>>Eric Franklin: Hi everyone, this is Eric Franklin from CNET.com and today we're taking a first look at the Samsung Syncmaster PX2370. While still a good looking monitor, the PX isn't quite as sexy looking as last years XL. The neck is made of transparent glass. However, the PX doesn't include the bluish crystals found at the bottom of the XL's neck. We didn't like that Samsung replaced the power button to the center of the bezel instead of the far right. The circular foot stand wobbles considerably when knocked from the sides. Like the XL, the screen height isn't adjustable and there isn't a screen rotation or pivot option for portrait mode. The option to tilt the screen back 15 degrees is the only ergonomic feature included.
The PX mirrors the connection options of the XL, including DVI and HDMI and both analog and digital audio out connections. Aligned vertically along the back right side of the monitor the PX's OSD array is invisible from the front. Pressing any of the buttons brings up an onscreen menu where each choice is aligned horizontally to the OSD buttons and corresponds to each of them. Picture options consists of brightness, contrast and sharpness. You can also set the color temperature and change the red, green and blue values separately. There are also four presets with each preset changing the color temperature and or the brightness of the display to be appropriate to the task at hand.
The PX includes a number of magical features not seen on the XL. First up is magic looks, an ambient light sensor that adjusts the display's brightness depending on the amounts of ambient light in the room. Magic eco is a power saving feature that essentially allows you to set the brightness to 175 or 50 percent. Finally, magic angle prevents the screen from darkening when viewed from off angles.
In games we noticed no signs of input lag or any streaking or ghosting during fast movement and colors looked just as good as they did on the XL. In power consumption, the PX would cost $7.65 per year to run compared with the XL's $10 per year. At only $309, $9 more than the XL, the PX edges out its predecessor in value thanks to its abundance of features and improved movie playback performance.
Once again, this has been Eric Franklin and this has been a first at the Samsung Syncmaster PX2370.
