Samsung Syncmaster 205BW Review

Since it seems that no one has yet reviewed this little baby I thought it was my duty to put my $0.02 in. Here goes.

The Samsung 205BW 20" widescreen LCD monitor is quite nice, offering a clean design, with simple, intelligent controls, nice thin 3/4" bezel surrounding a gorgeous 1680x1050 resolution LCD panel. Take a look:

Here's a look at the monitor full-view, showing the pedestal stand:




What's included in the box: Monitor, AC line cable, 15-pin analog video cable, and (a very nice touch) a nice DVI cable. Also included is a software disc that includes the driver and some accessory software, and a printed manual.

Connections: In the picture below, you can see the connections available on the back of the monitor:




As you can see, they are all located nicely in a recessed area at the bottom of the back of the monitor.

Operation: Operating this monitor is a breeze. Simply plug it all in, and boot your computer. If there is no driver present, the in-box VGA driver will work enough to allow you to see the video. Then either the plug-n-play system will ask for a driver, or you can simply slam in the CD and load it yourself. After loading the driver, reboot the computer and you will be in business.

Quality: This monitor rocks. At 20" diagonal, 16:10 aspect ratio, and 1680x1050 pixels, the display is crisp and clear. This choice of form-factor, diagonal size, and spatial resolution is simply optimum for today's technology and general digital imaging work. 19-inch monitors have lower resolution, typically 1400x900, yet are not much smaller, so the result is the pixels are larger and the image less sharp. Larger monitors, be them 21 or 22-inch types, almost all have the exact same resolution as the 20" (1680x1050), again making the resultant pixels larger and the image less sharp. You need to go up to 24" diagonal measure to get more pixels (1900x1000, or full 1080p resolution), but yet again the pixels will not be that much smaller, the image will not be that much sharper, and your pocketbook will be much, much lighter. So, for today's technology at least, this monitor is exactly at the sweet-spot. When you consider it is available for around $300, and the 24" models are sitting at $500 today, this deal is really sweet.

What's cool: Besides the simple, clean design, and fantastic image quality, one of the coolest things about this monitor is the neat articulating stand. The stand, a simple pedestal mount, is attached to the monitor via a standard VESA-compliant mount. You can see how the monitor attaches to the stand here:



If you want, you can remove this mount and attach an after-market type, perhaps for mounting the unit to a wall. But believe me, for general tabletop use, this stand is great.

Once you have released the monitor stand from its shipping condition by pulling the cotter pin from the base, you can easily raise the monitor with a finger. It can be easily lowered to nearly 2" from the surface, and raised to approx. 5 inches off the surface. Moreover the monitor can be rotated by approx 180 degrees around the base by simple finger pressure!

After seeing how many manufacturers mess up a simple thing like articulation, it is truly a joy to see Samsung do such a marvelous job. Why can't everyone do that?

Obviously I think this monitor offers a great combination of features, quality, and price. You could wait for the new 22-inch Samsung widescreen, but honestly I don't think it's worth it. If you are interested in more in-depth monitor reviews, along with reviews of other computer-related equipment, I suggest you check out Tom's Hardware Guide's (no relation) review pages, or epinions.com. Here is the link to the latest LCD monitor review at Tom's Hardware. At the time of this post, the 205bw was not reviewed there, but I'm sure they'll get around to it soon, so check back. Until then, you'll just have to take my word for it.

19" wide-screen monitors: a good deal if you know what you are getting...and what you are giving up.

Ever wonder why things are put on "sale"? Think about it, it actually COSTS money to put something on sale. The vendor has to advertise the fact that they are willing to sell something for less. So not only do they lose the difference between "regular" price and "sale" price, they lose much more because they had to advertise the sale.

So why do this?

There is only one reason items are put on sale: to STIMULATE SALES, either in that item (legitamate sale), or in other items (so-called "loss leaders", or cross-effects).

But why put things on sale at certain times? Standard practices dictate that you place items on sale when you need to move them. In the case of technology, you often need to move items to make way for new technology. The last thing you want is some old "obsolete" piece of junk sitting next to the NextBigThing on the shelf.

That is the case with 19" monitors RIGHT NOW. Two things are happening in the industry wrt monitors right now. Here's the scoop on both of them:

#1. Shift from 4:3 aspect to "Widescren" aspect. HD now has enough critical mass, and manufacturers now have enough supply, to get behind massive promotions of new HD format monitors, which will have the same "aspect ratio" (ratio of width to height) as our movie theaters have had for decades. This "new" aspect ratio is 16:9, much wider than the old television standard of 4:3. For whatever reason, the whole world is moving this way.

