Samsung SyncMaster 70 Goes Green

Samsung has just given us a glimpse at its new green monitor. There is not a lot of information out yet, but what we do know is that the SyncMaster 70 Series consumes 33 percent less energy than any other Samsung and that's enough to make AL Gore proud.

A typical desktop computer uses about 65 to 250 watts. With most devices you can look at the label to see how much energy they use, but that doesn't work so well with computers. As far as monitors go they use any where from 35 to 80 watts. So saving 33 percent is something worth looking into.

The Syncmaster gives you a choice of 20 or 23 inch display screens and it sports a 50000:1 contrast ration, 2ms response time. There is no word when it will be available to purchase and the screen resolution is still a mystery. But the big question is the price. We'll just have to wait and see how much money along with electricity we can save.

Samsung BD-P1600 Blu Ray Player

Most of us remember when home entertainment went from the good 'ol VHS tape to the DVD. But probably all of us remember when we switched from DVD to either HD DVD or Blu Ray DVD. For awhile, there was a big "war" between the two systems. Everybody was worrying about which ones to get, which one was better. Even the new video game consoles got involved. The Xbox 360 went the way of HD DVD and Sony's PS3 turned to Blu Ray. In the end, we all know who won, and if you don't, then try going to Walmart and asking for an HD DVD player and see what happens.

Samsung was the first producer to come out with a standalone Blu Ray player. However, as of 2008, Samsung was starting to trail the pack working hard to keep up with Panasonic. While Panasonic was shipping its first Profile 2.0, Samsung was still launching their 1.1. Samsung promised that future versions would be up to par and now, it seems, the tides have shifted.

Samsung has just launched the BD-P1600 which comes complete with all the features one expects on a Blu Ray player. The P1600 comes with Profile 2.0 compatibility, and onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. But Samsung's BD-P1600 goes above and beyond the norm. The P1600 provides improved operational speed, Netflix and {andora streaming, and the ability to to add Wi-Fi capabilities by way of a USB dongle, which is sold separately. But not all is well in the land of the BD-P1600. Users of the player have one major fault, the flip down panel that runs along the entire front of the system.

The seamless and sleek front panel design. On first look, you wonder where the disc tray is, until you realize that the whole front flips down. The eject button and on/off button are all located behind the panel, which gets tedious when you want to do something. The panel does pop up and down whenever you eject the disc tray with the remote. But the panel does feel very weak and it wouldn't surprise anybody if the tray broke off or stopped popping back up. There is also a USB port under the panel if you want to use it for something like BD-Live Storage. You are forced to use this port because the back one is taken by the Wi-Fi adapter. You will also have to perminatley have the panel down if you use the USB port which looks tacky.

It is obvious that you will be using the remote more often than the buttons on the system. The remote that comes with the system is a good redesign over the previous model's remote. However, here are some problems. Fortunately, most of the buttons are logically placed with a good separation. Yet important buttons like pop-up menu, disc menu, and title menu are stuck at the bottom of the remote and, to make it worse, are unclearly labeled. Another feature that would have been great to see on the remote is easy access buttons for Netflix and Pandora. To activate these features you will have to dive into the menu system, yet it really isn't much of a hassle.

The interface for the player is visually nice. It has bright colors and HD graphics. However, some may not be fans of the vertical alignment for the set-up menus which could be confusing to some. But luckily you do not have to go into these menus very often so it doesn't amount to a huge issue. On the flipside, the interfaces for Netflix and Pandora are great. The Netflix interface is identical to the Netflix Player by Roku. And, like all Netflix instant streaming devices.

The BD-P1600, like most 2009 Blu Ray players, is Profile 2.0 compatible. This means it can play back the internet enabled BD-Live available but you will need to have the player connected to the internet via an ethernet cord or the Wi-Fi and have a USB connected for storage.

