PCExtreme.net - Samsung 173P Flat Panel Display Review.

Samsung 173P Flat Panel Display, page 2.

Review Date: February 19, 2004
Reviewed by: Cory Zerkee
Sponsored by: Samsung

Using the MagicTune software, you can customize your brightness, contrast, and color settings as well as change your MagicBright™ preset. MagicBright is Samsung’s name for the select few brightness and contrast presets that they include with their newer displays. You can choose between Text, Internet, and Entertain presets. I normally leave it on Entertain because I like the color bright. You can also right click on the desktop to bring up the menu and you now have quick access to some of the MagicTune and Pivot Pro (will explain shortly) settings.

Along with the MagicTune software, Samsung has packaged Pivot Pro which is used to flip the desktop image in conjunction with the pivoting stand for the 173P. You just install software and reboot, then right click on the desktop and choose ‘rotate to 90’ and then pivot the display to match. I would like to note though, that due to the design of the stand and the fact that it is fairly low, you have to tilt back the screen before you rotate it or you will thwack the corner of the display on the stand. Not good, heh.

Ok, now it’s time to take the 173P for a test drive. I hooked it up in DVI mode first, since that is my preferred mode. I touched the thermally sensitive power button and the LCD came to life with a beep. The 173P automatically scans for input signals flipping between analog and digital. You can easily swap between digital and analog inputs by touching the power button and holding it for a few seconds. I missed that feature the first time around, but was later informed by a reader (thanks Lojze). The interesting feature about this LCD is the fact that not only does it have a standby mode, but it also powers off automatically. If you shut down your computer and leave the LCD on, it flips back and forth between inputs searching for a signal, but when it doesn’t find one for approximately 10 seconds, it shuts the LCD off. Power up your computer and the LCD powers back up for you automatically, pretty damn cool if you ask me.

After hitting the desktop I installed the Pivot Pro and MagicTune software and went to adjust the settings to my liking. After a few minutes of fiddling, I found that the MagicBright preset Entertain worked the best for me, as I stated earlier.

2D image quality is downright excellent on the 173P at it's native resolution of 1280x1024, and I found it to be the best out of all their LCD’s I have reviewed thus far. The color reproduction was, at least to my eyes, the truest I have seen also. There was a noticeable color difference from the last few LCD’s I have done. I noticed it first on our website, where the purple was a noticeably different shade on the 173P. Dropping the resolution down to something other than it's native one, say 1024x786 for example, created only a minor drop in image quality. LCD's are famous for looking horrid at any resolution lower than the native, but newer displays like the 173P fare excellent at said resolutions. The rated viewing angle of 178° is pretty close to reality, as the image only slightly starts to wash out, or get extremely bright at the extreme end of the viewing angle, but not badly enough that you can’t still easily tell what you are seeing. As I stated earlier the 173P supports portrait mode. I flipped the display to portrait and wrote this entire review that way.

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I then headed over to monitorsdirect.com to run the usual tests and found almost no noticeable ghosting or streaking on this display. I have tested several 25ms LCD’s recently, and I am used to the amount of slight ghosting that is still present. This LCD exhibited less than the usual amount, which is why I am wondering about the 25ms rating. I had to be sure, so I fired up Vietcong for a little fragging and again, noticed less of the motion blur effect that I had experienced with the other 25ms LCD’s I have tested. It seems that Samsung has improved their 25ms panels noticeably. After gaming on this LCD for a few weeks, I can tell you it is going to be hard to pry it out of my hands.

Although I loathe analog input on an LCD, I had to test the 173P in analog mode, so I switched inputs and repeated my tests. Analog mode offered a slightly less crisp picture, but not horribly bad. I have seen some terrible IQ on LCD’s running in analog which is why I hate it so, but the 173P wasn’t unbearable. If the analog input was the only available option on this display, it would be more than adequate as far as image quality.

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DVD viewing on the 173P proved to be a delight as well, offering a crisp, clear, bright picture. I watched my favorite movie of last year; Pirates of the Caribbean as well as Event Horizon and both looked great on the 173P.

With the popularity of LCD displays on the rise, there are more and more available to choose from. Not only do you have to decide from the plethora of models available, but from which company to choose. Samsung has been a popular name in home electronics and PC peripherals for a long time now, and I have had the pleasure of using several of their LCD displays in the last year. In fact, it was the Samsung 172T that I purchased that turned me off CRT displays forever.

The 173P is their latest 17” offering, and it boasts a lot of nice features. The biggest of which is the 99% buttonless operation, with all settings being handled via the included MagicTune software. The 173P also features a whopping 178° viewing angle and contrast and brightness ratings of 700:1 and 270cd/m2 consecutively. The ability to pivot the display to portrait mode, coupled with the included Pivot Pro software is great for writing text or viewing web pages and takes away a large amount of the downward scrolling. Samsung has tossed in a VESA mount for wall mounting of the 173P, as well as BOTH analog and DVI cables. Image quality and color reproduction on the 173P is top notch, with minimal ghosting noticed when gaming. If all that isn’t good enough, Samsung has packaged it all in what has to be the sexiest LCD I have ever laid eyes on. All in all, I loved the 173P for its looks AND its features. Good job on this one Samsung, a perfect 5 out of 5 X's!