Samsung 940BW
Size: 19″
Aspect Ratio: 16:10
Pixel Format: 1440 x 900
Brightness: 300 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio: 500:1
Response Time: 4ms
Viewing Angle: 160/160
Input: VGA, DVI-D
Availability: June 28, 2007 in India
Samsung introduced its 940 BW 19″ wide LCD monitor in India on June 28. The monitor has a 1440 x 900 resolution and has a 16:10 aspect ratio. Although ChannelTimes is indicating that two whole A4 size pages can be viewed side by side, that is not true. A4 size pages are even longer than letter sizes and not even 1680 x 1050 resolutions can handle two letter sized pages at 100% in Microsoft Word. You need at least a 1920 x 1200 resolution display to do that, barely.
Samsung is also planning to introduce other wide format LCD monitors with 20″ and 21″ in the third quarter of 2006. The funny thing about Samsung is that it does not know which size to choose since the company has 19″, 20″, and 21″ sizes all in wide. I would not be surprised to see 22″ soon. The 940 BW has high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP) probably working in conjunction with a DVI connection. The unit sports a 4ms response time.
Update 2008.04.16
The 940BW is hard to come by these days. I did a quick check on PriceGrabber and there are only two results: one is open-box and the other is refurbished. How times fly. But the prices are great. You can get the open-box version for just $159 (plus tax and shipping). Also, what I didn’t mention before is that most 19″ wide LCD panels are of the TN+Film variety, which have fairly fast response times (great for gaming) but is not as good at viewing angles compared to larger (and more expensive) PVA or IPS based units. Of course, at just $159, you shouldn’t expect too much.
Source: ChannelTimes.com
{ 12 comments }
Well Samsung people are ridiculous, i bought this monitor, none of them told me that you need WXGA card for it, i didn’t get clear resoulution on any settings, and when i went to return it they said that i have to go to service center and if they people said that there is problem with this piece then they will replace it or take it back.
And when i went to service center, service center technicians said that you will get blurred text in TFT you will not get clearer than that… i was shocked with this reply i m already using a 17 inch TFT monitor with superb text quality.
And now they are not ready to take it back, i have got HP 19 inch TFT and that is working fine on same hardware.
so think before you go for this product….. now my money is blocked they are not taking it back and i m going to screw them, sending Samsung India, legal notice and will get them to consumer court.
dyadav@gmail.com
This is a very ridiculous product, i m starving to return it back but they are not taking it back, don’t go for this product.
I am not sure if Samsung support gave you the right information by stating that you need a WXGA card. New resolutions can be a pain sometimes. May I recommend going to the website of your graphics card maker (nVidia, ATi, etc.) and downloading the latest graphics drivers for your operating system. Usually, this solves the problem of the OS/graphics drivers not supporting a new resolution such as Samsung 940BW’s 1440 x 900. Please let me know if this solves your problem. I hope it does. Cheers!
I have nVidia GE Force FX5200 on my pc, with updated drivers, i had already done this the day i bought Samsung 940 BW and installed it on my PC, it didn’t resolved my issue.
Samsung should test their product and release a compatibility list and should mention clearly about it and should educated their service center ppls as well as Distributors and dealers before launching such products in market.
dear dyadav,
i bought the bw940 monitor last week and i had exactly the same problems as u!
After spending many hours at my computer and after several arguments with the guys at the shop, who refused to take back the monitor i finally found the solution.
i think u don’t need a wxga card to fix the problem. nvidia cards do not have as default resolution 1440×900 at 60Hz
what u have to do is either insert these values directly to the registry (regedit in the command line of windows, ..search, try and u ‘ll find it or if not write me back for further help) or add from the nvidia settings-menu the proper resolution at proper Hz (be careful it works only at 60Hz)
i tried it and it worked with my grafic-card (nvidia Go6200) i guess it works also with yours.
Don’t worry about changing the registry if the resolution is not supported by your card it will automatically change.
;-)
good luck
Dear adrosou,
I have the same problem with my new GNR 19 inch widescreen monitor which works with 1440 by 900 resolution. I used to connect my laptop (Dell Latitude X1) to this monitor and I could set 1440 by 900 resolution successfully for a couple of weeks. Suddenly this setting on my laptop disappeared. I have contacted both GNR and Dell and updated my graphic card (Intel 915GMS), no success.
As a last resort I would like to follow your direction to insert the setting directly to the registry. I just don’t know how to do it. Could you please help me with more details?My email is “ghavami_ir@yahoo.co.uk”
Many thanks
Hi,
Had the same problem but fixed by installing the latest drivers for my Matrox G 550 dual head and an utility soft that allows to choose the matching resolution for the monitor. Now my samsung 940BW is perfect, text and movies/photos as well! It’s a great monitor trust me.
I bought this monitor yesterday and I was not at all happy with it at first. The text was blurred. but after some googling i found that none of the websites (or blogs) mentioned this issue. after some experimenting i found the solution to this problem:
The resolution must always match the aspect ratio of the monitor, in this case it is 16:10, so the most ideal resolutions for this resolutions are 1028 by 768 and 1440 by 900. use these reolutions then u should be able to see crystal clear text. if not then read on…
Some times there is a timing issue with the cards. now try to set the timing mode of the graphics card to General Timing Formula if it is not.
If you are still seeing garbled text then first press the auto button on the monitor and if you are still not satisfied the do some coarse and fine adjustment.
Hopefully this should solve the blur problem. If u feel the text is too sharp (If you did some too much fine tuning :) then enable the clear type fonts and Viola! U’ll know that you possess one of the best monitors in the world!
-Vamsy
(vamsum_kris@yahoo.com)
pardon me. The resolutions to be tried are 1280 by 768 instead of 1028 by 768
lol, so it’s Samsung fault that you don’t check if your card can give it the correct resolution?
The text probably looks like sh*t because you use another resolution and it tries to rescale it to it’s native resolution and therefor some pixels get twice the size and some don’t and therefor it looks like sh*t.
Just use the correct resolution and you will probably do fine, try the reg thing here.
Also it’s very stupid to run anything except 1440×900, 1280×768 aswell, since it will still resize stuff.
aliquis is correct: It is always recommended to run LCD monitors at its pixel format. In the case of Samsung’s 940BW that would be 1440 x 900. I am hoping that all the 940BW users that had problems before are using the unit without any problems. I think the whole transition from 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:10 aspect ratio was bumpy to say the least. The transition would have been much smoother if Windows XP had built-in base drivers for 16:10 pixel formats, just like it did for 640 x 480, 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768.
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