Samsung SyncMaster BX2240 review

It’s official: LEDs are catching on. Whether you’re talking about TVs, laptops or PCs, LEDs are clearly – in the minds of manufacturers at least – the future. Samsung’s BX2240 is the latest 22in Full HD monitor to roll into Shopper’s labs boasting about its LED backlighting or, if we want to be precise about things, edge lighting. Essentially, the LEDs replace traditional cold cathode fluorescent lamps and shine parallel to the screen, being diffused to give even light across the whole screen.

In our tests, the BX2240 used just 17W – roughly half the consumption of a CCFL-based LCD monitor. That’s good news for your wallet, but LEDs have failed to live up to the hype where image quality is concerned. They’re supposed to increase contrast and saturation, among other things, but we’ve seen almost no evidence of this.

We first tested the BX2240 using a VGA cable, but contrast was appalling. For example, we couldn’t see any difference between new email messages which were highlighted in white, and read mails which were a light shade of blue. This could be improved only by reducing brightness significantly. However, switching to the DVI interface, the problem largely disappeared, so avoid the BX2240 if you have only a VGA output on your PC.

Still, contrast remained disappointing overall, as did brightness (it’s rated at 250cd/m2 while most CCFL-backlit monitors put out 300cd/m2). Colours were generally accurate, though, and looked natural. Viewing angles in landscape mode were slightly better than we’d expect for a TN (Twisted Nematic) panel, so you don’t have to be sitting square on to see accurate colours. Backlighting was even and there was no light bleed, which appears as a bright strip of light at one of the edges.