Samsung SyncMaster 305T 30" LCD Monitor Review

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Samsung SyncMaster 305T 30” LCD Monitor Review

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Product Number: LS30HUXCB/XAA
Price: Click Here To Compare Prices
Warranty: 3 year
Colors Available: Black
Manufacturer's Product Page: 305T LCD - monitors SAMSUNG


No matter what type of computer user you are, you know that one of the most important components you will ever have to buy is a monitor. While the advent of HDTVs has meant that quite a few users are now using their televisions as de facto computer monitors, there is nonetheless a huge market out there for bigger and better LCD computer monitors. Some companies have pushed the size up while not increasing resolution and while this may result in cost savings, consumers get less than optimal picture quality. On the other hand companies like Samsung have continued to expand the boundaries of computer displays by releasing extremely high resolution, large surface products in the 24” and larger size bracket. These monitors are so large they can in many instances substitute as a television albeit without a built-in tuner but with sometimes stunning picture quality. With the harem of new connector options on the market like HDMI and the upcoming Display Port we are seeing many of these monitors include options that have only until recently been available solely on high-end televisions. All these options and the constant vying for consumers’ attention and ultimately money, has meant the display market has been extremely competitive from day one and is no less now.

Into this sometimes cutthroat market, Samsung has released their gargantuan 305T 30” LCD monitor. While this may be considered as one of the “old guard” of 30” monitors since it was released more than a year ago, it is still considered by many to be the gold standard to which many other large-format LCDs are measured to in terms of picture quality. Many may argue that the newer XL30 has replaced it but this couldn’t be further from the truth considering the XL30 is a $4000+ backlit LCD unit which is geared towards professionals. Meanwhile, with a price of under $1400CAD the Samsung 305T has somewhat more mundane aspirations of appealing to a much broader consumer base in the standard retail channel. Since we are on the subject of pricing, over the last year Samsung has continually reduced the price of this monitor and it now sits quite a bit below the asking price of many other 30” products.

Since Samsung is one of the 600lb gorillas in the consumer electronics market with products being available everywhere from local mom and pop stores to giants like Best Buy, we always expect quality from them. Add to that their excellent after-sales support team (you get to talk to any actual person by calling their 1-800 number) and service and repair points throughout the world and you have a potential winning combination. However, we have seen some winning combinations go pretty sour over the last year so it will be interesting to see how things shape up for this monitor.

At this point it should be noted that since we have no way of consistently “testing” LCD monitors so this will be mostly a long-term test review from someone (that would be me) who has extensively used everything from a Mac Cinema display to the newest 30” Dell monitors. We have had this monitor in our possession for the better part of 2 months now so I have a pretty good idea of what there is to like, what needs improving and what (if anything) is downright annoying. Thus, you can count this as a subjective review based on one person’s long-term experience with a product after having used competing products rather than an objective review.

 

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Features & Specifications

Features & Specifications

 

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Packaging and Accessories

Packaging and Accessories

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Naturally, since this is currently the largest computer monitor that Samsung produces it comes in a suitably massive box. Considering many people will likely (or should) take a look-see at the demo model when deciding whether or not to buy a monitor, the packaging is pretty much an afterthought. That being said, there is more than enough information on it so you will not be confused between the boxes of the 305T and say a 27” Samsung monitor.

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The packaging for this monitor is pretty straightforward with the cables pushed off to the sides of the Styrofoam top cover while the rest of the accessories are packaged below. Interestingly enough, the 305T comes with its base pre-installed unlike some LG, Dell and Viewsonic monitors I have come across in the past but despite this, everything is well protected.

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Here we have everything else that comes with this monitor and it isn’t anything different from what’s incouded with every other monitor out there. You get the usual CD with the user’s manual, a quick install guide, power cord and DVI cable.

However something became clear to us when we first plugged in this monitor and I think this is the best section to mention it in before going into details. As you can see, the included DVI cable is a DVI-D single link cable instead of the DVI-D dual link cable which is needed to display high resolution images. This means that we were unable to use the 305T at its native 2560x1600 resolution with the included cable. More on this in the Long-Term Impressions

 

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Monitor Impressions & Layout

Monitor Impressions & Layout

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I don’t like flashy-looking monitors since I believe any good industrial designer will realize that the design of a monitor should blend seamlessly into its background. Sure, there are some screens on the market that are a design tour-de-force but I personally like looking at what’s on the screen and not what is around it. That being said, Samsung has equipped this monitor with a very slim bezel which defies its overall dimensions and insures that you focus on the screen. Indeed, even though the picture above doesn’t show it; a 30” monitor is massive no matter which way you look at it and even though it is quite large, at around 12kg (26lbs) the 305T is a lightweight.

