The Samsung SyncMaster 2243 NWX is one of the popular 22” monitors in the market. It is well placed above its very worthy competitors from LG & Viewsonic. Its a great monitor for all home based purposes like watching movies, playing games and surfing the Internet.
Specifications
The package comes with a RGB cable and a table top stand. The monitor can also be mounted on the wall to save desk space.
The monitor looks great thanks to the pitch black screen. The 5 ms response time is good enough for watching movies or playing games. However, a response time of 2 ms would have added more value to the package. The max resolution is near Full HD. Watching movies off DVDs is great on this one. To watch HD videos, you need to couple this up with a powerful graphics card which can handle 30 fps at such high resolutions without tearing the frame.
The monitor can be rotated almost 360 degrees without moving or rotating the base. This is helpful if your desk is in a corner – usually the case with home PCs. However, the monitor has a large viewing angle so you won’t have to keep rotating it.
Everything looks great on this monitor. Its a different experience all together to work on a (relatively) large screen. You have so much more space where you can keep much more windows. Apps like Gmail and Google Reader will look awesome at these resolutions and the wide aspect ratio (16:10) serves as cherry on the cake.
The monitor scores well in looks section, Its the most symmetrical monitor out there. It will give your desk a trendy as well as an elegant look.
Sadly, to improve the looks, Samsung probably completely ignored usability. The controls are at the bottom right corner of the screen on the front. But they are not visible to naked eyes. Only when you put your head dead close to the screen, you will be able to spot the “touch” controls. It is almost impossible to control this thing. To make matters worse, the “Power on/off” control is right next to the “Auto Adjust” control. So every time you try to reach out to switch it off, you end up auto adjusting it. To understand what I mean, click on the above image to enlarge it and look hard at the bottom right end of the screen. You will be able to spot the almost invisible controls.
Conclusion
All in all, even with crappy controls, this is a great monitor. At the end of the day what matters is the display quality and the looks – and it scores well in both the categories. The monitor is available for approx 12500 INR at Nehru Place. At this price, it is definitely a value for money option which also delivers great performance. Additionally, Samsung monitors are known for their maintenance free operation. And even if you need it any time, Samsung’s on site service kind of rocks.
11 responses to “Samsung SyncMaster 2243 NWX – Great Monitor, Crappy Controls”
I bought this one to home few days back. Color and brightness are not balanced. surprisinglyl picture is not natural at all. they are too much bright-vivid and even after spending lots of time adjusting colors,brightness,contrast… etc I still can't make it comfortable to my eyes. Specially reading text painfull on this one. I work on viewsoinc at office and I feel its very comfortable and balanced display in terms of colors and brightness. I can see much natural color and brightness on viewsonic than this samsung.
brightness is not uniform at all across panel. upper half is too dark then lower half.
inspite of samsung is much bigger and stardard company I personally feel that I should have bought viewsonic instead of samsung.
@dhaval –
Sounds like there is some hardware defect with your monitor. I would recommend you to call up Samsung customer care and get it repaired/replaced.
I don't have as much problem with the "invisible" controls (but have only had this thing for about 10 minutes so far) but I am interested in the ability to 'tilt' the monitor, to adjust for glare and viewing angle, etc. Appears there is no ability for that, other than the old-fashioned "tuck something under it and hope it doesn't fall over". Any advice/thoughts?
Also any thoughts on the abilityt to have a shorter "foot/base"? I'm using on a docking station shelf which is high already, plus the height of the foot and it may be getting too high for comfort, especially without tilt. Too bad they do not offer other feet, included or optional…
@Michelle –
You will need to buy the other stand to have the ability to tilt and adjust the height of the monitor. If yo look at the quick setup guide which came with the monitor, you will find that there are 2 types of stands available. Obviously, they gave us the basic (cheaper) one.
Actually, I discovered it is able to tilt, just took a little more "umph" than I had originally applied. Height is fixed however. The other stand appeared to be the one which 'twists' to enable the monitor to be viewed horizontal or vertical (and uses the currently covered connection point in the middle of the back). I was not the one placing the order so don't know how "available" the twist stand was, but not needed for my application.
As to other post, I did have to adjust the brightness down when I got it- it was up to 99 out of the box! But seems fine after that.
The viewing angle is fine only laterally – if you look at the picture slightly from below or above the midpoint, you'll notice that the viewing angle is actually horrid. That's why, I guess, a previous poster complained about the upper half being too dark – because he/she must have been looking at it from a slightly lower position.
In fact, even if your eyes are exactly at the midpoint level, you can notice a linear gradient from brighter in the midpart, to darker near the top and bottom, especially with areas of the picture that are not bright to begin with. For example, as I am writing this, the webpage has a gray "frame", on which the gradient is visible.
But don't believe me – try it for yourself and make your own judgment.
i bought this monitor 2 years ago.It was
working propertly till now .Why ?
Blue vertical line has appeard on right side of the monitor.It was happend just only after baerly 2 years and i cant find guarantee
@disappointed,
http://www.samsung.com/in/support/warranty/spp3_M…
Samsung monitors have 3 years warranty. And you probably won't need the warranty card if you have the bill. Even if you do not have it, I believe they will service it if you are within 39 months from the month of manufacture (which can be found on the back of monitor).
i have this and another model (920 nw), whenever brightness adjustments are made (or when the setting exceeds 77) the monitor turns on and off continuously. the monitor shows in split second a bar saying "auto adjustment X%" on the 920nw model, i can select a different monitor mode (gaming, text, movie, custom)to stop it from turning on and off and on and off. however, on the 2243 swx model, i cant even tell if i am pressing any button. and it doesnt stop even if i restart the whole PC unit and unplug all cables.
anyone knows where the problem here is?
I have this monitor and it works well enough for the price. However, it only works well after i start the pc two or three times. When i first start the pc everything is pixalated with lines following the mouse around and leaving permanent lines on the screen unless i reboot the pc. It is a second pc running xp. Any idea? It is a real pain having to reboot two and three times to get a clear picture on the screen.
Thanks
It is a junk anyway ! I’ll get it from about 6 months. Don’t be stupid o get one of Samsung product as long as Dell exists.