Purchased a Samsung top of the line 17" LCD monitor 770P Syncmaster on June 8. I must say the compatibility of this product (and many current line of Samsung monitor products as well) and its usability in design is really a big joke. The culprit is all about the Samsung greatly promoted MagicTune, which is simply a purely software controlled monitor design. There is not even one button nor any OSD/menu built into the monitors. Once the MagicTune failed to communicate with the PC, the display card OR the OS is not supported, then no adjustment of any kind can be made to the monitor - not even talking about calibration as such, because even very basic settings like brightness (black level) and contrast adjustment is impossible! Even worst is that the MagicTune software is really really buggy, for both the original bundled CD version nor the latest version from the Samsung MagicTune "support" site. The selected language has never been correct for my numerious installation trials (for the two mentioned versions and on different machines) - fortunately I can still know the wrongly installed different language and go into the option to change it back to the right one after the installation. The displayed button and graphics are occasionally displayed in wrong places and in a chaos. Too bad really. I wonder if the software has gone through any systematic testing before it is rolled out onto the market.. It's a big shame for Samsung to market and sell poor and stupid product like this. I have tried a Creative 3Dlabs, a Asus NVidia VGA card, a MSI 845G VGA card and a MSI 845G DVI card. All the four display cards are having different display and/or communication problem with the Samsung monitor, i.e. either the physical and logical display area are mismatched or two cards out of the four failed to communicate with the MagicTune! Finnaly, the saddest thing is that the picture quality LCD panel of my Samsung 770P is really excellent indeed, even I still cannot adjust it with a proper brightness and contrast combination (not even for a properly calibrated monitor). Now that highlights and shadows are clipped slightly on my 770P monitor (say for those from 0 to 16 and 240 to 256) but the image and picture quality is still looking very very good. I do believe it does have an excellent panel afterall. BTW, Samsung has promised a total refund for my 770P, but I still wish to share my this terrible experience here so that anyone who considers a Samsung product should think twice and test in detail if possible before buying! I have decided that after I receive my refunded money, I shall go for a Eizo 1731 (which is just slightly dearer than the 770P but hearsay tells that the Eizo still uses the same Samsung panel!) Anyway I do have more confidence in Eizo than Samsung now! I have used Samsung monitors since 1995 for a 15" CRT Syncmaster and then a 152T dual input LCD and now the 770P, too bad I am seeing clearly that deterioration in product compatibility and usability. My 770P synchronise very poorly for different video modes, e.g. text mode is often out of the area and dependent on display adaptor used which have never happened to any of my previous Samsung product! (but why thing got right in the past but now that in a mess?) RiceHigh [URL]http://www.geocities.com/ricehigh[/URL]
