Samsung SyncMaster 192T 19" LCD Flat Panel Display

Company: Samsung
Product: 192T Silver
Street Price: ~$700
Date Reviewed: February 17, 2004
Reviewed By: Rob Parks
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Samsung 192T Testing:

For our testing procedure we set the desktop color to solid black and white to see if there are any pixels that will not turn off, and therefore will show as either white or a primary color (RGB).  When desktop color is set to white to see if any pixels are dead, this will show up as a black dot in the white screen.  We also played a few rounds of Halo, Unreal2, Call of Duty, Need for Speed: Underground, C&C Generals and Day of Defeat to test the gaming performance of this display.

Excellent results here with the 192T. This is the third LCD from Samsung that we have tested, and none have had any pixels that could be picked up as dead.  Very nice indeed.  This is unheard of with most LCD screens.  Most have at least one dead pixel that is visible in either the black or white screen tests.  Every time we thought we found a dead pixel it turned out to be a spec of dust or fuzz. Just goes to show you the quality control that Samsung must have.

Gaming performance was initially a bit of a let down.  After having such nice results with the previous two Samsung monitors.  Running at 1280x1024 there was ghosting quite severely during Halo and Unreal2.  While the games were still playable, you would surely have once heck of a head ache after a long session. Both of these games were jittery.  In some cases it was hard to focus.  In a large fire fight when many things were moving it became a little disorienting. On the other hand Call of Duty was near flawless.  This could be due to the blander more subtle color and the slightly slower moving pace.  Day of Defeat, which is based on a much older engine (Half Life) was also quite bad.  When moving about the weapons would ghost and any sudden turns would lead to a lot of ghosting across the screen.  In C&C Generals, the SyncMaster 192T did a wonderful job.  While this game really doesn't move that quickly the images were bright, sharp and seemingly a little more realistic.  Much of the same could be said about NFS: Underground.  The game played flawlessly.  Even at 1280x1024 I saw little or no indication of ghosting.  It was definitely playable and enjoyable. So even though the SyncMaster 192T boasts a fairly high response time of 25ms (or higher), it did surprisingly well for the majority of games used.