I bought a new monitor today - a Samsung 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor (2253BW). It was either that or an LG 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor (W2252TQ). My last monitor was a Samsung as well, an old 17" CRT that was good for its time but was certainly showing its age. In the end, I chose the Sammy because it seemed to get somewhat better reviews on the internet. And it was cheaper.

I'm quite pleased with it so far, its much brighter than my old CRT. A little too bright right out of the box, I toned it right down to 50% brightness from the original 100%. The dynamic contrast is a bit of a joke, you can see the screen change as the monitor tries to compensate for changing brightness in games and movies. A useless feature, you're better off sticking with the static setting. The software that came with the monitor didn't work with my computer so I had to use the physical buttons on the front to adjust the settings. A bit of a pain in the ass.

The biggest drawback of this monitor is the backlight bleeding. On my unit, it's very noticeable on the bottom when the screen is displaying a blank (black) screen. I'll probably get used to it. After all, my last monitor had a Trinitron tube with the two black wires running across the screen and I put up with that. The stand has no height adjustment either, it just pivots up and down.

I haven't noticed any dead pixels so far. I played some of the game "Fear" and it looked excellent, no ghosting or lag. This monitor seems to do 1X1 pixel mapping, so you're screen is windowboxed on the sides when you play a game with a lower resolution than your desktop. Works well, no stretching distortion. The native resolution is 1680 x 1050, the standard resolution for most monitors these days. It came with a DVI cable as well as a VGA cable. Which was a relief as I didn't want to lose my savings from buying this unit on sale by having to buy a DVI cable. It has a nice black bezel, kind of a piano finish.