Samsung SyncMaster 205BW review

Samsung's SyncMaster 205BW looks great with its thin, 17mm brushed-silver bezel and matt-black stand with matching silver trim.

The display can't be pivoted, but you can adjust its height. The display slides gracefully up and down the stand, providing an elevation of between 65 and 145mm from your desk to the bottom of the screen.

The 20.1in screen has a native resolution of 1,680x1,050 pixels with an aspect ratio of 16:10, which is standard for a monitor of this size. However, at 600:1 its contrast ratio is lower than those of most of its rivals. Philips' 200WP7ES (Labs, Shopper August 2007) has a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 and, although it costs more than the 205BW, it also has a USB hub, and its screen pivots.

The 205BW has DVI and D-sub inputs, but otherwise there are no extra ports or speakers. It is HDCP compliant, however, so you'll be able to connect an HD DVD or Blu-ray player and watch protected content. The screen is evenly illuminated, with a good clean white. Our greyscale gradient test displayed flawlessly from black to white with hardly any banding. Our colour wheel test and example photos also came out well. Colours were bright and rich, with natural skin tones.

The 205BW's horizontal viewing angle of 160 is lower than that of the 200WP7ES, and it shows. You can't move far to the side of this display before the picture deteriorates. This makes it unsuitable for an audience of more than one person.

The control buttons are located along the bottom of the screen. When the onscreen menu isn't available, one of these buttons adjusts the brightness, while another button provides a short cut to the 205BW's Magic Bright feature, which has five preset viewing modes: text, game, internet, sport and movie. These settings adjust the brightness, contrast and colour automatically to suit the sort of material you're likely to view in each mode. This is almost certainly a matter of personal taste, as we found the colours too garish in the movie mode, for example. There's also a custom preset that enables you to adjust the settings yourself, which is likely to be of more use.

The SyncMaster 205BW is a good screen with excellent image quality. However, Philips' 200WP7ES provided better image quality in all our tests and is a better display, although it costs £50 more.

Author: Lynley Oram