Samsung 226BW 22": 3000:1 Contrast, 2ms response time

stanleyjohn said:
Your right!! I might be an error in thinking S panels were not being made anymore.I based my view on what i have heard on hard forum and other chat sites.One other web site i follow (whirlpool.net)from australia seems convinced s panels are not going to be made anymore.One thread even said he heard it from samsung itself!ifll try to find that thread.
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This whole "not being made anymore" thing sounds incredibly fishy to me. Samsung-Semiconductor just started making the 220M1 a couple of months ago, and as far as I know, it has never appeared in any other monitor. It would seem incredibly silly to stop producing it so quickly. It's not impossible, of course, since there are reasons to discontinue a new product line. The Samsung divisions are incredibly competitive with one another (so I've heard), so in theory the Samsung consumer division could have gotten a better price from AUO than their own Samsung-Semiconductor division was giving them (on the flip side, I have never heard of this happening). Or, maybe Semiconductor just decided they could not manufacture a 22" TN display cheaply enough to compete with AUO and CMO. Or perhaps they needed the production line for another panel. These are not outside the realm of possibility, but neither do they seem likely.

My bet would be that things are the other way around: the Semiconductor division could not produce the 220M1 in enough volume, so the consumer division decided to fill the gap with some panels bought from AUO. If this is true, then hopefully once things stabilize the Samsung-made panels will become plentiful enough to meet demand for the 226BW and the A models will be phased out.

Just my $0.02.

Mofongo
 
if i hook up the ps3 to the monitor what do i do for audio? can i hook up the AV cables and just have it run the audio through red and white cables?
 
nas2344 said:
if i hook up the ps3 to the monitor what do i do for audio? can i hook up the AV cables and just have it run the audio through red and white cables?
Click to expand...

I'm running into the same problem, I'm going to buy a jack that converts my 2 red/white audio jacks to a single speaker jack. I'll probably just use my headphones instead of speakers.


Edit: My local Circuit City is carrying the S panel. I confirmed it today.
 
Im going to agree whith you all on that one, I dont think Samsung stoped making the S panels, to many people are still geting them. As for all the hipe on how the A is so bad, there probably not. Just need more adjusting is what i hear.... oh and backlite bleeding....:eek: oh kniow its so bad...meh
 
Well I just picked up 2 of these at my local Best Buy today. Both are S models. The last two in stock - apparently they've been selling quite a bit.

So far they're great, though they do need some adjustment out of the box... VERY bright.

I got these to replace a 24" Gateway I took back after 2 weeks. The crazy inverted ghosting was just too much on that one. The Samsung's are amazing compared to it.. sure I don't have the full 1080p and the variety of inputs but those were more of a nice to have. Two crisp and sexy 226BW's side by side make up for all of that.
 
Fud said:
Im going to agree whith you all on that one, I dont think Samsung stoped making the S panels, to many people are still geting them. As for all the hipe on how the A is so bad, there probably not. Just need more adjusting is what i hear.... oh and backlite bleeding....:eek: oh kniow its so bad...meh
Click to expand...

It is bad. My 'A' actually had very little backlight bleeding and I was very pleased. But, my monitor exhibited the blotchy colors that have been described before and it was horrible. I tried adjusting it but could never get a good picture. The problem was only seen in real life photographs and DVDs. Just browsing the web, and gaming were both displayed beautifully. This is not my first LCD, and I have never seen this type of problem before.

LCDs I have owned or used for an extensive amount of time:
Samsung Syncmaster 740B
Viewsonic VA1912wb
LG L2000C
NEC 90GX2

Anyway, I sent it back to Newegg today to exchange it. Hopefully, I get an 'S' panel this time and I will report back.
 
cdmccool said:
My monitor exhibited the blotchy colors that have been described before and it was horrible.
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Blotchy skin tones appear when you increase the contrast above 55. This monitor's top contrast is 55, above that, it starts cheating get high contrast and you lose color accuracy.

Even with higher contrast, you get rid of the blotches by playing with gamma curve for red channel, but you really have to know what you're doing.
 
7331 said:
Blotchy skin tones appear when you increase the contrast above 55. This monitor's top contrast is 55, above that, it starts cheating get high contrast and you lose color accuracy.

