Samsung S23A750D 3D LCD Display
by Chris Heinonen on December 17, 2011 2:45 PM ESTSamsung S23A750D Viewing Angles and Color Quality
The Samsung is a TN panel but Samsung advertises improved viewing angles as one feature of the S23A (with the name "Magic Angle Vertical"); you can read about this and additional features on their product page. As you'd expect there's plenty of marketing hyperbole to be found, but in practice I did notice that the S23A has better viewing angles than competing TN solutions.
Most TN panels experience huge color shifts when viewed from the top or bottom of the monitor, and once they get past 20” or so in size you start to see the shift even when attempting to view straight on; by comparison, the S23A looks good when viewed straight on and I didn't see noticeable shifts from my normal viewing area. However, this remains a TN panel and when viewed from accute angles the shift in color and contrast is still present.
Unfortunately, while viewing angles are better than most TN displays, the pre-calibration Delta E numbers are as bad as we've come to expect from consumer displays.
With an average dE over 8 and some of the worst overall numbers occurring the grayscale, the initial numbers for the Samsung aren't very good. The result is similar to competing displays, but still disappointing. Let's move on to calibrated results.
Using the color settings to get the white balance as close as possible to D65 and then setting the brightness and contrast to get 200 nits of light output, I ran the calibration routine in ColorEyes Pro to see if the Samsung could perform any better.
The numbers for the Samsung are overall very good once calibrated. Not only do we get an average dE of 1.77, but the only large errors at all are once again in shades of blue, including the shade of cyan that falls outside of the sRGB spectrum. The entire grayscale spectrum is under 1.0 dE, and only 3 of the 24 swatches are above dE 3, which is the visible level if ColorEyes uses dE76 (which I’d assume, but can’t confirm). Hopefully in the near future we will be able to get all these results in dE94, which is more accurate for measuring color error. I also went ahead and did the same test, though at 100 nits instead of 200 nits, which is what might be used if you are doing print work.
Here the performance is almost identical to the 200 nits data. The grayscale isn’t quite as good, but still virtually perfect, and almost all the issue falls at the same three sample points. Overall the performance here was much better than I expected from a TN panel.
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sviola - Monday, December 19, 2011 - link
Well, I hope it doesn't take much longer. Also, I hope they'll release them with 16:10 aspect ratio.DanNeely - Monday, December 19, 2011 - link
It'd be nice if they manage to get top flight LED backlight color accuracy above that of top flight CFL models before the 120hz refresh too.MadAd - Sunday, December 25, 2011 - link
This is my problem too.I have a triple desktop including x2 1920x1200 IPS screens. Any new 120hz monitor has to fit in, in the center, 1080 isnt going to work.
Why cant we get
-120hz
-displayport
-1200 lines
in one package? I could even wait for IPS, but the aspect ratio is a dealbreaker.
MadAd - Sunday, December 25, 2011 - link
-24"(forgot that one)
The only one ive seen even close is that horrible shape one for an insane amount of money
dingetje - Saturday, December 17, 2011 - link
screw that 16:9 paneli need vertical space....not horizontal space....i don't need a television, i need a pc screen
mac2j - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - link
I have a S27A950D, which is pretty much the same panel but 27". I actually have been pleased with the interface and have had no problems with it - although perhaps the buttons are more spaced on the 27"?The picture is amazing and I can't imagine buying another monitor that isn't at least 120hz - its not just the smooth motion and drag, etc - it's hard to describe how good and crisp the picture on this monitor really is. I have a really nice 240hz TV in the same room and if I play a Blu-ray and mirror it on the 2 screens it looks noticeably better on the monitor - better colors, better color depth, better blacks, brighter ... just all around an amazing monitor.
It would be nice if we could get a 2560 x 1440 monitor at 120hz ... which i think Displayport could handle rather than having to choose between the 850D which is 2560 x 1440 or the 950 which is 1080p but 120hz.
wtfbbqlol - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - link
I don't think an LCD's response time is dependent on phosphors.PrinceGaz - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - link
Quite correct. And the response-time of phosphors has never been an issue anyway as every CRT display used them and they could have a near instant response time.AnandTech is certainly going downhill these days.
If Anand reads these comments, he should seriously consider the quality of the reviews being posted on his site, as the quality is becoming increasingly variable, from superb articles which delve into new CPU micro-architecture, to pot-boilers like this which consist mainly of recycled previous stuff combined with the author's own input which is of very dubious quality.
Zan Lynx - Monday, December 19, 2011 - link
CRT phosphors were always an issue in multisync monitors.The issue is that the phosphor had to be chosen so that its persistence matched the refresh rate.
If it lasted too long there would be ghosting. If it was too short the image would flash and cause eye strain.
This was a big problem with CRTs designed for a 75Hz refresh. Running them at 60Hz was pretty awful, yet lots of people did that anyway.
ggathagan - Monday, December 19, 2011 - link
All true, but the overarching point is that LCD screens don't involve phosphor, hence the complaint.