Samsung P2370HD-1 23-Inch LCD HDTV Monitor Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm cheap, I play a fair number of video games, and I love to tweak my TV settings to be as "accurate" as possible using reference images and calibration discs. The Samsung P2370HD exceeded my expectations (especially once I noticed an alternative way to fix the HDMI "blurring" issue others have mentioned).
Right out of the box, color accuracy and black/white level are close to perfect. Like most TV's these days, settings for edge enhancement and dynamic contrast are on by default. Disabling those settings and dialing down the brightness 5 ticks put the grays, blacks, and whites where they needed to be. The only annoyance for me, and it's a minor one, is that the backlight is still brighter than I'd like even on its lowest setting. That's not a problem in a room with any light, but you do notice the glimmer in pitch dark.
Game lag isn't an issue with this TV. If you use a digital camera to take photos of certain reference tests, you'll notice some frame drops here and there. In actual play with my own human eyes, I'm able to pull off precise combos in Super Street Fighter 4 and Tekken 6 without problems. There is a "game mode" option in the setup menu that reduces the frame drops; at least, according to my digital camera; but I can't actually discern any difference when my own hands/eyes are involved.
Many people have complained about blurry, overly sharp edges and text when using the HDMI input. The popular solution is to change the name of the input in the source list to read "PC." This works, but you lose access to some very handy image and color adjustments, as well as the game mode toggle. You also end up with a gamut of gray shades, which can make the image seem soft (although some people prefer it).
An alternative solution is to go into the Picture Options menu and change the "Size" setting from 16:9 to Screen Fit. By default, the P2370HD stretches and clips about 2 to 3% of the image from the HDMI source for overscan. The Screen Fit option enables 1 to 1 pixel mapping, just like changing the name of the HDMI input does, but it leaves you able to access the whole range of picture adjustments.
It makes sense when you think about it: Samsung's engineers probably figured if you're hooking a PC up to it, you can make all of the display-related tweaks you need to in the computer's display panel.
Regardless of how you choose to make the HDMI input look nicer, you'll enjoy how your games look on this TV. The colors are pure, the details just pop, and there's absolutely no "ghosting." Oh, and if you're watching actual TV, I can vouch that the off-air decoder inside this TV is very strong. Much stronger than the 42" Vizio in my living room.

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Samsung B2430HD 24-Inch WideScreen LCD Monitor Review

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(More customer reviews)The specs, price, and graphics quality in particular are excellent for this model.
But there are some serious disadvantages, exacerbated by Samsung's lack of support and unusually hostile response to those who are complaining about it.
The driver disk that comes with this product doesn't load in Windows 7 64-bit, which is now the standard for newer computers. You can find drivers that work, but not easily from the official Samsung site. There are actually two drivers, one for VGA and one for HDMI connections. In VGA mode, the monitor's native resolution of 1920x1080 is not supported; it deforms horizontally and clips off 3/4" on either side of the screen, thus converting squares into rectangles and circles into ovals, a fact that even level 2 Samsung support defiantly insists is OK.
In HDMI mode, they have written a fix (as of this writing) which allows a hardware option to 'fit screen' instead of the usual '16x9', which of course never should have been necessary, since the monitor itself is shaped as a 16x9 to naturally match the 16x9 standard. Also, the default mode for use in HDMI is AV, not PC, and if you don't override that, the type quality in particular is smeared and virtually unusable.
Worse yet, the front panel controls, which are both critical and extremely difficult to use, except in very bright light, can be overridden by software (convenient), but again ONLY if you are not using Windows 7 64-bit, a limitation you can find buried in their Web site.
Of the three reviews submitted to their site, it got one five star and two one-star reviews, and Samsung deleted the initial one-star and refused to publish mine. A company that makes a lot of fine products can get in serious trouble treating users as the enemy and failing to support those products. Be forewarned.

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