Samsung 173T 17" LCD Flat Panel Display

Company: Samsung
Product: 173T Black
Street Price: $495 USD
Date Reviewed: October 9, 2003
Reviewed By: Rob Parks

Examining The Samsung 173T Display:

Taking a look at the screen we can see that the colors are much richer than on our CRT counterpart. Throughout the testing period the Samsung 173T continually out shone the CRT in color quality, brightness, and text readability. The sharper contrast of the LCD makes reading text and internet browsing much easier on the eyes. With several brightness settings preset, the Samsung 173T can cater to any environment and any number of applications.

The other feature, the one that gamers will like most, is the MagicBright one touch brightness control. This is especially helpful when playing games that tend to be very dark, with a lot of shadows of dark corridors. The MagicBright feature allows for quick adjustment to one of three preset levels, or one user defined level. This helps to expose those campers that utilize dark holes to hide and snipe you when you are not looking.

As you can see in the previous picture, the Samsung 173T's 17" LCD display area is nearly the same size as the 19" CRT in the NEC MultiSync FE950+. Upon physical measurement the 19" CRT came up only 3/4" larger than the Samsung 173T. With a CRT monitor the diagonal screen measurement encompasses the entire tube assembly even though some of that assembly is not viewable area. With and LCD screen the diagonal measurement equals the actual viewable area of the monitor. Much more honest marketing.