Samsung SyncMaster 206BW 20-inch LCD Monitor

Other products by Samsung

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 22 x 7 x 18 inches ; 17 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 14.8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000N5WNKM
• Item model number: 206BW
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #766 in Computers & PC Hardware (See Bestsellers in Computers & PC Hardware)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 11, 2007

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
The Samsung 206BW 20-Inch Digital/Analog Widescreen LCD Monitor offers razor-sharp, widescreen image clarity and a host of innovative features. The image quality of the 20-inch widescreen offers wide viewing angles with bright colors for a very favorable viewing experience. With a wider viewing angle (160-degree vertical and horizontal viewing angle) Samsung makes sure you can see objects on your screen even when you're leaning over to grab a snack.

With 16.7 million colors bombarding your rods and cones, you'll be impressed with the clearer, brighter imagery that this wide spectrum monitor has to offer. Another impressive feature of the 206BW is the pixel pitch, or the distance between pixels. This specification is usually measured in millimeters, and the smaller the pitch the sharper the image. Samsung offers a remarkable 0.258-millimeter pixel pitch for outstanding image clarity. The most talked about spec associated with LCD monitors is the measure of the difference of brightness levels between the brightest white and the darkest dark--the contrast ratio. With a contrast ration of 3000:1, this monitor assures crisp, easy-to-view images. Lastly, Samsung has designed this monitor with MagicColor to improve hue and saturation of colors. This function also adjusts mid-level colors to shades that the human eye accepts as natural. By enhancing the contrast ratio with MagicColor, fresh images with exceptional clarity spring to life, even on a darker screen.

Connectivity is also important when choosing a monitor. The 206BW features an advanced dual interface that is capable of handling both analog video signals for present use, and digital video signals for the future. Whatever the signal sources are, this monitor will process those signals to give you an optimal viewing experience. In addition, this monitor features a standard D-Sub 15-pin connection and a fast DVI-D connection for your high-resolution demands.

Other features include compatibility with all major operating systems (including Microsoft Vista's Premium standards) and an ultra-fast 2ms response time that virtually eliminates the "blur" that is present in 25, 16, and 12ms monitors (this is especially good news for gamers). Plus, with Samsung you have Magic Technologies, such asMagicBright3 and MagicTune, right at your fingertips. MagicBright3 is a new feature that provides the best viewing environment depending on the contents of the image you are watching, and MagicTune is Samsung's OSD (On-Screen Display) solution that provides a simple, convenient adjustment to the best image quality. The 206BW is designed to meet VESA standards to accommodate any display type. This monitor is both wall and arm mountable, so it fits almost any environment on your desk or the wall.

Product Description
The Samsung 6-series Widescreen LCD monitors is certified to meet Microsoft Vista's Premium standards. The wide 16:10 aspect ratios of these professional-level monitors make multitasking easy. There's room for more applications, multiple images and all your tool palettes. An ultra-fast 2 ms (G to G) response time is perfect for motion editing. 20.0-inch Wide Viewable Size 0.258mm Pixel Pitch 300 cd/m2 Brightness (typical) 3000 - 1 DC Contrast Ratio (typical) 2 ms (G to G) Response Time (typical) 160 Degrees Horizontal and Vertical Viewing Angles 1680 x 1050 Native Resolution 16 - 10 Aspect Ratio Analog & Digital Interface Analog RGB, TMDS Digital Link, DVI Input Video Signal Separate H/V, Composite, SOG Sync Type 15-pin D-sub, DVI-D Input connectors 55 Watt (max.), Less than 2 watt (DMPS mode) Power Consumption 75 mm VESA Wall Mount DDC 2B Plug and Play MagicTune with asset management, MagicSpeed, MagicColor, MagicBright 3 Windows, Windows Vista, Mac, Sun DVI (HDCP), Swivel and tilt Dimensions - Width 18.7 x Height 15.6 x Depth 8.6 inches (without stand - 18.7 x 2.6 x 12.9 inches) Weight - 12.6 pounds

