Samsung SyncMaster LD220HD

Aug 13th 2010

Introduction

People want it all these days. Phones that play music and movies, TVs that connect to the internet and ovens that do the dishes for you – ok we might’ve made that last one up. The humble computer monitor is also being extended beyond its usual use for outputting content from a PC – with improved connectivity options you can now connect a range of devices, such as games consoles and Blu-ray players directly to the PC monitor. Another way of extending the uses for PC monitors is by adding built in TV tuners – allowing them to be used as a TV screen as well as a monitor. The Samsung SyncMaster LD220HD is designed with this additional functionality in mind, featuring a DVB-T (digital video broadcast – terrestrial) tuner that allows the user to watch digital TV channels and listen to digital radio stations by a simple connection to a compatible aerial. It is worth noting that, unfortunately, FreeView HD is not available through DVB-T at the moment.

The LD220HD takes the whole ‘monitor as a TV’ concept one stage further, however; it is designed to be used as an additional screen for a laptop (hence the name of the series it belongs to: ‘LapFit’). Keeping this (largely) in mind, we put the Samsung SyncMaster LD220HD through its paces in a series of test scenarios. We also find out how the LD220HD fairs as a desktop monitor, given the lack of a normal monitor stand, and take the screen where it was never supposed to go. But don’t worry – no monitors were harmed in the making of this review.

Specifications

Well there is nothing extraordinary in the key specifications of the SyncMaster LD220HD, but as you have probably gathered by now the monitor includes a DVB-T tuner and built in speakers. There is also no shortage of connectivity options, which are discussed in a little bit of detail in the subsequent section of the review. We never specifically list ‘typical brightness’ given by a manufacturer as a key specification, as this is something we thoroughly test ourselves and often find the figures given to us by the manufacturers are of little use. Samsung claims the typical luminance of the panel to be 300cd/m2 – we test this claim, alongside the others, in our review of the LD220HD.

To read more about what all this means, please read the PC Monitors technology article

Features and aesthetics

Let’s not beat around the bush; the Samsung SyncMaster LD220HD is a fairly standard looking mass of glossy black plastic that looks as if it has lost its stand. In the right light, however, it actually becomes apparent that the bottom of the bezel is translucent, allowing you to see through the rear grill (ventilation – not for cooking burgers). There is a touch-sensitive control panel at the bottom right alongside a ‘white mesh effect’ touch-sensitive power button.

The LD220HD's face

The problem with this interface is that, owing to the lack of a normal monitor stand, the buttons are too low down and close to the desk and access can be a little awkward. But what TV or TV-monitor hybrid would be complete without a remote control? Samsung provide a very well laid out and easy to use remote control with the LD220HD. There are large and distinctly coloured volume and channel buttons as well as clearly labelled menu and navigation buttons.

You're in control

Thankfully; the controller allows you to access all layers of the LD220HD’s OSD (on-screen display). The OSD itself is not the standard Samsung affair and the menus certainly have a ‘TV’ look about them. Whilst visually appealing, the huge screen-filling menus seem a little OTT if you are just after a simple contrast, brightness or MagicBright mode adjustment. The clarity is certainly welcome if you are using the monitor as a TV and are stood some distance from it, however. Because the visual hotkeys on the front control panel are assigned to TV channel and volume control, there is no one-touch way to change brightness, contrast or MagicBright preset. This was the case in the DVI mode and D-Sub (‘PC’ mode) that we tested and it is doubtful that they would change to monitor control functions via HDMI connection either.

LD220HD OSD

When the monitor is turned on or off ‘cool’ sounds are emitted – this is basically the LD220HD’s way of saying “look at me, I’ve got built in speakers”. The ‘SRS TruSurround HD’ speakers of the LD220HD are up-firing as you can see in the picture below. You can also see the little ‘kick stand’ that supports the monitor – more on this a little later.

LD220HD from above

The quality of these speakers was actually surprisingly good. Whilst they probably won’t drop the jaws of any keen audiophiles out there, they are certainly fit for purpose. They are not the tinny affairs we are used to from most laptops and other hybrid monitors and they produce a sound with a decent amount of bassy fullness – enough to vibrate the table we were using.

So many inputs

A little further down the LD220HD’s rump you find a dazzling array of inputs. These include antenna input (RF), USB, several audio inputs (‘components’ and ‘phono’ inputs), DVI-D, HDMI, SCART and a ‘Common Interface’ (not visible in the image, but allows expansion of TV services etc.)

