Okay – flat out – I’m not getting paid for this review by Samsung, I have no affiliation that I know of with them, but I have got nothing but good things to say about this 20 inch widescreen 1680 x 1050 panel.

I bought my first one as soon as it came out – the same time I bought the Gateway GT5468 – I wrote about in Computers SUCK! Now, Let Me Tell You How I Really Feel…

The panel has been operating with no issues at all for the past 7 months. This thing kicks butt! Mine had a $249 pricepoint and depending on where you buy it (got mine at Fry’s), but I still don’t think there are any other panels out there offering the specs this one does.

About 2 months ago, I was in the market for another panel, so I went out shopping and again, for the money there was simply no other panel out there offering the specs that the Samsung SyncMaster 206BW has. The main specs I looked at, which seem to me to be the ones that make the most difference image quality wise were, Response Time – how quickly images are refreshed / redrawn on the screen; Image Contrast – a measure of the difference in pixel brightness from black to white; Type of input – Wanted to make sure I had both RGB & DVI available; Max Resolution – How much desktop “Real Estate” I could expect to get (in other words, it doesn’t matter if you have a 5000 inch display if the max resolution is 640 x 480…)

• Response Time: 2ms
• Image Contrast Ration: 800:1 / 3000:1 (dynamic)
• Max Resolution: 1680 x 1050 which was good enough, but, I have to admit, I wish this was 1920 x 1200 – but that is the only item I wish was improved on this panel.
• DVI & RGB

Compare this with another larger panel the Acer AL2216WBD, which while larger is the closest price range lcd monitor from CNETs Top Rated LCD Monitors is seriously lacking with:

• Response Time: 5ms
• Image Contrast: 700:1
• Max Resolution: 1680 x 1050
• Signal Input: DVI-D, VGA

And another on the CNET Editors’ Top Monitors, the HP W2007 ($260 – $284 current pricerange) with:

• Response Time: 5ms
• Image Contrast: 1000:1
• Max Resolution: 1680 x 1050
• Signal Input: VGA – but, according to CNET specs, this display does have a DVI-Digitaligital connection… so not sure what the full story is here.

Let me know what you think.