Any Samsung 206BW reviews or owners?

[Mutley]

Anyone know of any reviews for the Samsung 206BW, or does anyone here own one?
I'm interested ya see...

[kalniel]

Google finds a couple of reviews, which are all positive.

However they seem to be shipping a different panel to the reviewed one. As for how equivalent they are, YMMV.

[allosunshine]

I had one but sent it back to due a problem but it was a very nice display.
The different panel described by kalniel only seems to apply to the 22" version (226BW) where Samsung are shipping a 'S' Panel (Samsung) and an 'A' Panel (AU Optronics). You can read more about it in this thread (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...1&page=1&pp=30) where its been discussed quite thoroughly.
But back to the 206BW and reading from a couple of other threads it only ships with the AU Optronics panel.

[TheVoice]

I've got the 206BW; very happy with it so far. Tiny amount of backlight bleed visible when the screen is completely black (which isn't often), but could probably be minimised further if I sat and fiddled with the settings. Happy with it as it is though, to be honest.

Only thing it could do with is a height-adjustable stand, but I'm still very comfortable using it as it is. So nice to have extra room on screen, having come from a 19" Samsung standard LCD.

[madad2005]

What's the stand like? Fairly sturdy? I know there have been problems with the stand on the 205BW bending.

[pdyson]

I ordered a 206BW and on arival it was the 'a' panel. Not sure if you get 206BW with s?

Sadly it was really poor. There was substantial backlight bleed at the top and the bottom and a stuck pixel. I also wasn't impressed with the picture quality when gaming. There was quite a lot of blur which I wasn't expecting with having a 2ms response time, although Desktop & office looked ok.

Pretty disappointing, so it went back to Komplett, who take about 2 weeks to test it and reimburse you.

Looking at the 215TW now, this has some great reviews and should be better as it's about £150 more.

[ac82]

Was considering this model myself. Looked mint and specs seemed good.

Out of interest what are the major differences between the 215TW and the 226BW? And why is there such a performance difference?

[Mutley]

I've seen a few reviews around of the 206BW, and they're all good, but what review does make the point about the s and a panel - they tested the s panel, and it was very good, but said the a panel might be different. That is ridiculous - you pay your money for a product, you ought to be guaranteed of consistent quality. It would be good if you could request the s panel.

Note that 2ms time is for grey to grey, black to white is more like 6ms, which is still good.

Top of my list is the NEC 20.1" LCD, but its very expensive, I was hoping the 206BW might stand up to that, being newer.

[ac82]

That is disappointing. At the risk of sounding stupid, what is the difference between the a panel and the s panel?

Before I was I saw the 206BW I was thinking about the SM204BW. I know it is an older model but it is cheaper and is it any good?

[pdyson]

Although they are the same model (the 206BW) there are two actual models of LCD panel used in the production. The only way to see which one you have is to look at the back of the monitor and most vendors will not guarantee which one you get.

Mine was an 'a' panel and it was very disappointing, as is Komplett who have had the return 2 weeks and still not refunded my card.

The 215TW is a much higher spec screen and used by photographers, image editors etc. It's a 21 inch screen with reasonable sounding specs, but all the reviews rage about it. That is, unless you want to game using it, which you will not want to as it suffers from input lag. So when you move the mouse, there is a delay between that happening and what happens on screen.

The NEC (20WGX) is meant to be excellent and is currently number one on my shortlist, however I have red reviews of a Belinea model which is meant to be ideal for gaming and is about £120 less.

[Dreaming]

That is disappointing. At the risk of sounding stupid, what is the difference between the a panel and the s panel?

Before I was I saw the 206BW I was thinking about the SM204BW. I know it is an older model but it is cheaper and is it any good?

Basically, the 's' panel is made by samsung, the 'a' panel is made by another company (starts with A). In theory they should be the same, built to the same specs. In practice, a lot of people say s is superior.

But then people have said unless you're really anal you wont be able to tell the difference if there is differences in quality.

FWIW I've got an S panel 226 and it's so so nice.

[iranu]

FWIW I've got an S panel 226 and it's so so nice.

Where did you get it from? I'm looking at this monitor to replace an old crt.

[Mutley]

Although they are the same model (the 206BW) there are two actual models of LCD panel used in the production. The only way to see which one you have is to look at the back of the monitor and most vendors will not guarantee which one you get.