The BD-P1600 has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. What this means is that this player can decode those soundtrack formats so they can be played back on almost every single HDMI-capable AV receiver. Also supported is Bit stream output, in case you want your decoding to be done in your AV receiver. And the P1600 also has the capability to play DVDs with DTS formats like DTS 96/24, ES, ES Matrix, and Neo:6. This player has standard connectivity with the main connection being the HDMI output which can handle 1080p HD video and high-resolution multichannel audio. This player also comes with a component taht allows you to play Blu-Ray at 1080i and DVDs at 480p. Audio connections are also basic which includes an optical digital-audio output and an analog-stereo output.

The BD-P1600 performs well overall on visual performance. It is very responsive and loads movies and menu screens faster than most Blu-Ray DVD players. The player performs well a=on almost all Blu-Ray movies and, since there are way more standard DVDs than Blu-Ray ones, it is important that this device play those DVDs in good quality as well, and it does.

Overall the Samsung BD-P1600 is one of the best Blu-Ray players on the market. It is a step up from Panasonic's devices and a large step up from Samsung's previous models. The BD-P1600 has a price tag of around $252.99 to $299.99 depending on where you buy. However, this price is raised a bit considering you have to by the Wi-Fi dongle separately which will run you around another $80. But with this price tag comes quality. Nearly all reviews of this device have received a rating of 4 out of 5. A good by if you are in the market for a Blu-Ray player or just want to blow your tax refund check on a piece of technology.

The Best HDTV Today

With all the makers of HDTVS (High Definition) clamming to be the best on the market it’s hard to know which one is the “Best” for you. Here are the ones cnet.com found to be the best for the money.

The Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-111FD Produces the deepest black levels of any large-screen display it has extremely accurate color points and color temperature; superb antireflective screen; 72Hz refresh mode works well with 1080p/24 sources; Pure picture mode delivers superior settings out of the box; extensive picture controls; excellent connectivity, including 4 HDMI and one PC input. The Pioneer Elite PRO-111FD represents the pinnacle of flat-panel HDTV picture quality. Starting at $2,549.00 it may just be the “Best” HDTV you can buy.


If the Pioneer is not what you’re looking for then maybe the Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ800U is more to your liking. It highly accurate color; excellent uniformity with little false contouring; THX mode obviates in-depth calibration; relatively effective antireflective screen; solid connectivity with four HDMI and one PC input; with a price of $ 2,767.00

New Dell Crystal 22-inch Monitor

Dell has just released a brand new 22 inch monitor called Dell Crystal. It’s award winning design makes this new monitor one of the best looking 22 inch monitors around. Winning best of innovations at CES 2008 this monitor has a very unique look with its polished metal tripod stand, and its outside frame of tempered glass. Both the buttons and the speakers are built into the outside layer of glass making it truly stand out from your everyday monitor.

Panel Performance
The Dell Crystal has a native resolution of 1650 x 1050, a lightning 2-millisecond response time, and a high contrast ratio of 2000:1. Crystal also features a 98% color gamut verses the typical 72% color gamut, making it have a much broader range of colors.

The monitor also comes with a built in 2-megapixel webcam and 4 integrated speakers.

Some drawbacks on a sleek monitor like this is obviously the price. Coming in at $500 (and that is on sale it normally costs $1000) it is about double the cost of a normal 22 inch monitor. Also with the tripod stand there is also no height adjustment on the monitor and the glass smudges very easily.

Overall a great monitor if you are willing to pay for the premium.

Ghostbust Your Plasma

Have you ever turned off your TV or monitor and there was a ghostly image on the screen? This ghost is referred to as plasma burn. Plasma burn occurs when there is uneven wear in phosphors on a phosphor based screen, whenever a static image is left on the screen for too long; especially a high contrast image the potential for burn in is there.

Newer plasma based tubes include burn-in reduction features. Screen savers and pixel shifting help with the prevention of burn in. Pixel shifting is a slight unnoticeable shift in the image a by one or two pixels. If a ghost does happen many new sets can blast a burn-in with a white image for several minutes to hour. Cable and satellite service providers help with preventing burn in by giving you the option of changing pillar boxes that can also burn in by changing them from black to grey.

