Look at what I got for christmas – a 21.5 inch Samsung LCD monitor! ( Actually this was a present from me to myself, and I had to borrow money from my mum. Will return her after I get my work pay ) As you can see I did a major reshuffle of all the clutter on my table in order to accommodate the big monitor – the CPU is now on the floor together with my subwoofer while the table is much neater with only the speakers, modem and wireless receiver for my keyboard. The entangled mess of wires is cleverly hidden by the big screen!

( Read the rest of the review after the jump! )

The reason why I changed my monitor is because there is no input on my old one for the Xbox 360 VGA cable. The Samsung 2233SW is apparently HD-ready ( by using a DVI-HDMI adapter ) and supports both DVI and analog. I’m using DVI on my computer now and the image quality at 1920 X 1080 resolution is absolutely brilliant – this is coupled with the fact that I’ve been staring at a puny HP 15″ flat screen monitor for 4 years now. While games played at such high resolutions will definitely make gamers cream their pants, the problem is my computer’s specifications aren’t that good enough. So for example World in Conflict with high settings set for the old 15″  monitor with little lag now had some framerate issues. Toning down certain options improved the framerate but because I was reluctant to reduce all high settings, there was still some lag. Battlefield 2 was a joke – because it was an old game from 2004 the highest resolution was 1280 X 960 so the graphics were significantly more pixelated than on the 15″ screen. Battlefield 3 would definitely solve the problem as new games support higher resolutions, but for now that still remains nothing more than an internet rumour. This leaves me wondering whether I should return to the HP monitor for normal computer usage and use the Samsung only for the 360. But that’s quite troublesome and a second monitor would no doubt make my desk look like the display shelf at an IT store.

Now the only real problem is that my monitor has only 2 positions, reclined back by around 10 degrees and forward by 3-5 degrees. This is a bit strange and I believe it is a manufacturing fault with the stand as there definitely should be a default upright position which is easier to view. I shall contact Samsung tomorrow and keep you updated. Otherwise, this is definitely 300 dollars well spent!

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UPDATE #1: The wobbly problem occured because I took out the rubber insert from the monitor where the stand was to be attached. It was so tight that I spent half an hour trying to fit it in with no success, so thinking that it was probably some sort of protection I took it out to widen the hole. So now that the rubber piece is supposed to be inside, I have no idea how to fit the monitor without accidentally breaking the screen into two. Apparently this is a common problem with all 2233SW users – and they somehow managed to solve it themselves, with brute strength perhaps? Oh well, I will definitely call the shop tomorrow to see what can be done.

UPDATE #2: I brought the monitor back to the shop to get it done right. It does require a bit of force which I’m lacking. So now everything’s cool.