wahlau's online hut

today i've got what i have been waiting for since Monday evening - the Samsung 225BW 22" TFT Monitor! I have comtemplated for a TFT screen since years ago, but the price of an ideal screen was too high - 2 years back a 20" cost almost RM2.5k+ (550Euro+). So i have to just wait for price to drop. Only recently i noticed a bunch of wide screen monitors being offered much cheaper than their non-widescreen fellows - temptation time :)

at the end it was a hard time considering which brand to buy. Kaeru and ditesh both said just get the latest samsung 226BW, while some say cheaper ones would do too. after much consideration, i did what i read in one of the reviews - just bite it and buy one! so Monday evening was the order, and wednesday morning 930am it is at my doorstep! kudos to Amazon for such great service!

compare the box to the handphone (n70) i place in the box :)

Unpacking the packages, i noticed how big the packaging was! it is certainly huge :) Unpacking and setting up were easy. It was packaged with the stand together! You need to remove the safety pin (remind me not to loose it) then it is ready to be adjusted. Adjustments is pretty neat, i can tilt, and move up and down, and i can turn it to face it to me or parallel to the wall (great for watching movies on the bed :P). No complain from this point of view, though i think a nice protective film over the TFT would be nice (i think Dell does that).

there is a safety pin to make sure the monitor is safe to be transported.		nice and sleek.

All i did later was to plug in the cables, and wa-la! it works (duh!). I've tested it with my Gadmei stand alone TV Box. TV looks great. :) one thing i noticed was no PIP when i am using 1680 mode... well, cannot have everything in the world, right? so next it is time to check out the output from my T43... It works with some how to i found from the Internet to some extend, but something was not really right. I suspect it has something to do with the refresh frequencies and modeline settings in the xorg.conf, so i went on to fix it... after an hour's attempt, i've got it working! The how-to for this process i will document it in coming post. I will post the photos too later.. now i am tired, perhaps i will just hit the sack and rest earlier :)

My desktop with widescreen... (distorted due to the olympus 725SW :()

i will give this TFT for a first impression 85% (my Dell 2001FP in office can get 90+%, but it has better panel mind you...). certain things don't look really ok, but i think i need to get used to it. Brightness is incredible - it is now at 0 and i still feel it is rather bright... sharpness i must say it is very good for this price, and colours look good too. I do think for a TN-panel this baby is giving its best worth for the price i paid for. It scale pretty well lower resolutions too... so no complaints there too.

boy i am happy now ;) time to start workingenjoy it....