REVIEW: Samsung 226BW Part 13

The widescreen format is also an advantage for programs such as Flash, Photoshop or Freehand, as corresponding windows and viewing panes can be positioned beside the workspace.

Users who like to read E-Books or often work with PDF files can look forward to a pleasant pixel size and the possibility to place two brochure pages (for example) next to each other.

Responsiveness

The TN panel built into the Samsung 226BW features overdrive technology and therefore manages a black-to-black response time of 5 ms and a grey-to-grey response time of 2 ms according to Samsung. The overdrive can temporarily be deactivated in the menu of the Samsung 226BW; this lasts until the monitor is switched off.

Fast-paced action games such as Far Cry, Serious Sam 2, Half Life 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 and GTA San Andreas are displayed by the Samsung 226BW with no streaking. Motion blurring is also noticeably reduced by the overdrive technology and can be appreciated without the need to increase the speed.

In artificial tests such as PixPerAn, clear streaks are visible without overdrive technology, e.g. in the chase test. When overdrive is activated, dark borders replace the streaks. However, no corona effect arose in the test programs or in the actual games. The juddering often caused by overdrive technology was also absent; we played both with and without overdrive to make a comparison. According to Samsung, the overdrive technology used counts just one frame ahead.

We paid particular attention to any jerking or tearing both in game-playing and in the PixPerAn test program because the user guide for the Samsung 226BW gives a vertical frequency of 59.965 Hz at the standard resolution of 1.680 x 1.050. We discovered no irregularities in either case and therefore concluded that the Graphics card and the LCD operate simultaneously where image frequency is concerned.

We rate the Samsung 226BW as very good for gaming and would also recommend the monitor to those who play frequently. However, there is much competition in the 22-inch category, so hardcore gamers should also consider other quality indicators when deciding which monitor to buy.

Interpolation

When interpolating the Samsung 226BW, you must bear in mind that LCD apparently does not pass the resolution of 1.440 x 900 on to the graphics card by DDCi. This resolution is also absent from the user guide of the monitor. Nonetheless, the Samsung 226BW is of course in the position to display 1.440 x 900 as full screen.

This works without any difficulty on the Nvidia 6600GT graphics card we used when this resolution was set manually in the driver. However, the ATI Catalyst driver has some difficulty with this task: the resolution is displayed only with a black border on both of the ATI cards available to us (9800pro, X850XT).

Because the Samsung 226BW does not offer the option to control the interpolation behaviour of the monitor from the hardware side, users with ATI cards must simply wait for new driver versions from ATI.

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