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 136 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great monitor, great price, March 6, 2007

By	B. Matteo (San Francisco,CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Overall I found this to be a very good monitor at a fantastic price. I am a picky buyer, and am contemplating buying another one! I use it for business, movies, and occasional photo editing. That said, I found the buying process to be horribly confusing and spent days trying to figure out exactly what the differences are between any two LCDs. Here are some thoughts to aid your search:

1) the 206BW is Samsung's most recent 20" wide screen monitor. the 205BW and 204BW are its predecessors, are inferior, and are still sold in stores. the 206BW appears to be a big improvement over the 205BW. 2206bw is the corresponding 22" monitor.
2) the 20" monitor appears to be the sweet spot of the line. the 19" has lower pixel count, the 22" has the same pixel count as 20". The .258 pixel pitch of this monitor is also among the best I have seen for a consumer grade monitor. the 19" and 22" both have worse pixel pitch
3) this monitor gives a very large work space. I can comfortably have two documents, spreadsheets, etc. side by side. At 1600+ / 1000+ it has 10-15% more pixels, and a ton more space than my laptop. I was initially considering a non-wide-screen monitor. I am pleased that I chose this instead.
4) movies look fantastic. dark scenes particularly look better than they did on both my old CRT display and on my laptop LCD
5) monitors appear to have similar specs across manufacturers for their generation. this monitor appears to have been just released (3/1/2007), and has industry leading specs- 2ms response rate, 3000:1 dynamic contrasts, etc. Samsung's competitors (Viewsonic, etc) did not have comparable products when I bought. If you are tempted to by a product with lesser specs that may be marketed as "better," find out if this is actually the case, or if it is just an old design. LCD lines seem to turn over every 6-12 months.
6) stay away from monitors with speakers. reviews consistently pan them as gimicky and non-functional, and they add size and cost
7) one drawback is that the monitor stand is not adjustable. If you care, buy a good stand. there are standard interconnects on the back. it should work with this or any future monitor you buy. for my money, I would rather have a product with better performance than a more functional stand.

I have no comments on life as I have had the product for under a week.

happy shopping!

54 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Less Than I Expected, May 29, 2007

By	John J. Robinson "jjr" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews

I purchased the 206BW from Amazon and I have been using it for a couple of weeks now. I also bought an Ergotron desk clamp arm for the monitor which works really well with the product.

I was replacing a 15" NEC 1024x768 MultiSync 1530V. I view and work with a lot of photographs and needed much more screen real estate for Photoshop, along with other software that needs room for toolbars.

I use a 24" Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW at work and really like it. The only disappointing aspect about the Dell is the dot pitch. The contrast ratio is 1000:1 and the response time for the Dell is 12ms. This will give me a reference to describe my experiences with the Samsung 206BW.

I decided to purchase the 20" Samsung for three reasons. One, I like the smaller dot pitch of around .25 millimeter pixel pitch. The 22" version has the same resolution of 1680 x 1050 and I didn't want the larger pixels. The second reason was that the 206BW appeared to be marked down significantly more. It looks like it was originally sold for around $500. And third, the 3000:1 contrast ratio was very appealing to me. I love deep blacks. My Dell at work has a black level that looks like the monitor is off. If the screen consists of completely black pixels, I can't tell if it is off or on. I love that.

So I purchased the 206BW without ever seeing it in a showroom.

First of all, I'll get this out of the way... the noise this monitor makes at custom levels is an issue. I have a noisy computer in the first place, and I can clearly hear the buzzing this monitor makes when I lower the brightness. It's loud.

Which leads to the custom settings this monitor wants to use. You can cycle through these settings by pushing one of the front buttons. The settings are Text, Internet, Game, Sport, Movie, and Dynamic Contrast. I am not sure how they came up with the names of these, but some are brighter and cooler, some are warmer and dimmer. You can also have a "Custom" setting that will most likely lead you to lower the brightness significantly because most of the custom settings are way too bright. But beware; lower the brightness and the buzzing starts. Doh!

