail, but D3 didn’t look anywhere near as good as it does on my LCD, it looked washed out a “bit”.

Performance with text and web browsing is fine, and the 22 is a good size as a general purpose PC monitor, IMO, if you use an LCD at the office and you’ve only got a 19-20, do yourself a favour and grab a 22…….of course, the widescreen is immediately more comfortable to view.

I didn’t find the blue power button to be a problem, it actually looked fairly cool IMO.

IMO, this LCD is fine as an office monitor, acceptable as a gaming LCD, but a bit of a letdown with video playback, granted premium HDTV stuff certainly can be described as looking good, however, a 22 is way to small to really get a thrill out of HDTV.

IMO, in the era of HD, this monitor fails, and anyone calling these 22in TN’s awesome has clearly never seen a current 8 bit panel…..in fact, I do wonder whether these superdooper 8000/10 000 and 20 000:1 contrast ratio TN’s on the verge of release will make much difference, I suspect not, but I certainly could be wrong.

The black levels on the latest LCD HDTV are lightyears ahead of any PC monitor I’ve ever seen, and unless the TN panels also radically improve black level performance, then I doubt raising the CR will fix the short comings of a 6 bit panel.

Obviously my buddy will not be seeing this post, LOL.
 
I didn't take any pics champ:eek:.....but that's mainly cause I'm useless at that....I struggle to get a good photo off my 26 with my 5 mp digicam.
 
Out of the box my Acer AL223W looked much better than my 226BW. Probably not for gaming, but the color and brightness were definitly superiour. After running some color profiles that I found online, the 226BW ended up looking better. Tweaking makes a huge difference.

On another note, I'm sure that this monitor is great, but it's also almost 2 years old. Technology advances so fast nowadays that I'm sure there are better panels available.
 
Pogi22 said:
On another note, I'm sure that this monitor is great, but it's also almost 2 years old. Technology advances so fast nowadays that I'm sure there are better panels available.
Click to expand...

Well I just played D3 and Q4 for a few minutes, and I gotta say, the difference between a Acer 26 and a Samsung 22 is freakin HUGE.....matter of a fact, I'm only running Q4 at 10x7 on my 26, yet it still looks better than 16x10 on the 22.

I agree that newer TN panels are probably getting better, but I read an online review of the new Samsung 22 TN with the 8000:1 CR, and the reviewer said it was essentially down to excessive brightness.

I should also point out that in most people's minds, the 226bw was either the best, or one of the best 22's of 2007.

If you're happy with your 22, that's fine, but what I saw on the 226bw was down to it being a TN, not a lack of calibration.....current 8 bit panels are simply a "shitload" better, especially for both gaming and HDTV playback.

Now just to put that into persective...I paid $750AUD for my Acer, the 226bw cost literally half as much.....but to me, it was definately money well spent, and I look forward to adding a 1080 32in when they pop up down my way.
 
Dogmapog said:
Now just to put that into persective...I paid $750AUD for my Acer, the 226bw cost literally half as much.....but to me, it was definately money well spent, and I look forward to adding a 1080 32in when they pop up down my way.
Click to expand...

Sometimes things may not be the best bang for the buck, but complete happiness can be worth the extra cash.
 
Dogmapog said:
I didn't take any pics champ:eek:.....but that's mainly cause I'm useless at that....I struggle to get a good photo off my 26 with my 5 mp digicam.
Click to expand...

no pics means only subjective word of mouth:D
 
Dunan said:
no pics means only subjective word of mouth:D
Click to expand...

That's cool, others will be in later to add their thoughts, and people trying to decide what LCD to buy will have some decent feedback.
I was pleased that my mate bought the 226bw because of it's status as a 22.
Just so you know, he hasn't seen my LCD yet, and he thinks his 226 is pretty good, but that's because it's better than his 19in LG which was mediocre.

I used to use a 19in CRT, my brother has a 22in Mitsubishi CRT, and my buddy has a 17, 19x2 and now the 226 LCD's+ there are 7 or 8 bricks and mortar retailers within 15mins drive that have PC monitors and large flat panels, many of which are connected with Blu-ray, hi-bitrate 1080p HDD samples, DVD etc, so I have a fair idea of what image quality is.

I'm first and foremost a PC person, but over the last 12 or so months I've taken a specific interest in HDTV related stuff.
I've also been accused of being a LCD fanatic of sorts on this very forum, but the truth is, I call it as I see it, and I have the knowledge to do so;)
 
Pics or you're a god damned liar. ;) I use the 22" Samsung right now, I sort of miss my old S-PVA that died because I'm very insensitive to input lag and play mostly RPGs, and MMOs. But as TN panels go this is pretty nice.
 
Dogmapog said:
Okay, so my buddy bought himself a 226BW last week, and I’ve just been over and had a good look at it…..I obviously wrote this after getting back to my 26 and comparing some of the images I just saw on the 22.

