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Samsung LTM295W 29" LCD Review

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the good-enough-to-lick dept.

An anonymous reader noted a review of the Samsung LTM295W. Quick excerpt "The contrast ratio of 600:1 is amazing, and takes the cake for being the highest Iâ(TM)ve seen to date here with the site. I was pleased to see a more than acceptable brightness level of 450cd/m2. The response time isnâ(TM)t anything to snuff at, standing at 22ms. For viewing angles everyone should be pleased with 170/170 (W&H). The last mention is the pixel pitch which sits at .4935(h) X .4935(w). The optimal resolution while in PC use is 1024 x 768 @ 75Hz although the maximum is 1280 x 768 @ 75Hz." Not the highest resolution, but still, quite impressive.

19 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. What?? by srboneidle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I the only one that couldn't make any sense of those specs?? Man technology moves fast! ;)

  2. You know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sometimes you can just look at the story blurb and realize that the content is meaningless, and in the larger scheme of things doesn't matter for shit. Then you sit back, wondering what minor point will be endlessly debated in the comments.

    Then you decide to browse at -1 for some entertainment.

  3. Yeah, but . . . by pcboss99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who would run an LCD that big at 1024? Although I am all in favor of bigger and better geek toys, I think a careful examination of the practical longevity of a display device requires more features, not more inches.

    I'd like to see display manufacturers spend as much time on usability as developers do (or should!)

  4. LCD's are still overpriced. by Omni+Magnus · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Unless you live in Japan and really need the room, I don't see why anybody would want an LCD monitor.

  5. Resolution? by SpamJunkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The resolution is totally unimpressive. Apple's 20" display is 1680 x 1050. Each pixel on this Samsung must be massive.

    This isn't a monitor, it's a TV. If you buy one of these as a monitor you're an idiot.

    1. Re:Resolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Go to Best Buy and take a look at a new LCD display... the pixels are most certainly NOT huge, the resolution is HDTV (1920x1080) for HDTV signals and regular computer resolutions for computer...

      Most TV shows and movies don't make you read tiny text off the screen... if you're going to be working behind a 29" wide screen beast like this, you'd have to sit a few feet back from the monitor to be comfortable looking at it. Do you want to see your desktop at 1920x1080 from 4 or 5 feet away? You wouldn't be able to see any pixels or read any text!

      It's a usability issue... on a display with this kind of brightness and contrast, not to mention sheer size, sitting close enough to read ultra high resolution text and graphics would give you a splintering head ache!

      Incidentally, to get 1024x768 and 1280x1024, they just resample the pixels in hardware on the display, so the pixels would still look smooth, not large.

  6. Yikkes.. the spcs suck by catseye · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While a 29-inch LCD sounds cool (suddenly, my 20-inch Apple Cinema Display seems tiny ;) ), those specs are really awful -- a .49 pitch and a max resolution of 1280x768 means the pixels would be huge -- it would be like sitting in front of a stadium jumbotron, each pixel articulated.

    No thanks.

    --
    What did the walrus say to the penguin? "No soap, radio."
  7. Makes a bad monitor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Looks like a great TV, but whats the use in using it as a monitor? Only for visually impaired people would that resolution be useful. If you want a really big 1024 x 768 display then buy a projector and you can project it a lot bigger than 29''.

  8. Where's UXGA ?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't understand why I can get a Dell laptop that
    is UXGA, but I can't get a UXGA LCD monitor for my desktop. Until I can, I'm going to run 1600x1200 on my 19".

  9. Its a TV really... by ajiva · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this thing was really meant to be used as a TV. Notice the component inputs. Yes it has DVI, but that's just a side benefit. The real advantage is hooking up a consumer DVD player and enjoying progressive scan, widescreen DVDs.

  10. 1024 x 768 is worthless... by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1024 x 768 is worthless for a big display of a computer screen. Buy a cheap 1024 x 768 LCD and sit closer. Pixels are everything.

  11. Re:Price? by _xeno_ · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It costs too much if you want to use it as a computer monitor. It sounds about right for a kiosk display, which is what I'd imagine it was designed for. (It's about TV sized and sounds like it's really designed for HDTV displays. Sounds like a nice display for a DVD player, not something you want to stick in front of your computer.)