The LD220HD's waistline

To the left of inputs is the LD220HD’s kickstand, which can be seen from the side-shot above. The kickstand has very limited adjustability, as it only clicks into place at one position. It is possible to adjust the stand a few CM either side of this, kept in place by the weight of the monitor. The idea of the kickstand is that the LD220HD can be ported around between rooms and used as an extra TV and laptop screen. It’s a nice idea, although you can see how bulky the monitor is (30-40mm thick depending on how close to the centre you measure). This certainly isn’t ‘empty space’ in there, either; the LD220HD is packed full of ‘stuff’ and consequently weighs quite a lot. In terms of portability the whole notion of the ‘LapFit’ monitor is just begging for an LED backlight to help shed some bulk and weight – but this would no doubt affect another attractive feature of this monitor; the low price.

Performance

Calibration

We performed a basic calibration of the LD220HD using the ‘Display Color Calibration’ feature of Windows 7. Whilst the use of a colorimeter would undoubtedly have yielded better results (highly recommended for professional uses), we felt it was more appropriate and fair to use a by-eye calibration procedure that is readily accessible to home users. Due the ironically named CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) we had to wait 30 minutes or more for the screen to ‘warm up’ prior to calibration. It is always worth remembering that, as with any Twisted Nematic (TN) panel, the gamma curve of the monitor is viewing angle dependent. This means that you are only really calibrating specific points of the monitor from a particular viewing angle – if this is done by eye it is particularly important that your head height is as it would usually be when using the monitor. If you intend to use this monitor as a TV and laptop monitor then that is quite a big ask and it’s best not to fuss around too much with calibration.

The first test involved a quick calibration of the LD220HD’s gamma settings. Because of the clear shift with viewing angle and dynamic nature of our testing (i.e. using the screen as a desktop monitor, laptop monitor and TV), we left the gamma slider alone. The second test revealed that brightness could ‘happily’ be left alone at the default level of 100%, although some users may wish to lower this according to preferences. We lowered the contrast from the default 95% to 85% so that the shirt buttons and creases were visible in the third test image – a quick run through of Samsung’s ‘Natural Color Pro’ software revealed this to be an appropriate setting. All four circles (each a slightly different shade of white) were visible at 85% but not 95% contrast. The final test in the Windows 7 calibration procedure involved adjusting the colour balance of the monitor to achieve neutral greys. The LD220HD showed what appeared to be a slightly purple tinge and was therefore (theoretically) too strong in both blue and red or too weak in green. We therefore lowered the blue slider by a 1 notch and the red slider by 2 notches, which was a fairly modest effort. Realising we would be testing the monitor on a laptop and as a TV, we returned the sliders to full and instead adjusted the balance (‘gain’) of red, green and blue to 46, 50 and 48 (respectively).

After using the monitor for a bit with the new colour balance settings, we then decided the image appeared too green. This was particularly evident in whites as they were far from pure and looked like they had been splashed with pond water. It was a tough call, but we decided to up the red balance slightly to 48. It seems that the reason that these adjustments were so difficult to make, even with our well-trained eyes, was questionable colour and brightness uniformity. A good example of this is that whites appeared ‘dirty’ red at the top, particularly in the top right corner, and overly cool blue at the bottom. Even at 100% brightness the LD220HD didn’t treat us to the brilliant bright whites we have seen from other panels we’ve tested. Fine tuning the colour balance further proved to be an exercise in futility.

TV setup

Setting up the TV was a very simple step-by-step ‘plug and play’ procedure. The LD220HD picked up many digital TV and radio stations automatically, once the setup was run; working as a fully functional TV in a few minutes. In TV mode the monitor settings work slightly differently and needed to be adjusted again to our preferences. We lowered contrast to 85 as per the PC calibration and left brightness at the default ‘TV mode’ value of 60. Setting the brightness much lower resulted in an image that was too dim and much higher resulted in an image that was washed out. The ‘gain’ or colour balance slider was a simple continuum between ‘green’ and ‘red’, with no way of adjusting the balance of blue. We set the slider to G54, R46 to neutralise the oversaturated (red) skin tones. Samsung also provides a separate control for skin tone correction but this was not necessary after the tint adjustments.

