The 21" wide SyncMaster 215TW is great for business or pleasure. With its 1000:1 contrast ratio and 178°/178° viewing angle it's great for muli-tasking users.
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Large 21" screen, can move screen from landscape to portrait
Disadvantages:
None
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
~~<>*<>~~ Samsung SyncMaster 215TW ~ ~<>*<>~~
Price :~ This is probably one of the best screens on the market at the moment, but at a price. This screen cost me £335, you would expect prices to come down as this screen has been out now for over a year and that's about how long i have had mine for. The cheapest i can find it now is £370 so the product must be selling or prices would be coming down now.
Looks & Dimensions :~ The design of the 215TW is very simple but looks smart, the front casing is a brushed silver so will not show finger marks and the back is black. All controls are within easy reach on the front not like on some that are placed on the side so you have to get up to see what you are doing. It is a 21" widescreen you work that out by measuring diagonally from one corner of the screen to the other. But i like to know the full dimensions as well. The overall size is19" wide, 12.5" high not including speaker and stand, and the depth is 3". The speaker is the full width of the screen and is about 0.75". The stand is round and the whole monitor rotates 360 degrees on this. You are unable to do this due to the cables connected in the back, and it is very unlikely anybody would require it to rotate all the way round. The stand can also be adjusted for height, so the screen can be at eye level. At its lowest setting the bottom of the monitor is 1.5" above the desk and at its highest setting it is 5.5" above the desk. Even at the highest setting the monitor is very stable and unlikely to topple over. The screen also tilts forward and backward. But one of its surprises is that you can rotate the sceen from wide screen to portrate by just twisting the screen round. This helps if you are working on long text documents as there is less need to scroll down, like on this long winded review.
Controls :~ On the front you have all your buttons to control the screen on/off, Volume up/down a menu button to go into settings, source for different Av's, auto and PIP. Also on the front is a headphone jack.
Screen performance :~ The screen is superb due to its fast response time of 8ms, this makes it great for games that have fast action as there is no ghosting, it's also the same for using as a TV if you have a TV card in your computer as the fast response time makes it great for watching sport. The contrast ratio is also high for a monitor this is 1000 : 1. What does this mean i hear you say, well it means that the darkest blacks are 1000 times darker than the whitest whites so the higher the contrast the better the picture. Technical dater for me is overrated and most of the time you are baffled into buying something because of all this stuff. For me watching it as a TV the colours are superb with good skin tones realistic colours and plenty of detail in dark scenes. As a computer monitor due to its large work area you can have multiple windows open to work on at the same time. Working on photo's is great as you do not need two screens to see the original from the adjusted picture. The monitor also has a preset button that changes the colour and brightness depending on what you are doing this is good as you can change from Text :- this makes the whites darker so there is less glare, Internet :- a little brighter than text, Game :- this makes it brighter and colours more vivid, Movie :- more realistic colours, Sport :- colours sway towards blue not sure why, Custom :- however you want it.
Sound :- Sound from the speakers are OK but can sound a little tinny so are fine for general use. If you watch TV on it you will want to upgrade to separate speakers.
Conclusion :- It might seem a lot to pay for a monitor, for me it was worth every penny. Quality TV picture, large work area, fantastic screen adjustments and easy reach controls for simple setting changes.