The good news is that it’s better than his 19in 2006 LG LCD he has next to it, the bad news is that it’s not anywhere near 8 bit panel league, that said, if you do have an old 19in CRT that’s lost it’s brightness or you’ve got a 17-19in LCD, you could upgrade to it and gain some value from it.

I tested a variety of video’s….
HDTV was very good to okay, but the 720p Ironman trailer looked a bit pasty at times….T2 WMV from the WMV HD showcase looked good, but it looks awesome on my 26in 8bit Acer.

SDTV looked “okay”, but nowhere near as good as on mine, and a 624x356 xvid looked very ordinary…I think it’s fair to say that you need to stick with HD content on these TN’s.

Hi res 1920x1200 wallpapers looked good, but again, don’t have the punch and vibrancy of my 26...1680’s also looked good.

We ran Dead pixel buddy and found zero problem pixels.
IMO, all PC LCD’s have backlight leakage….the 226bw was good in that regard, but nowhere near as good as HQ 40-46in LCD HDTV…..the colour uniformity appeared to be okay as well.

I think this was a C panel, and was way too bright, and also had a blue tinge which we adjusted accordingly…..IMO, vertical contrast shift is meaningless as the solitary user of the LCD, but 24’s might raise a problem…..personally, I wouldn’t dream of buying a 24in TN after seeing the 226bw.

We also fired up Doom 3 and Quake 4…..on small monitors, it won’t be as noticeable, but Q4 is a much better looking game than D3, also, neither D3 or Q4 looked as good as compared to my 26, and Q4 was at 16x10 on high.
There wasn’t a hint of ghosting, both games are darkish, so it’s hard to comment on shadow detail, but D3 didn’t look anywhere near as good as it does on my LCD, it looked washed out a “bit”.

Performance with text and web browsing is fine, and the 22 is a good size as a general purpose PC monitor, IMO, if you use an LCD at the office and you’ve only got a 19-20, do yourself a favour and grab a 22…….of course, the widescreen is immediately more comfortable to view.

I didn’t find the blue power button to be a problem, it actually looked fairly cool IMO.

IMO, this LCD is fine as an office monitor, acceptable as a gaming LCD, but a bit of a letdown with video playback, granted premium HDTV stuff certainly can be described as looking good, however, a 22 is way to small to really get a thrill out of HDTV.

IMO, in the era of HD, this monitor fails, and anyone calling these 22in TN’s awesome has clearly never seen a current 8 bit panel…..in fact, I do wonder whether these superdooper 8000/10 000 and 20 000:1 contrast ratio TN’s on the verge of release will make much difference, I suspect not, but I certainly could be wrong.

The black levels on the latest LCD HDTV are lightyears ahead of any PC monitor I’ve ever seen, and unless the TN panels also radically improve black level performance, then I doubt raising the CR will fix the short comings of a 6 bit panel.

Obviously my buddy will not be seeing this post, LOL.
Click to expand...

If it's still in the return period, maybe you should tell your friend your impression of his new display.

(I bought this panel for my nephew when it first came and was very impressed with its price/performance ratio. If it makes a difference, it was an S panel...)
 
maybe you should tell him to buy a model that hasn't been discontinued. the 226bw is old news, 2232bw and 2253bw have replaced it. even if their specs aren't really any better they have at least calibrated the dif panels better out of the box. the 226bw non S panels have a problem with overdrive as well.
 
I gotten a C panel when I got mine and I can say it blows away my dell e228wp on default. As for bleeding, both my 22 has the same horziontal h backlight but to my suprise there is no bleeding. From all these news about the panel lottey and all that is really better to just return it and get something else. For the price I paid for I really don't think samsung did their part for delivering a product with quality
 
I have to agree with him on this. I've never been able to get my 6-bit panels to look like my 8-bit or CRT and I've owned three 6-bit displays. I'd be very interested in seeing some side-by-side comparisons of an 8-bit display and a 6-bit display that were both calibrated with the same hardware calibrator.
 
Scyles said:
I have to agree with him on this. I've never been able to get my 6-bit panels to look like my 8-bit or CRT and I've owned three 6-bit displays. I'd be very interested in seeing some side-by-side comparisons of an 8-bit display and a 6-bit display that were both calibrated with the same hardware calibrator.
Click to expand...

That would be interesting, cause some people speak highly of both the Benq2400w and the latest DELL24 TN, ie, compared to their 2405 8 bit DELL panels.
As I said, it's all relative to what you're currently using, and obviously, most people are probably more concerned with gaming performance from something like the 226bw, and on that front, it's certainly better than a 2006 19in LG 4:3 LCD, and looks a fair bit bigger{he had the 19 and 22 next to each other}.

After I got home, I fired up D3 and my eyes immediately relaxed and I was greated with a much sharper and more colourful image{D3 is at 16x12 on my 26}.

As I said, I'm thinking a 32in at 1080 would not only kickass, it wouldn't overwhelm my PC desk/room.
 
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