Monday, June 29, 2015

Samsung 22" LED Monitor (S22D390H) Review

A long time ago, when I was young and naive, I had no knowledge of multi-monitor set-ups for computers. When our family got it’s first PC, an old Dell Desktop running Windows XP, it came with a single 19” cathode ray tube monitor. When I bought my first laptop at age 13, it would have never occurred to me to connect another display.

Now, older, wiser, and with a little extra cash on hand, I was ready to get a second monitor for my set-up. Luckily, Best Buy had exactly what I was looking for on sale for Boxing Day.

What is it?

The S22D390H, a 22” LED Monitor from Samsung .

Measuring 405mm high and 515mm wide, rocking a 5ms response time, and a maximum resolution of 1920x1080, it’s a cheap monitor, but it definitely doesn’t act like it.

It features the standard HDMI, and VGA (D-Sub) ports, 3.5mm audio jack (for headphone output), and packs plenty of built-in features, most notably, a "Game" Mode, which optimizes the diplay for PC Gaming.

Design

The stand and back of the monitor feature a glossy-black finish, which unfortunately attracts plenty of fingerprints and dust.

Speaking of the stand, it doesn’t allow for horizontal screen rotation, but does allow for vertical tilt adjustments to modify your viewing angle. The base of the stand is pretty bulky and weighted to provide support for the monitor, which won’t tip over very easily.

The bezel around the edge of the screen, however, is a very cool semi-transparent blue, giving a look that differentiates itself from the competition, often going with the traditional black, grey or silver.

Fans of wall-mounting their monitors will be disappointed, however, as this monitor cannot be mounted and can only be used with provided stand.

Using It

It works perfectly. After some fine tuning to my preferred brightness and contrast (also offers an Auto option for those who don't want the hassle), the picture was amazing.

There’s bit of a quirk, however, when using HDMI at 1920x1080. My laptop's built-in 1GB of Radeon graphics are meant to only support a 1366x768 screen. When using the monitor at full resolution, it's often scaled down to about 90% of the screen size. This issue isn’t present when using VGA at it's recommended resolution and I doubt the issue will persist when I get my new PC with an updated and more powerful graphics card..

Like

It’s everything I want at a price I can afford.

I got this monitor from Best Buy on sale for $99.99 (CAD), which for a 1080p LED monitor at that size, isn’t that bad at all.

No Like

The aforementioned issue with HDMI sources not using the entire screen. Not a huge deal, but it can get a little annoying.

The base of the stand eats up a lot of my limited desk space, but that isn’t a big issue either.

Should You Buy It?

Looking for a monitor a little on the smaller side and looking for something in the $100-200 price range? Definitely. Buy two if you can afford it, it’s well worth it!

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Website: http://www.samsung.com/ca/support/model/LS22D390HS/ZC

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