The SyncMaster 172X from Samsung was a bit of a powerhouse in our tests, scoring highly in all regards except one: surprisingly the monitor was a little over-saturated, meaning whites looked a little washed out, and this would not change regardless of how we tweaked and fiddled with the screen’s settings. However in day-to-day usage you’d barely notice this.
In all other regards, the SyncMaster 172X was extremely solid, with very high colour, greyscale and sharp detail scores which indicated a display capable of handling anything thrown at it.
As well as being adept with colour and greyscale, this was also the very first display we’d come across with the new 12ms (millisecond) pixel response time. This, at a time when some manufacturers still haven’t migrated from 25ms to 16ms was really impressive. It may only be a 4ms step down, but it made a remarkable difference no matter how we used it.
In the real-world tests the Samsung rated the highest of all monitors, with almost perfect scores for every single test. While the BenQ FP767came close to this, there is a marked difference -- the SyncMaster’s more like a CRT. Text was very crisp and clear, even with small font sizes, and the graphics were excellent.
The display also featured a ‘MagicBright’ function that toggled pre-set adjustments to the settings defined as ‘text,’ ‘internet’, ‘entertain’ and ‘user defined’ which worked exceptionally.
This monitor featured a new dual-hinge neck, which was remarkably solid and stable, and like the Mitsubishi DiamondView 175 it had its connectors arrayed along the rear of the base. This display also had the thinnest bezel of any TFT we’d seen, which lent the screen the illusion of greater dimensions than it had.
If there’s one down side, it’s that the SyncMaster 172X was expensive, retailing for $1,099, which made it one of the more expensive models reviewed, although Samsung has a very good pixel policy in place.