Contrast and brightness

Samsung tell us that the LD220HD will output a typical brightness in the region of 300 cd/m2 range, a static contrast ratio of 1000:1 and a dynamic contrast ratio of 50,000:1. These figures are much in line with other similar screens from Samsung so they may well hold true in certain circumstances – but why cast doubts when we can instead test these claims?

We drew our trusty light meter from its protective holster and took aim at the screen – to test the LD220HD’s brightness (luminance) in an entirely white image, an entirely black image and the resulting contrast ratio using various manufacturer settings. This data (or at least – the meaningful portions of it) can be seen in the table below. Significant values are highlighted in blue and discussed in the subsequent section. All custom modes have contrast set to 100%, but Samsung’s MagicBright presets may vary contrast.

From the above table, you can see that Samsung’s claimed 1000:1 static contrast ratio could not be achieved at any setting. The highest static contrast ratio we recorded was just over 201:1, at 75% brightness – falling massively short of the 1000:1 specified. At any setting we tested at or above 60% brightness, blacks took on a moderate to severe purple tinge – it was clear from looking at the image and the black luminance levels that too much light was ‘leaking’ through the screen when darkness was intended. There was noticeable backlight bleed at the bottom and top edges of the screen at these settings, too. If the brightness was lowered to 40% that blacks in the centre of the screen start to look a bit deeper, but the bleed through at the edges still persisted and the overall image on the screen was a little dim for all but some basic office tasks at this setting. To get anything resembling deep and inky looking blacks required that the backlight was set as low as it could possibly go – a ‘0%’ brightness setting yielded a decent 0.31 cd/m2 black level but a maximum luminance of 40 cd/m2. This is by no stretch of the imagination acceptable for computing of any type and despite such a low reading the backlight bleed still persisted at the bottom (but not top) edge of the screen.

The peak luminance of 310 cd/m2 was recorded by enabling Samsung’s ‘Dynamic Contrast’ mode. The accompanying black luminance was so low that it was beyond the resolution of our lightmeter and recorded as <0.01 cd/m2. This gave a contrast ratio of >31,000 – so quite possibly reaching the 50,000:1 quoted by Samsung. You are probably wondering why, then, we don’t just ignore the relatively poor static contrast performance of the LD220HD and enable dynamic contrast? The reason for the ‘great’ figures achieved when using dynamic contrast is that the backlight intensity varies depending on the level of black and white (or dark and light) displayed on the screen. If an entirely black screen is displayed, the backlight shuts off completely (or very close to it) to give extremely low black luminance readings. If an entirely white screen is displays, the backlight goes on as strongly as it reasonably can to give the highest possible white luminance reading. In reality, scenes in games, movies and even just on the desktop are comprised of various areas of differing ‘lightness’ and this often changes rapidly. With the backlight constantly adjusting itself to compensate for these changes, you are left with a somewhat distracting and noticeable ‘dynamic contrast’ shift that in most instances is better turned off.

Back to useable settings – we recorded a luminance of 300cd/m2 by switching on the ‘Entertain’ MagicBright mode. This came at the expense of the highest black luminance level we recorded of a slightly shameful 1.78cd/m2. We also recorded a white luminance of 290cd/m2 by setting brightness in ‘Custom’ mode to 100%. These figures are much in line with the 300cd/m2 Samsung claims – this isn’t a particularly high luminance for gaming and movies (by for a modern TN panel) and even then it comes at the expense of slightly washed out blacks. So overall the contrast and brightness values given to use by the LD220HD weren’t inspiring too much confidence – but what does this all mean in reality?

black is white

When viewing digital television on the LD220HD the contrast and brightness was not perfect, but the overall TV viewing experience was still very good in this regard. The image didn’t exactly pop out of the screen (and we don’t mean literally – this isn’t a 3D monitor), but the blacks appeared reasonably dark and the image appeared surprisingly deep and full. There was some loss of detail in dark areas, however, and whites were not as pure as they could have been. We found that there was a very fine line washing out the image and creating a dull and displeasing experience – in the end we settled for the default 60% contrast. This was a kind of compromise as the image wasn’t all that bright and the contrast may have suffered (although somewhat less than it could have).

Returning to our custom calibrated profile on the LD220HD, connected to our PC, we ran a series of contrast performance tests using the Lagom LCD tests. These tests are designed to highlight any weakness in a monitor’s performance, no matter how inconsequential.

