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Many of our fears regarding the Samsung SyncMaster S24B750V LED monitor's TN panel evaporate as soon as we fire her up. This is one of the good 'uns, as TN goes. The basic colour balance and vibrancy isn't a million miles away from a modern IPS screen, which is very good news indeed.
We're also pleased to see really consistent backlighting with no evidence of backlight bleed around the panel edges, which is a common TN bugbear. Subject contrast levels and the depth of black tones are further strong points. In short, it's a pretty nice looking LCD panel.
But it ain't perfect. Subjectively, it's clear the viewing angles aren't up to IPS standards. Courtesy of our suite of test images, it becomes even more obvious.
As does the amount of compression and lost image data in white tones. Again, this is typical for TN. The problem is that TN is no longer the only option at this price point.
That said, one benefit that usually comes with TN tech is fast response, and you certainly get that here. In fact, Samsung provides three switchable levels of pixel response in the OSD menu via the SmartResponse setting.
In truth, the difference between them isn't dramatic, but we can confirm that even the most aggressive setting doesn't incur any of the usual downsides of overdriving pixels, such as inverse ghosting or input lag.
Sound
If the image quality is a mixed bag, the sound quality is more consistent. It's not going to worry a half decent sub-and satellites setup. But it is better than the vast majority of PC monitors and it is usable for gaming and video playback.
If you're very short on space, the built-in sound is a tolerable solution. The only slight snag is that adjusting the volume means digging a few levels into the OSD, which is extremely tedious.
As for the MHL smartphone mirroring feature, it works effortlessly. There's no set up, just plug the phone into the screen and bang, the interface is immediately visible. In portrait mode, much of the display is left blank, but twizzle round to landscape and it fills the screen fully.
When viewing the main smartphone interface or apps, the image quality is a bit soft. That's because the relatively low smartphone resolution is being scaled up. However, with compatible handsets, Full HD 1080p video content can be sent from phone to screen, and we can confirm it looks great.
If your phone has enough storage capacity, you really could use it as a device to supply HD content. It's very impressive.