Even with higher contrast, you get rid of the blotches by playing with gamma curve for red channel, but you really have to know what you're doing.
Click to expand...

I second that! From my experience setting the contrast level beyond 50 or maybe 55% leads to visible loss of colour mid-tones very apparent on colour gradients such as the one on Digital Dog's test image: http://www.digitaldog.net/files/Printer Test file.jpg.zip
I for one have the contrast set to 55% and brightness to 75% which gives me quite clear image that does not hurt my eyes. Truth is that the out-of-box setting on this panel are just crazy. I also use, for the time being before I get my hands on a decent colorimeter, the gamma calibrator contained in Samsung's Magic Tune Software and the result appears to be quite satisfactory on test images, however serious banding appears on some gradients such as the third image on this page: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
 
I have taken a look at some of the A panel pics posted around and none of the show any real pics or dvd shots so i have to go with you there cdmccool. As for the genaral back grounds and stuff you see they look the same as an S. I gess some people dont know what there looking at if its the first lcd they have owned (not you obv)
 
This whole "not being made anymore" thing sounds incredibly fishy to me. Samsung-Semiconductor just started making the 220M1 a couple of months ago, and as far as I know, it has never appeared in any other monitor. It would seem incredibly silly to stop producing it so quickly. It's not impossible, of course, since there are reasons to discontinue a new product line. The Samsung divisions are incredibly competitive with one another (so I've heard), so in theory the Samsung consumer division could have gotten a better price from AUO than their own Samsung-Semiconductor division was giving them (on the flip side, I have never heard of this happening). Or, maybe Semiconductor just decided they could not manufacture a 22" TN display cheaply enough to compete with AUO and CMO. Or perhaps they needed the production line for another panel. These are not outside the realm of possibility, but neither do they seem likely.

My bet would be that things are the other way around: the Semiconductor division could not produce the 220M1 in enough volume, so the consumer division decided to fill the gap with some panels bought from AUO. If this is true, then hopefully once things stabilize the Samsung-made panels will become plentiful enough to meet demand for the 226BW and the A models will be phased out.

Just my $0.02.

Mofongo
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I agree with your assessment. I used to work in manufacturing and it is very typical for companies to have multiple sources for their components. It's just common business sense. If something were to happen to one supplier, you'd still have a backup and your supply line would not be disturbed. This whole outrage toward Samsung for using different vendors is pretty ridiculous. Companies qualify all vendor components rigorously to ensure it meets their design specifications. This is standard practice.
 
InventorBear said:
I agree with your assessment. I used to work in manufacturing and it is very typical for companies to have multiple sources for their components. It's just common business sense. If something were to happen to one supplier, you'd still have a backup and your supply line would not be disturbed. This whole outrage toward Samsung for using different vendors is pretty ridiculous. Companies qualify all vendor components rigorously to ensure it meets their design specifications. This is standard practice.
Click to expand...

If you bought a Ford car that was supposed to come with a very well regarded Ford engine and then later found out that your car had a motor made by Kia which had "roughly the same specifications" as the Ford engine I think you would be outraged, as would most consumers.

People usually are paying a premium for a Samsung panel over other lower end panels with similar specifications (LG for example). If Samsung is going to use a variety of different vendors to supply the glass they should at least put it right on the box as to which version we are getting.
 
I apologize for not reading all 60+ pages of this thread to see if this has been covered yet. I've read the last 10 though and couldn't find a definitive answer to my question.

Is the serial number for the monitor not on the outside of the box anywhere?

Is the only way to determine the A vs S panel by looking at the back of the physical monitor itself?

I'm reluctant to hit up a bunch of CC's and ask them to open each of the boxes in their warehouse to find me an S panel.
 
greens said:
I apologize for not reading all 60+ pages of this thread to see if this has been covered yet. I've read the last 10 though and couldn't find a definitive answer to my question.

Is the serial number for the monitor not on the outside of the box anywhere?

Is the only way to determine the A vs S panel by looking at the back of the physical monitor itself?

I'm reluctant to hit up a bunch of CC's and ask them to open each of the boxes in their warehouse to find me an S panel.
Click to expand...