Performance in the contrast test was surprisingly good. Despite some static dithering at the low end, distinct brightness steps were visible for all but the first 2 blue bars. We suspect that this is partly due to the relatively low luminance at the high end.

The black level tests seemed impressive at first, with every block distinguishable from the background. Upon closer inspection there were traces of static dithering in some cases and many of the shades looked remarkably similar and indistinct. We also noticed very slight amounts of temporal dithering, but Samsung’s algorithms mask this very well. This test was also clearly influenced by vertical viewing angle. Not only did shades shift with head movements; all blocks were considerably darker if the image was placed further up the screen (i.e. by scrolling down). Such was this effect that at the top end of the screen the first 4 blocks actually appeared darker than the ‘pure black’ background. The contrast here also allowed you to see that the ‘pure black’ background is actually purple-tinted.

White saturation test results were fair – all but the last 3 blocks were distinguishable from the ‘pure white’ background. We use the term ‘pure white’ loosely as it was not particularly bright and, as aforementioned; the white is cooler (blue) at the bottom and almost a dirty looking red at the top. No amount of contrast adjustment would magically reveal all squares on this test. Only by lowering your head so you are looking up at the screen could you see what you ideally should see – this is another example of the viewing angle limitations of this TN LCD panel.

The LD220HD displayed a reasonably smooth greyscale gradient. There was some minor banding at the low end and a slight flicker in the central region that was probably due mainly to temporal dithering.

Colour reproduction

As mentioned previously, the LD220HD required a little colour rebalancing and even then poor colour uniformity made the task difficult. Because of the viewing angle limitations of the twisted internals of the TN panel, ‘colour shifts’ are exhibited. This means that a colour at one point of the screen won’t appear the same as that same colour at another point of the screen. Needless to say the LD220HD won’t win any awards for consistent colour accuracy.

Overall the image lacked a bit of vibrancy and subtle tones in the colour department, but the LD220HD still displayed a quite pleasing range of colours with a good natural (and not oversaturated) aesthetic. For the purposes of TV viewing the panel did an admirable job its colour rendition; with pleasing (pink- peach) skin tones, earthy browns and good splashes of colour where needed. We found deep blues particularly pleasing, although it is common for TN LCD panels to be relatively strong at this corner of the gamut. The LD220HD also impressed with the striking red of a Ferrari being tested on Top Gear, though the range of reds displayed was less impressive. It should be noted that whilst the TV can be wall-mounted, the viewing angles may prohibit proper viewing if you are to be sat below the screen. Samsung includes a ‘nifty’ feature called MagicAngle which can improve the viewing angles slightly if you are leaning back or to one side looking at the monitor. Unfortunately it isn’t ‘magic’ enough to solve the inherent viewing angle issues associated with TN LCD panels such as this one.

Due to the solid blocks of vivid but varied colour, we decided that Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder would be a good test of colour reproduction. One noticeable feature pertaining, again, to limited viewing angles, was that the skin colours (in particular) of the characters changed depending on the position on screen. This was also observed on many other objects in the movie but was particularly noticeable on the skins. In terms of striking colours, the only real noteworthy thing was that the shocking bright pinks were impressively vibrant. Elsewhere colours were less vibrant but showed a decent range of hues.

To reinforce the idea of colour shifts and the limitations of the SyncMaster LD220HD’s viewing angles; we used the viewing angle tests of Lagom. The purple block appeared purple at the top and pink at the bottom with considerable ‘pinkness shift’ and even some flashes of blue in accordance with head movement. The red block appeared pink at the top and something resembling red near the bottom with a ‘pink shift’ if head movement was added – it never appeared a true red, except if glancing upwards from beneath the screen. The green block in the Lagom test took on a yellow hue at times if you moved your head up and down and only appeared a rich green if looking up at the monitor from below. As expected from a modern LCD panel, blue block appeared impressively solid with only a minor shift in brightness according to head movement. Because most colours shift in this way the LD220HD is unsuitable for users requiring high levels of colour accuracy – this probably shouldn’t be news to anybody, though.

The video below shows the colour shifts exhibited by the LD220HD on both the ‘lagom text’ and what is supposed to be a solid red block. You can see the colours invert and shift wildly as the camera is moved around the screen.