Dynamic Contrast is interesting but slightly annoying. It basically adjusts the brightness and contrast depending what you have on screen. Pull up your desktop with a black background and it will dim. Pull up a photograph of a sunny day and it will brighten. Cute, but definitely not something I'll be using very often, if at all.

Now this is probably my own fault, but for some reason I was thinking that contrast ratio had something to do with black levels. I mistakenly thought that a "3000:1" contrast ratio would deliver deep blacks. It doesn't. Blacks look washed out. And along the top and the bottom of the screen there is A LOT of light bleeding through. That was another reason I bought the 20" over the 22" inch, to avoid the light bleeding at the top and bottom of the screen. Well, it's here and it doesn't look very nice at all. Especially because I prefer a black background as my wallpaper... I always see it.

The screen material itself is nice. It's the non-reflective type that will not reflect background lights or reflections. The bezel itself though, while black, is almost a complete mirror surface. It will reflect everything. The silver strip at the bottom is slightly indented and will not reflect anything.

There is not really much to the menu. It is not intuitive to navigate. And while having a complete button dedicated to it, the "auto-adjust" feature only works if you are using a RGB cable. If you are using a digital DVI cable, the button does nothing but inform you with text that the feature is not available. Doh!

There is a blue light surrounding the on/off button on the front of the monitor. The screen will go into power save mode if left on for awhile unattended, and the blue light will start flashing on and off quickly until you come back to the display and restore it from power save mode. This is not an issue for me, but beware of this is you are going to have it in a bedroom or anywhere that this might be distracting.

So overall, this monitor is nothing like my 24" Dell at work. It's just not in the same class. Given, my Dell costs about $700 and I got this one for $250. In fact, this 206BW is not even in the same class as my 15" NEC. The black levels are much worse.

So, I'll keep the monitor. I am not going to go through the hassle of returning it or swapping it. It will do. But if I had seen it in action beforehand, I would not have bought it.

The moral of this story is watch out of technical bullet-points. Sure, 2ms and 3000:1 look really tempting, but there has to be much more to it than that. My Dell has a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and a response time of 12ms and the images it displays are much better than the 206BW. Shop around and be careful. For the money I am sure you could do worse. Could you do better?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Samsung Syncmaster 206BW, July 28, 2007

By	MaximumPC (USA) - See all my reviews

In keeping with the prevailing aesthetic of this category, Samsung's 206BW is fancily clad in black plastic and brushed aluminum, much like ViewSonic's VX2035wm. And as with that model, you can tilt the screen only forward and back. The height stays put. A circular base serves as a lazy Susan of sorts for swivel functions.

In the past, we've taken issue with Samsung's "hands free" displays, which relegate all screen adjustments to software; fortunately, this model strikes a compromise, offering OSD buttons (in addition to the software) that are discreetly placed beneath the bezel's bottom edge. Luckily, labels on the bezel help guide your fingers. In Samsung fashion, the adjustment options are plentiful and include a handful of presets for various types of content--movies, games, text, etc. We've actually come to appreciate these presets. They make overall changes to the brightness, contrast, and gamma that would take many more steps to achieve through standard OSD operations. HD videophiles will appreciate the 206BW's HDCP support.

The 206BW's performance in DisplayMate was strong. Evidence of backlight seepage around the extreme perimeter of the screen was its most notable failing. That was sufficiently offset by stellar grayscale reproduction and marked distinctions between shades at even the extreme dark and light ends. Text looked crisp and clear, and content of all stripes, including games, was reproduced without flaws. While this was also the case with HP's L2045w, Samsung's 206BW bested that model with a more vibrant, lively picture. In the end, we're prepared to declare this our new favorite budget desktop LCD.


+ Superb grayscale; strong real-world performance.


- No screen-height adjustment; subtle perimeter backlight seepage.


Verdict: 9 out of 10

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