Reading the last 30 pages of this thread, i've not come across a conclusive method to deduce the panel manufacturer from any serial number on the outside of the box. Don't give up, though, because i have heard about something like this recently.
 
what i find that gives me the best color is to set the gamma setting in your advanced image settings under your graphics card to .75

color correction, gamma .75.
 
Mansize_tissue said:
Reading the last 30 pages of this thread, i've not come across a conclusive method to deduce the panel manufacturer from any serial number on the outside of the box. Don't give up, though, because i have heard about something like this recently.
Click to expand...

Thank you for replying. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this issue fairly soon.
 
is anyone able to put in a custom resolution using the 226bw on an nvidia graphics card using DVI-D?
 
I bought my 226bw A panel from CC Sunday, and I'm trying hard to make this thing look bad, and I can't. I'm coming from a 21" IBM P260 Trinitron, which is still kick ass, but this lcd is just awesome! Very minimal bleeding, no banding. I'm also using an 8800 GTS via DVI. One thing I noticed is the manufacture date is February. Could they have got the A panels fixed? Should I still try and switch this out for an S? If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
If there's anyone else out there having success with their A panel, please post.

Brightness-70
Contrast-55
everything else default
 
gunner1 said:
If you bought a Ford car that was supposed to come with a very well regarded Ford engine and then later found out that your car had a motor made by Kia which had "roughly the same specifications" as the Ford engine I think you would be outraged, as would most consumers.

People usually are paying a premium for a Samsung panel over other lower end panels with similar specifications (LG for example). If Samsung is going to use a variety of different vendors to supply the glass they should at least put it right on the box as to which version we are getting.
Click to expand...

The Ford vs Kia comparison is really stretching it. All I am saying is that companies use different supply sources all the time. Are there differences between vendors? Sure, but they are only slight differences and no matter what, they still have to meet the design standards set by the engineers. According to what has been written in this forum, there is no consensus on whether an S is actually better than an A -- which is what is expected since both panels passed Samsung's internal qualification standards. So, unless you're buying a customized product like a tailored suit, don't expect to get a monitor with the exact combination of components you prefer.
 
Thanks for all the info. I was going to buy this monitor until I read this thread.

DEFINITELY sticking with my 19" CRT
No Banding
No Bleeding
No need for callibration
No A v S screen
I can watch DVD's without all the horrible splotching you warned me about - it's shocking that such a good LCD can't even play DVD's properly
and over €400 in my pocket.

Thanks for all the info. You guys are thorough.
 
Jason Mock said:
I bought my 226bw A panel from CC Sunday, and I'm trying hard to make this thing look bad, and I can't. I'm coming from a 21" IBM P260 Trinitron, which is still kick ass, but this lcd is just awesome! Very minimal bleeding, no banding. I'm also using an 8800 GTS via DVI. One thing I noticed is the manufacture date is February. Could they have got the A panels fixed? Should I still try and switch this out for an S? If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
If there's anyone else out there having success with their A panel, please post.

Brightness-70
Contrast-55
everything else default
Click to expand...


I got an A panel yesterday as you did and mine seems fine so far.

I thought I would exchange it after reading this thread, but nothing seems to be wrong, so I think I'm keeping it.

My old screen was a 2 years old 19" Xerox XA7-19i, which I liked a lot. I am testing the samsung with this one side by side, and I think there may be a slight difference with the colors washing out when using the new high possible contrast rates, so I keep it rather low (50) when using it for anything but gaming where it doesn't matter much with the tiny details.

I used various holiday pictures zoomed in on skin when I came to the 50 conclusion above.

I had white bleeding top/bottom on black test screen when I first turned it on, but now after running approximately 10 hours it seems to have gone.. a little weird, but great.

As for the stand I would have preferred aluminum like below the bezel, the black matte plastic with the shiny ring looks a bit cheap and the "tilt" function in the neck is a bit hard to adjust. But hey, this monitor really isn't that expensive and the rest of it looks great.