Potential for burn-in is greatest during the first 100 or so hours of use, during that time if you keep the contrast low and avoid showing static images or letterbox bars on the screen for long stretches of time it will help prevent any burn-ins. You might get some image retention once in awhile if you look hard enough after hours of static images, but even then it's temporary, not permanent. Video games may be a worry because of static logos that are in the corner of the screen but as long as you wait till after the first 100 hours before any long use it should be fine. Just keep mixing it up. Also, cheaper models of TVs are more prone to burn-in like the Insignia, but a good rule is not to go too cheap if you want to play it safe.

LCD Monitor Picture Quality Challenge CRT Displays

Picture Quality of LCD Monitors, Are We There Yet?


The days of heavy CRT based monitors weighing down your desk and occupying valuable workspace is pretty much an artifact of the past. The mass transition to the lighter and thinner LCD monitor is nearly complete. However, even as the last few holdouts cling to their favorite CRT, questions of picture quality still arise. While the LCD’s have replaced CRT’s on desks around the globe, the main complaints have been inaccurate colors and hard to read text. This was a serious problem in early LCD models, but gradual improvements of the technology behind the LCD’s have eliminated complaints from all but the most picky of consumers. So are we there yet?

Modern LCD’s have not only grown in screen size while decreasing in cost, but many have beautiful and functional displays as well. Screen brightness and refresh rates have nearly matched their CRT counterparts, allowing gamers to play the latest shooters, and artists and photographers work on their masterpieces using the latest technology. The latest models also offer nice extras such as USB ports and HDMI connections for video applications.

As with most things, it’s still a matter of “you get what you pay for.” There are still some cheap models that have the same issues that have previously plagued adoption of the technology. However, even most mid-priced models and above have overcome the majority of issues and are ready for prime time. There are even a few inexpensive gems out there.

Street prices for LCD monitors range from $99 on up, with the best values found in the $199 to $249 range.

So, are we there yet? The answer is a resounding yes!

Samsung SyncMaster 305T 30" LCD Monitor

Everybody loves things that are big. Big cars, big houses, big t.v.'s and now it seems that the love for anything big is spilling over to the computer world. Until recently, monitors didn't come in very large sizes like t.v.'s or anything like that. The biggest one you could previously get waqs around 24 inches. But our insatiable desire for big has driven us to upgrade.

Now you can get a computer monitor in a 30 inch size! There are only a handful of vendors in the market supplying this monster monitor: Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, and Samsung. Samsung has come out with the SyncMaster 305T LCD monitor that is, obviously, 30 inches. Now unlike other monitors, the SyncMaster does not come with a ton of feature sets. Included with the monitor you get one DVI ort, a USB 2.0 cable for the integrated hub, and an AC power cord.

The SyncMaster sports a 2,560x1,600 resolution but in order to view it like this you are going to need a high-end video card and a dual-link DVI cable because if you use a single-link cable then your video card will not support it thus making the highest resolution 1,920x1,440. If you like to tinker with the settings of your monitor then you will be sad to know that the only thing you can alter is the brightness. To adjust something like contrast, you must access the monitor's panel which is locked by Samsung. However, if you have a video card that has these abilities then you can adjust them from there.

The video connections for the Syncmaster are also limited. Other than the DVI port on the back left side of the monitor there are no other connection options. There are, on the other hand, four USB downstream ports and one USB upstream ports. As expected with such a big monitor it supports HDCP. A downer for this monitor is that it does not have any HDMI or component video connections which greatly limits the number of devices the screen can be connected to. You can extend the height of the screen 3" and can rotate it 30 degrees to the back and 60 degrees to the left and right by way of a lazy susan design.

The SyncMaster 305T is impressive no matter what you use it for. It plays blu-ray and regular DVD's with incredible clarity boasting a 999:1 contrast ratio. The monitor also works gretat for gaming. The picture is so clear its like you are there in the game. This 30 inch monitor is top of the line all around. While it could come with a few more features it is definatley one to look for if you are in the market. The Samsung SyncMaster 305T 30" LCD monitor comes under a price tag of around $1,330 but can normally be found cheaper online, but $1,330 is still a great deal compared to some of the other models out there so you can't go wrong with the SyncMaster 305T.