#2. New display technology which will bring near HD resolution in a desktop monitor. New monitors will have 1650x1080 pixels in a 19-22 diagonal size, with an approx 16:10 aspect ratio. The next meaningful breakpoint will be so-called "full 1080p" resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, which will be in monitors over 23" diagonal and cost a LOT more (these prices are never linear until commoditization occurs).

--> So the reason 19" monitors are on sale right now is that newer monitors with near-HD resolution and widescreen format are coming to a storeshelf near you! The stores know that once they do, there is NO WAY they'll sell these old units for what they want to.

So you have a choice: buy old technology now, or wait until the new stuff comes on line. Or better yet, wait. The new stuff will most likely be horribly over-priced (at least until Black Friday - day after Thanksgiving), and when they do arrive, if you can find one of those old monitors, I guarantee you'll get it for a steal.

My advice to all technology buyers is the same. Know exactly what you need and don't buy anything more. The rest is just useless indulgence. Further, if you can get away with it, buy at least one and preferably two technology iterations behind the current "Best" product. That way, you'll save boatloads of money, and have pretty good stuff. You can usually find items like this on eBay, the day after the new stuff goes on sale...

Using this method, today you should be buying proven technology like:

- iPods (which are only now falling out of favor)
- Motorola RAZR phones (which are now really cheap, and have proven to be great units)
- ALL 4:3 aspect ratio monitors...which will start dropping like flies this year.
- And, yes, those 19" wide-screen monitors (approx. 1440x900, 16:9 aspect ratio) which are now on sale for $199 at many stores!

Bottom line: Things go on sale for a reason. Never pay retail if you can get away with it, and it's ok to buy "old" technology, as long as you are ok with giving up what will be in the stores the next week.

Why is my computer so FREAKIN SLOW??

Now here's a topic everyone can relate to. We have come a tremendously long way in the computer industry over the last 30+ years. I can still remember (unfortunately) some of those early machines. They were "clunky". They were big. The screens were low-res, black and white or Green on black, or something similarly boring. And, interestingly, they were also

Dog Slow.

Which is something we ALL can relate to. Because, with all our wonderful reductions in size, increased resolution, graphics "acceleration", etc., for everyday tasks (booting up, starting an application, switching between applications, shutting down, opening windows, closing windows, etc., etc.) most of our computers, are still DOG SLOW. So much for 30+ years of computer industry "improvements".

But what really gripes me is, not that our computers are slow for these everyday tasks, it's that

---> Nobody seems to acknowledge this fact and, furthermore, nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

Yes, yes...I'm an engineer. So please don't start telling me that "it's all very complicated", or something like "things really are better"...blah, blah, blah. The reality is that engineers think performance tuning is boring. Further, most development engineers have the most tricked-out, memory-maxed, highest-possible-end systems on the face of the planet that they have personally tuned to the max for themselves. So guess what? It's not their problem. It's ours.

For what it's worth, I think we have allowed the architectural concept of multi-tasking to be taken to extremes,and that is a big part of this problem. Microsoft has created a "system" that allows processes to be spawned at will by almost any ISV that simply sit there and take up CPU time, disk access, and God knows what, and there is very little control placed over them at any level. That is why 1) Game manufacturers don't have this problem; they try their best to take over the machine and not let the offending code run at all, and 2) clearly this is why, after only a short time, our once fast running new computers slow down to an abismal crawl.

Yes, our computers are wonderfully fast when they are new. All of them. Not just the expensive ones. And they ALL slow down after a few weeks of use. All of them. Not just the cheap ones. Why? Because of a combination of the OS and ISVs. ISVs write code that abuses the operating system, and the operating system let's the code execute.

We need our computer OS to guard against performance-hogging processes the same way we guard against viruses (BTW, crappy anti-virus software is one of the biggest sappers of performance). The APIs need to enforce this process.

For example, why does an application, once installed, slow down your system EVEN WHEN NOT BEING USED? Suffice it to say that it does and this is unacceptable. The ONLY way an application I install should be allowed to run a single process is by my explicit permission; it should not be allowed to spawn process after process, leaving them to run not only when the application is called, but whenever the machine is booted. These processes are often hidden, and almost impossible for even a trained expert to find and extinguish.

And there are other reasons why, as I install more and more software, that my system slows down. One is the registry itself. The whole concept of "installing" software needs to be re-thought out. And soon.

What can you do? Unfortunately, not much. You could choose to not install any software on your new computer, but that's easier said than done as it is impossible to browse the internet without being asked(sometimes) to install something. There are also Windows "critical" updates, virus attacks, anti-virus attacks, etc.

What else can you do? Go buy a better computer... oh, yeah, not much choice their either. You could do what the industry wants you to do. Buy a faster computer, one with more memory, a more expensive graphics card, etc.

