Samsung SyncMaster 245T
There are three main marketing points for the 245T:
- very good connectivity (with HDMI),
- a wide gamut,
- the MPA function, which is supposed to reduce afterglow due to retinal persistence.
For the first point, there is little disappointment and the screen is definitely well equipped in this domain.
As for the wide gamut, it would have been more effective if this screen was factory pre-calibrated, which the evidence suggests Samsung neglected to do. Or at least this is true for the first version, which was lent to us for this test.
The MPA function : the principle and its efficiency
Finally, we have the MPA function. Deactivated, we have a normal screen with a « static » image. By pressing a button on the front of the monitor, this « artificial sweeping » is activated. Homogeneity is slightly affected and even noticeably so. Here is a series of burst photos taken at 1/400 of a second with the MPA function activated:
On these images, we can make out four CCFL tubes (commonly called neons) which serve as backlighting, and that shut down one by one to simulate the sweeping associated with this technology. The black band is supposed to clean our eyes of the persistent bright traces emitted by the N-1 image. We have already come across this system twice with BenQ on its FP241W Z and then the FP241VW. The former is equipped with 16 tubes, the latter only has 8. Samsung cut this in half again and was in error to do so. With 16 and 8 tubes, there is a noticeable defect in the form of a twinkling, which in the end is typical of screens with 60 Hz tubes. To this we can add the loss of color homogeneity and contrast due to the large size of the bands – at least compared to those of a CRT.
With its four tubes, the 245T suffers from the same homogeneity and twinkling problems.
Where Samsung does better : The loss of contrast is negligible.
Where this Samsung does less well : On the applications we tested, there was no noticeable gain in comfort and the afterglow is always the same. In short, it doesn’t bring any improvement and even degrades the image. We strongly recommend that you forget this function and deactivate it whatever your activity; movies, games, web surfing. Try it out, you never know, but in our opinion, there was no interest.
This leaves us with the rest ; the gamut, ergonomics and color homogeneity of this screen.
Gamut, photo and movie rendering
As you may have noticed in the previous pages, the 245T’s gamut is indeed one of the widest on the market and theoretically it is one of the rare screens to be able of displaying all colors that were captured by a reflex which uses the Adobe RGB color space. Unfortunately, the 245T isn’t calibrated and our colorimeter, which however is one of the best in our opinion (newest version of the LaCie Blue Eye Pro, could not correct all colors. Even after calibration, red was a problem with rendering that was almost fluorescent. Let’s just hope that other such tools do better, which is entirely possible.
An extended gamut on TVs theoretically adds a second advantage of better rendering in movies. This means no more uniform color areas (where there should be many shades) and solarization and twinkling are also reduced. Here again, the 245T leaves something to be desired. Color fidelity is much better, but the twinkling and MPEG defects are still easily noticeable. And actually this is no surprise because the 245T is first and foremost a computer screen. Samsung doesn’t integrate the video correction circuits which are found in its LCD and plasma TVs. This is too bad because the 245T will not be the first screen to be perfectly versatile.
Ergonomics in images
Color homogeneity
With all the results in, we have a 15% maximum difference between two corners of the panel and an average of 4.6 % between two points. This, with those of the Dell 2707WFP, is one of the best results and good news for graphic artists.
For comparison, screens usually have 30% differences between points and more between corners.
