Samsung SyncMaster 770p review

Samsung's SyncMaster 770p isn't your run-of-the-mill 17" LCD monitor.

It has a triple-hinged stem to tilt, pivot and rotate the monitor with ease. The stem also makes it easy to move the screen up and down, from just off the desk to a maximum height of 17cm. The screen can be folded right back so it is flat against the base, making it easy to transport. Pivot software is included with the monitor, and this detects when the monitor's screen has been adjusted and rotates your desktop for you accordingly.

The viewing angles on this monitor are good. Moving to the side doesn't result in any loss of colour accuracy. You have to move more than one person's width away from the centre of the monitor's screen to experience any noticeable loss of brightness.

The 770p has a high 1,500:1 contrast ratio, and it showed in our image-quality test. Our greyscale test did not pose the same difficulties for the 770p as for other monitors we've tested. There was some slight banding, but only in the dark-to-light grey areas. Whites were very bright, though, and blacks were dark and smooth. The monitor produced vibrant, rich colours in our High Definition (HD) video clip, with crisp, sharp details. This monitor has a 6ms response time, which won't make much difference to most office tasks, but will mean less ghosting in fast-moving images, such as games and movies.

Strangely, the power and monitor cable connections aren't in the monitor, but are housed in a box attached to the monitor like a little tail. This contains just the one video connector, DVI, but it is possible to connect to an analogue output using an adaptor. All the monitor's controls, such as brightness and colour temperature, are operated through software that's installed on the computer, rather than through buttons on the screen as is normally the case. It works well, but makes it difficult to make adjustments if you're not in Windows or you are playing a game.

The 770p produces excellent images, and the contrast is superb. The triple-hinged stem makes it remarkably easy to adjust the positioning and, while it is odd to have the connections in a box, it isn't a problem. If you don't need the extra space afforded by a 19" monitor and you can afford it, this LCD monitor is fabulous.