LCD technology has long evolved since its early days. I still remember like it was yesterday when we were ordering Sony G400 19" displays for the office, thus being top of the line CRT monitors from Sony electronics capable of a 1600x1200 resolution at 60 Hz. Sure, they were bulky, heavy but the picture quality was simply great. LCD monitors were starting to be more and more affordable around that time but paying 650$ for a 15" LCD screen was still not an option.

Back a few years ago, I've always thought that on the basis of image quality alone, LCD screens were the perfect choice for the office work and largely text based or detailed graphics while CRT technology always had the upper hand for high end photographic and design work.

Today I no longer believe LCD monitors can be considered as simple office displays, depending of the different panel technologies used in the production of the LCD monitor, it can suit the needs of simple home users and go all the way to the professional level for people working under color critical environments and much more.

In this article we are taking a look at Samsung's Sync Master T220 22" display. I don't think Samsung needs an introduction for most; they have been one of the major players in the LCD area since the late 90's. In fact, if you've been following us since the early days, we worked with several Samsung LCD offerings and let me tell you that a lot of things have changed in this game since.

I was very satisfied with their products; they always managed to have something unique about their offerings, whether it was pleasant esthetics or exclusive features that managed to differ themselves from the competition. Let’s see if the Samsung SyncMaster T220 will continue their trend.

Overview

While unpacking the T220, the attention went directly to its attractive bezel. This is Samsung's new Touch of color bezel giving it an eye-catching and modern finish. The frame features slightly curved edges on a translucent strip of deep red along the bottom. The bezel itself is covered with a soft clear plastic coat giving the T220 more of a plasma TV / LCD TV look, we found it so striking that we think it would look better in a living room instead of an office. If you have been in the market for an LCD TV in the past weeks, you might have noticed that the T220 shares the same design as Samsung's newest HDTV's.

All the menu buttons on the T220 are hidden along the right edge of the display. The power button is touch sensitive and is present on the front, in fact it's not really a button it's more of an icon that you simply touch to turn it on.

Something that I like about Samsung monitors is the saved image presets, you can choose from custom, text, internet, game, sport, movie and dynamic contrast with the press of a button. The OSD menu itself is very straight forward and easy to use. I've been personally using a 24" Samsung 245BW screen at the office for the past year and can include that I'm very happy with its internal adjustments via OSD; it's not like some monitors that can offer these enhanced cute 3D like OSD menus but that can very difficult to figure out.

The back of the unit spots the same soft clear plastic coat along a Samsung logo printed in the middle. The VGA, DVI and power ports are hidden under a piece of flexible plastic needing to be snapped off in order to install the cables. I must say I was a bit worried when I was taking it away, fearing that I might break the clips, but do not get frighten, everything goes in and out without any problems. I must say that it's a great design improvement and most importantly a great method to hide these unattractive back connections present on most LCDs.

Samsung bundles both the VGA and DVI cables in the box; most LCDs usually include only 1 cable; the standard VGA or DVI.

Something unfortunate with this product was the lack of a HDMI port; sharing the same design with Samsung's latest HDTV line, I would have expected them to take more examples from their TV's. An HDMI port would have been perfect for people who want to use their DVD player or gaming console with the T220.

The T220 fully supports HDCP for displaying high definition protected content. The T220’s native resolution is 1680 x 1050 meaning that 1080p will only be viewable with video scaling.

A major feature with the T220 is the fast 2ms pixel response time, movies appeared crisp and clear and games without any signs of ghosting. In terms of performance, I was very impressed this product, the color reproduction and contrast are optimal and most importantly, spending hours in front of this monitor can be a pleasure!

After some searches on the web, we found the T220 selling online for around 280$ USD, despite the fact that it’s priced a little more than a standard 22” LCD monitor you can be sure that you are getting what you pay for. Without going back to mention its eye-catching design again; if you are in the market for a quality LCD monitor and image quality and color reproduction is of main concern, the T220 might be what you’re looking for!