Mine was an 'a' panel and it was very disappointing, as is Komplett who have had the return 2 weeks and still not refunded my card.

The 215TW is a much higher spec screen and used by photographers, image editors etc. It's a 21 inch screen with reasonable sounding specs, but all the reviews rage about it. That is, unless you want to game using it, which you will not want to as it suffers from input lag. So when you move the mouse, there is a delay between that happening and what happens on screen.

The NEC (20WGX) is meant to be excellent and is currently number one on my shortlist, however I have red reviews of a Belinea model which is meant to be ideal for gaming and is about £120 less.

Which Belinea model are you looking at? The NEC is tops for me, but very pricy. I've seen the NEC in action - a friend of mine has one. Saw it next to an older (6 months) Samsung LCD, and the different was outstanding - much better contrast, better colours, viewing angle, everything.

[pdyson]

The Belinea 102030W is meant to be a pretty good panel for gaming, movies and general use. It doesn't look very good, in fact it looks a bit cheap, but at the end of the day it's how good the panel is that counts.

I've had a Samsung 172B for about 4 years and I'm only replacing it because it's old and has quite slow response times and I want something bigger.

Despite all the great reviews on the 206BW and the 226BW, I can state that the 206BW I was delivered was dreadful and I was not being anal.

Obviously I cannot vouch for all the other a panels, or indeed an s panel, but unless I could actually see the specific monitor I intend to purchase up and running, I would not buy another Samsung.

The NEX 20WGX2 is said to be incredible, and thanks for the first hand review of this Mutley. It's a pretty chunky panel which half puts me off, but if the quality is as good as the reviews, and your good self state, this might be the best option!

And Samsung - please stop sending out 's' panels to all your reviewers then flooding distributors with poor quality 'a' panels or you'll lose more customers.

[iranu]

I ended up buying a sm206bw from Komplett and got an A panel - march 2007 Slovakia. No dead pixels but the colour out of the box was very bad.

I have seen this type of thing before on 42" plasma screens where default settings were mad but a bit of tweaking produced stunning results, eg my NEC 42" VR5 which is comparable to the Panny P7 in it's day, so I was prepared to fiddle around. It seems that default "S" panel settings are good and default "A" panel settings are really bad.

I think I got a good "A" panel as there is only a small amount of back light bleed, however it takes alot of mucking about to get a good picture with an "A" panel (given my 1 monitor experience!) and I nearly gave up and sent it back.

I used http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ with MS explorer to get get the correct settings - gamma (gfx card software), contrast and brightness. I also used a monitor calibration software program to get the correct colours whilst checking lots and lots of photos.

I now have a monitor that is as good as I can get it without specialist equipment.

P.S. I did a bit more research and found that changing the magicbright setting to "internet" and then redoing the gamma almost illiminated the need for the colour calibration and what's more it has

I think there was a calibration test on Hardforums were they found that these settings were found for the calibration of their panel.

Brightness 89
Contrast _ 50

Color Control
Red _ 45
Green 52
Blue_ 34

I found a similar pattern with the calibration software I was using mainly for colour adjustment.

Contrast can't go much above 50 without making flesh tones look weird which is a bit dissapointing. Haven't spotted any dithering yet (fingers crossed) but this is normally seen in movie playback.

The samsung software such as Magicbright is worthless with this panel. Makes things look awful so I kept it turned off and used custom settings.

Internet now looks very good. Photographs now look normal and sharp especially digital ones. Gaming is good, no ghosting, but I need to test it with some more vibrant looking games. Not had much of a chance with movies yet as I need to install some playback software.

My only issue with the panel is that the colour maginally darkens from bottom to top but this is due to the type of panel (TN) and you can't have everything.

It is a shame about the whole S and A thing as you would expect to pay for a product and get exactly what it says on the tin.

P.S. I've done a bit more research and it transpires that using the magicbright setting on "internet" produces a better picture to the point where colour recalibration is minimal. I have also found that this reduces the light to dark fade from bottom to top also

[Mutley]

Think I'll keep the NEC 20WGX2 LCD at the top of my list for now, and perhaps compromise on other things in the build of the new PC...

pdyson, as you point out, the NEC is quite chunky, at least depth-wise, but from the front it does look elegant and refined.
Of course, the downside (potentially) is the shiny screen. I thought that would be an issue until I saw it in action. And I realised that the CRT I'm using also has a reflective screen, and I don't have a problem with that.