And when you do...after a few weeks, it will still be Dog Slow.

Metadata, Metadata, everywhere, but not a bit to use...

Technically speaking, the term "metadata" means "data about data", or simply information that describes other information. When it comes to digital pictures, typical metadata includes:

Date taken - the date the picture was captured (typically by a camera).
Caption - a user-entered descriptive word, sentence, or phase about the picture.
Keywords - separate descriptive words or properties about the picture.
Author/Creator - Identifies the person who took the picture.
Owner - Identifies the person who owns the picture. It's important to note that this is not always the Creator. Also note that. although a picture typically has only one Creator, it can have many Owners.

There are many, many other examples of picture metadata. Also, although this post deals specifically with pictures, this discussion easily extends to all other types of files (digital assets).

Still further, some metadata is "static" and some is "dynamic". Static metadata are items that don't change when the picture is edited, saved, modified, etc. The examples shown above are largely static metadata. Other metadata, like content IDs generated by some hash of the image data, or simply the "date modified" flag, will generally change every time the file is changed somehow. Or at least they *should* change.

Confused yet? It gets better. Although many "standards" exist for metadata, very few software programs completely adhere to them. That's because they all depend upon the goodwill of the software vendor themselves, who quite frankly have bigger fish to fry than fret over some seemingly unimportant adherance to a spec that will not generate a dime more revenue in the near-term. Thus the problem: the world is becoming littered with mountains of digital image files that have illegal, non-compliant, erroneous, or simply no metadata at all.

"So what"" you say? Well, don't say that to the commercial stock photographers. They clearly want to keep track of the very pictures that form the basis for their livelihood. But what about everybody else? Well, you tell me. Go to your computer, and (if you can figure out how) do a search of all your hard drives for .JPG files and sort them by file size. I wagering what you will find is exactly what I find on my computer. Thousands of files of course. But also, many many files with exactly the same size. Now THAT's odd. Why is that?? I'll tell you why...these files are duplicates. Copies of the same image, over and over again, in the same or different directories, partitions, or separate hard drives. They are there because you have NO IDEA how to get rid of them! An effective metadata management system would make this a thing of the past. Further, wouldn't it be nice to know WHICH version of a picture you had? Ever edit a picture, but want to save a backup just in case something went wrong? But you are intentionally creating duplicates! IF you had the proper metadata in these files, the system could automatically manage all this crap for you.

Bottom line. Effective metadata management can make the tangle of duplicates, backups, different versions, different renditions, etc. simple and automatic.

So why don't we have this? If everyone realizes this is a problem, why hasn't something happened? Well, it's simply because doing this right is a heck of a lot of work, requires a lot of collaborative effort among several companies, will take years to implement fully, and ...here is the big one... is is not obvious to most company managers how to make money from the investment! No one wants to pay for it unless they are going to get a big piece of the pie.

Actually...it's worse than that. Current metadata schemes are "fragile". That is, it takes a LOT of hard work to create, and yet one non-compliant program or nasty user can destroy all the good intentions. Since most metadata systems rely upon binary or text data embedded inside the file itself, anybody can write (or use) a program to remove, modify, edit, or erase the metadata that has been placed there. So what good is working hard to put my "Creator" or other metadata in my digital files, if once they leave my computer, any schmuk can simply change the info and make "my" picture his??

There must be a better way. One possibility is embedding a unique identifier INSIDE the IMAGE DATA itself. Companies such as Digimarc and others have been touting this type of digital watermarking for years. Supposedly it survives even edits, so someone could take my picture, crop it, apply "autofix" image processing, color balance, etc., to it, and the watermark would remain.

IF we had a standard system that linked this digital watermark to all the other relevant metadata for an image then we just might be able to claw our way out of this digital mess about to be foisted upon us by our own technology.

NOW...ALL WE NEED IS SOMEONE TO READ THIS BLOG AND DO SOMETHING...!

Interested? Here are some relevant links:

Adobe XMP metadata format
Stock Artists Alliance (SAA)
International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC)
Dublin Core
Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG)

Welcome to TomsTechBlog

There comes a time in every man's life when his thoughts turn to...blogging. Or something like that. I've decided to augment my other web postings with this blog focussed specifically on technologies. Since I've been in the computer field for over 20 years, I will be discussing computers, networks, digital imaging, photography, portable devices, and related enabling technologies. Take a look at my general blog if you are more interested in my sometimes irreverent opinions on current events of the day. Or check out my website for other stuff. But here we are all about tech. Thanks for reading; I'll try to be at least as interesting as all the other blogs...

Tom Berarducci