    If you read the review, they call it a "Monitor/TV" and mention things like a remote control and speakers. It has a DVI input and a DVI/RGB adaptor. I expect that it's really a (HD)TV with RGB monitor support being a bonus feature.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  12. Viewing angle - I'm skeptical by geekd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I very much doubt the given viewing angle of 170/170.

    That's almost all the way off to one side. Most LCDs look like crap from there.

    Sure, you can see whats on the screen, and it's still readable, but the contrast and brightness go way down.

  13. Rant: FUXGA! by Tackhead · · Score: 2, Insightful
    > If you want ultimate pixel counts, check out the T221 22.2" from IBM. For $8400, you too can have a native QUXGA-W(3840x2400) resolution. Dot pitch is a microscopic .1245

    XGA, SXGA+, WUXGA, QUXGA, WTFUXGA!

    For Chrissake, why can't flat panel and laptop manufacturers just say the goddamn screen is "640x480" or or "1024x768" or "1280x1024" or "1400x1050" or whatever the fucking resolution is, rather than inventing a new resolution for every oddball configuration the latest LCD screen happens to be.

    (I hate shopping for laptops on sites that just list the acronym and not the damn resolution!)

  14. Not too surprising... by FasterThanLight · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The contrast ratio is 600:1? It better be high- the pixels on this thing are the size of flashlights! What's the point of buying a 29" display if you have to sit three feet away to start enjoying it? Yeah, 29" is a lot of square footage, but you aren't gaining "square pixelage"... which is at least if not more important.

    --
    They're a little melty, but damn are they exquisite!
  15. Re:sw33t by DJ+Rubbie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, the refresh rates are not completely meaningless for an LCD screen, considering both CRT and LCD screens do need to update more or less frequently to show what has change. That figure can be misleading though, once taken the reponse rate of the LCD screen into account. This screen has a 22 ms reponse rate which can translate into about 45 Hz, if I may say so. Once these two figures are put together, a better grasp of how well the screen reponds can be realized.

    --
    Please direct all bug reports to /dev/null
  16. A terrible review by Christ-on-a-bike · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What an awful, unreadable review! It's got no style, the punctuation and grammar are poor, and it's uninformative. This is why people would rather trust a dead tree review which costs money. Look at this:
    Thereâ(TM)s no question in my mind that most of you, if it was possible, would love an LCD plopped in front of you rather than a conventional CRT which hogs up 50% of your desk space, well, what if it was not only an LCD but one which is larger than most of your mates home TV?
    Blech. Great sentence. And then there's his propensity for redundant commentary:
    under the mentioned goodies, within the full Styrofoam encasing, we find the LTM295W LCD monitor/TV. To furthermore ensure its safety we find it covered in wrapping.
    Not to mention his toadying:
    In closing I must commend Samsung on a job well done.
    And the fact that in a thousand-word review, the display itself is reviewed in only a couple of sentences:
    I am pleased to say that during extensive gaming in both games, we encountered no ghosting whatsoever.
    ...
    In each of my selections, the video was extremely crisp and with the adjustability of the brightness, it was always more than bright enough with some to spare.
    Chris Allen, don't give up the day job. I really hope this isn't your day job.
  17. Re:Mmmmm... by Zaknafein500 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I was, until I saw the native resolution.

    1024 vertical lines is attrocious for a 29" display. My 18" Philips 180P2 is native at 1280x1024.

    I've seen these giant monitor/TV hybrids before. Ultimately, they end up being a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none knd of device.

    --

    "The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
  18. Re:Yeah, but . . . by nmg196 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a television - not a monitor (hence the words "television" in the article and on the manual) but you can use it on a PC. 1024 is easily enough to view PAL TV (720x582 lines) or even the lower resolution American system (NTSC) which I think is effectively 640x480 maximum. No wonder TV looks fuzzy when you go to America - I hadn't realised there was such a difference until I checked the stats.

    If you want a monitor, there are much higher resolution LCD displays available. It's only 21" but the Eizo L985EX is very well reviewed.