Got some pictures of the setup as well, but I guess theres enough pictures in this thread already :)
 
the sticker on the back of the screen:


new samsung alone:


new samsung + the old xerox:
 
I know, it's a Sammy 226bw thread, but check out this monitor. It's brand new, but HP doesn't mention anything about HDCP capability (if so, it'd be absolutely inconceivable and shame on them). Glossy, tilt, height, swivel and rotate, $390 at CC. Using the cupon it's -10% + local tax in whatever state you live.

John.
 
Thank you, mss, for posting those photographs. :)
I want this monitor even more now, but i don't know if i'm willing to sacrifice 2 inches and get the NEC 20WGX2 instead.
 
thanks for the pic MSS! It looks like you or someone else there is a big Gamer!so am i.Dont know what keyboard you use,but the G15 Logitech would be a nice addition.
 
stanleyjohn said:
thanks for the pic MSS! It looks like you or someone else there is a big Gamer!so am i.Dont know what keyboard you use,but the G15 Logitech would be a nice addition.
Click to expand...

thanks man, and you are right.. my old key tronic kb doesn't really cut it anymore design wise :)

btw.. the white bleeding has returned!! -not much, but it certainly is visible when viewing a black screen. Not used to bleeding at all on the Xerox, hmm...


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XP Pro - Inno3d 8800GTS - 2x300GB Maxtor MaxLine III RAID0 - 500GB Samsung SpinPoint T166 - Samsung SH-S183A Optical Sata Drive - 2GB A-Data DDR-II 800 Dual Channel - Asus P5B-E Plus - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - NorthQ NQ-4775-500S Godzilla - Zalman CNPS9500 Led - Antec LifeStyle SOLO - Logitech Z4 - MS Intellimouse - Key Tronic Keyboard - Xerox XA7-19i - Samsung 226BW
 
I remember when my bleeding was noticeable and if you ventured into the depths of this thread you'd find some pics I posted regarding it. I wouldn't mind reposting a link if you wish.

After constantly reading this thread along side the monitor calibration thread I have gotten my blacks to naturally black, dark-dark greys to become visible, and colors to look good. A plus is my backlight bleeding has practically gone away from all this adjusting.

It was a matter of messing around with the panel brightness and contrast values as well as the ATi Color Manager. I am also using gunner's color profile he created with a Spyder2Pro/Express/thing.

Do some messing around a bit and I am sure it'll go down naturally through changing the Gamma / Brightness / Contrast. Just don't get frustrated if you don't see results immediately. It was JUST the other day I got my values to something I can truly live with (Although I still want to calibrate my monitor :p)

FYI I have a S panel.
 
I never really noticed bleeding untill i upgraded to the 22" Monitor,i had a 19"Mag LCD before.From what i have been reading!it looks like 22" Wide Screen monitors have more backlight bleed than the smaller sizes.it seems that ill just have to live with the fact of bleeding untill the LCD monitor manufacturers do a better job of stopping it.
 
On the back of the monitor there is a label. It will either say "S" or "A" in a distinct font and area.
 
zigaroo said:
Do some messing around a bit and I am sure it'll go down naturally through changing the Gamma / Brightness / Contrast. Just don't get frustrated if you don't see results immediately. It was JUST the other day I got my values to something I can truly live with (Although I still want to calibrate my monitor :p)
Click to expand...

I've been trying to find the perfect settings for a month. I've tried almost every possible setting on the monitor and on nvidia color settings panel.

The problem is, as I and a few other people here said, you can't increase the contrast higher than 55, because light skin colors get messed up. And with contrast at 55 all the other colors look sooooo dull and lifeless.

I have done everything. I even tried adjusting red green and blue gamma curves by hand. I know what I'm doing and I've seen some improvements, but the problem stays. Contrast above 55 and you can't look at human faces under sunlight without getting disgusted. :(

If anyone has been able to solve this or has an idea how this can be solved, I'm all ears. :)
 
I'm on the upgrade path....and seriously considering this Sammy 226. In the order of things, later on, a fresh upgraded tower with Vista, Core 2 Duo and likely a 8800 GTS etc etc will come into the mix (surely enough horse power to do the monitor justice at that point)......but for a short period, say 4-6 weeks the Sammy would join an age old Rig, the graphics card being a G-Force 4 Ti 4400! This card has 128MB Ram and amazingly, a DVI port as it was one of the first cards to ship with one!