Response times

The LD220HD proved to be a responsive panel during TV viewing. Even next to a 100Hz CRT panel the motion appeared fairly smooth and fluid. Fast scrolling white text and straight edges during scenes with heavy panning or rapid movements did leave a slight trail – but nothing too severe. The Futurama Blu-ray featured solid colours moving against each other and proved to be an excellent test of the LD220HD’s response time. During fast action scenes trailing was evident, although this is almost inevitable with any LCD panel given the scenario. The bold black lines in the movie also accentuated this effect.

Desktop computer use (gaming)

The review thus far has focused on the LD220HD being used as it was intended – a laptop accompaniment and TV, rather than a desktop monitor. Our laptop, like many out there, is no gaming powerhouse and we didn’t want to limit ourselves to Minesweeper and Backgammon. For desktop use the lack of a proper desktop stand means that the monitor sits a little low on the desk and blacks and colours appear more washed out than they should due to the viewing angle. Setting MagicAngle to ‘standing’ mode got rid of the washed out look, but replaced it with an equally unattractive dim look – as if the brightness needed to be turned up despite being at 100%. We tried enabling the ‘entertain’ MagicBright preset to see if it helped, but it actually just made things even more washed out. Despite these issues we ran a couple of games to test the monitor out – the first of which was Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. The LD220HD displayed this game in a way that was not oversaturated so in a way keeping with the natural aesthetic intended for the game. The poor contrast, however, meant that darker areas of the game lacked definition. Elsewhere there was a lack of depth which made the experience less engrossing – explosions, fires and other bright flashes weren’t in your face (maybe a good thing for our in-game character). The LD220HD was fairly responsive in this game, although small and frequent trails could be seen if you looked closely. The relatively low brightness and lack of contrast made this less distinctive. In the second game we tested, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the experience proved to be fairly lacklustre – the visual experience trailed behind the fantastic audio being pumped out by our Xonar D2X. Colours lacked boldness (with the exception of some pretty decent deep greens) and the desert glare and explosions lacked the wow factor that we have seen from some other monitors. This is usually a game where moments of brilliant dashing colours or accentuated brightness jump out at us, but alas; nothing spectacular from the LD220HD and just a decent overall experience. Trailing in this game was a little more noticeable than in Dragon Rising due to the pace of the action and the inherent contrasts within the game. Nonetheless, gameplay seemed pretty smooth and even to our trained eyes there was nothing overly distracting such as severe flaring or ghosting.

Conclusion

With the SyncMaster LD220HD ‘LapFit’, Samsung are trying to give people a bit more from their portable computing experience. Not only does the compact kickstand make the monitor more portable – it also allows for the slightly laid back viewing experience that many users would like from their laptop. But what if the user wants a break from their laptop and perhaps wants to watch a bit of TV? Well Samsung have that covered, too, with the built in DVB-T tuner, ‘SRS TruSurround HD’ speakers and nifty (and well laid out) remote control. For general computing and TV viewing, the LD220HD did a decent job and pumped out some pretty decent pictures and surprisingly deep and pleasing sound to go with it.

Looking past its novel charm, however, reveals that the performance of the monitor is far from perfect. Our testing and general experience with the monitor revealed that it falls short in several key areas of image quality – contrast is not quite up to par and nowhere near what is claimed, image brightness appears relatively low and in some case this makes the whole image appear washed out. Responsiveness of the monitor was pretty good and there are certainly some panels out there that provide a far worse experience in this regard (and some that would provide a better one). We encountered no problems with sharpness, resolution or screen size that would prevent it doing what it was intended to do. In terms of its ‘bulk’ and weight, we couldn’t help feeling that this kind of monitor would be the perfect candidate for LED backlighting. This would make it just that extra bit portable and would possibly give it an extra edge in the brightness department – if it wasn’t for the price of Samsung’s LED backlighting then this monitor would be screaming out for it. If we could describe our overall experience with the LD220HD in one word, it would be ‘decent’. This is an attractive package from Samsung and given the price (around £200 at the time of review) this should certainly be one to consider for those after a bit more screen real estate from their laptop with the added benefit of TV functionality. For those wanting a dedicated desktop computer monitor, at this price; you will probably want to invest in something with a proper desktop monitor stand and perhaps sacrifice the TV functionality for a little more screen size or better image quality.

PC Monitors score – 63%