My question perhaps obviously is would the Ti 4400 be enough to run the monitor at it's native res if just to evalute for that 4-6 week period? Would I see a noticeable improvement when the monitor conects to a modern Rig with the 8800GTS?
 
mss said:
Mine is an A, and apparently made in Slovakia in march.
Click to expand...

I got an S panel manufactured in Slovakia in February. Apparently the geographical location of the assembly plant guarantees nothing.
Oh, and it bleeds like hell, btw
 
kezman50 said:
I'm on the upgrade path....and seriously considering this Sammy 226. In the order of things, later on, a fresh upgraded tower with Vista, Core 2 Duo and likely a 8800 GTS etc etc will come into the mix (surely enough horse power to do the monitor justice at that point)......but for a short period, say 4-6 weeks the Sammy would join an age old Rig, the graphics card being a G-Force 4 Ti 4400! This card has 128MB Ram and amazingly, a DVI port as it was one of the first cards to ship with one!

My question perhaps obviously is would the Ti 4400 be enough to run the monitor at it's native res if just to evalute for that 4-6 week period? Would I see a noticeable improvement when the monitor conects to a modern Rig with the 8800GTS?
Click to expand...

I have 2 machines connected to the LG version of this monitor through an analog KVM switch. My desktop has a 8800GTS and the server has a Ti4200. The server has no problem working in native res.
 
kezman50 said:
My question perhaps obviously is would the Ti 4400 be enough to run the monitor at it's native res if just to evalute for that 4-6 week period? Would I see a noticeable improvement when the monitor conects to a modern Rig with the 8800GTS?
Click to expand...

1) The Ti 4400 will be able to support the panel perfectly fine (even much older cards support much higher resolutions than 1680x1050). Do not expect to run many 3D games at the native resolution at decent framerates though.
2) Do not expect any improvement in visual quality (of the desktop) after the upgrade, if both systems are connected via DVI-D. The difference in games and other 3D accelerated applications is of course something completely different, but this has nothing to do with the LCD.
 
It's been a while since I ordered anything from Newegg, about a year or maybe more but I seem to be having a problem with UPS. I might just be paranoid, but on 4/2 there is an origin scan and it had a scheduled delivery date of 4/4 but there's been no activity since. No departure scans whatsoever. This is all my package progress states:



EDISON, N J, US 04/02/2007 1:03 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 04/01/2007 4:05 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Now it just says in transit. Am I worried about nothing or does it look like something went wrong? In the past Newegg was always so good about being on time or even early but I can't recall if the UPS status was really kept up to date. I just wish it would say arrival scan or on truck for delivery soon, I'm going a little crazy here because I want to make sure I'm home when it comes so I can inspect the package and get it in the house ASAP. Anyone ever had an issue like this but got the package a little while later with no problems?
 
ARGH!

Well, I was lucky enough to get two S panels earlier this week from Best Buy. I noticed right away that one had a dead pixel, everything else was great. Last night I decided to tempt fate and exchange it for another - but since I purchased the last two at the original store I had to try a new Best Buy. The new panel is an A, and it is much worse than my S - especially with the backlight bleeding. Also - this is really hard to describe - some darker colors (like the #2 and #3 box here: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/#contrast) seem like they're moving when i look at it closely. Like I said.. it's hard to describe, it's almost like a sparkling effect... I'm not sure what the deal is. Either way I plan on going to yet another Best Buy to try and get another S panel. argh!

When I get home tonight I'll take some pictures of the S and the A panel side by side to show the backlight bleed. I'm going to use the default brightness contrast setting as well as a brightness 70-80 and contrast 55 setting. If anybody would like me to take side by side pictures with any other settings let me know and I'll do what I can.
 
designflaw said:
When I get home tonight I'll take some pictures of the S and the A panel side by side to show the backlight bleed. I'm going to use the default brightness contrast setting as well as a brightness 70-80 and contrast 55 setting. If anybody would like me to take side by side pictures with any other settings let me know and I'll do what I can.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about that, man. I'm looking forward to seeing those comparison photographs, though. Have you tried any games with the "A" panel?
 
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