The front bezel also holds the power button (which glows a dark blue when the monitor is turned on) as well as Up and Down arrows which control the brightness. Since this monitor is pre-calibrated from the factory, Samsung doesn’t provide any user-controlled options outside of the aforementioned brightness control.

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The back of the 305T holds the mounting bracket which is uses the VESA standard 200x 100 pattern for all of you who want to install this monitor on a wall but just remember how much it weighs since you will have to find a suitable heavy-duty wall mount. Here we can also see the stand which is circular in shape but even though it looks like it is height-adjustable, it isn’t. However, the base does allow the whole monitor to swivel in place and there is a screen tilt feature as well that is definitely convenient for those of you using it in an office environment.

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Looking a bit closer we see that there are various indicators of which connectors are placed where so you will not have to search around endlessly to find where your connectors are located once the monitor is set up.

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The connectors used on the 305T are straightforward and quite basic with four downstream USB ports and one upstream port along with a single DVI connector. Unfortunately, we have now come to the largest knock against this monitor: there is no HDMI or Display Port connector and thus no HDCP support. This means we have all this wonderful screen real-estate and don’t even have the option to play content-protected high definition Blu-ray movies.

Unlike many other monitors on the market which have a plug it and forget it attitude for the AC power input, the 305T has an on / off switch in addition to the power button on the front. So, just don’t forget to turn this on or you will think there is something seriously wrong with your brand new $1400 monitor.

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The bottom of the base holds a quartet of rubber feet which are unfortunately only glued onto the unit. In our testing we didn’t have any of them pop off but if you are one who likes moving their monitor around a lot, you might want to keep an eye on these little guys.

 

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Long-Term Impressions

Long-Term Impressions

You might be asking yourself right about now “why in the world is this crackpot putting the long-term impressions before any other testing?” Well, the answer is quite simple: the next section contains observations from throughout the testing period while this section will be a general view of the trials, tribulations and triumphs I experienced from the Samsung 305T from day one.

All in all, it has been a good two months enjoying the eye-candy which a 30” monitor can bring with it not to mention the looks of awe it garners from any tech-savvy friends who happen to see it.


The Installation Hassle

From the moment I set up this monitor, there was something dreadfully wrong; I couldn’t get the darn thing to work at anything above WXGA (1280 x 800) resolutions. Windows Vista would start its boot process and when it was done…BOOM, the monitor would go into the auto-test mode instead of going to the standard Vista desktop. I tried everything from the power cord to the video card to posting on forums about the issue but the one thing I overlooked was the DVI cable that came bundled with the 305T (doh!).

In my blind excitement to get this oversized beast hooked up, I neglected to check what kind of DVI connector Samsung provided with this monitor. I automatically assumed the packaging list’s claim of a dual-link DVI connector was God’s Own truth but once a clearer head prevailed, I took a gander and lo and behold; a single link DVI connector!! I will make this clear right now: the 305T REQUIRES a dual-link DVI cable in order to work at most resolutions. Unfortunately, Samsung packaged a single-link connector with this monitor.

After polling a few of my friends who own the 305T, it seemed that out of the 14 monitors purchased for work and personal use, two (not including mine) had single link DVI cables. What this tells me is that my situation was not an isolated case but after contacting Samsung, they have indicated that anyone with this issue should contact them to have a dual link DVI cable shipped out free of charge.

That being said, for all the tests I have used a Cobalt Cable Ultimate DVI-D Dual Link cable.


OSDs are for Sissies

Unlike some monitors on the market, the 305T comes pre-calibrated from the factory which offers users the most accurate color representation possible right out of the box. This acts as a double-edged sword in many cases since there are plenty of people out there (myself included) who like tweaking the monitor depending on lighting conditions. Basically, if I buy a monitor for the office I will adjust the settings so it looks best under fluorescent light (which can throw colors WAY off) and so on.

On the flip side of that coin, having too many options can get confusing and there are times when you can never find just the right setting for a particular monitor without professional (read: expensive) calibration services. Samsung providing color calibration can therefore be a boon to anyone using the 305T in normal room lighting conditions.

Throughout my time with this monitor I never found myself wanting an OSD since the monitor was calibrated perfectly to my discerning eyes. There were a few times during the last 60 days where I wished there was an On Screen Display (mostly during movie watching) but I usually just set up a custom color profile in the Nvidia or ATI drivers. In my opinion these profiles in both the Nvidia and ATI control panels offer users a much more dynamic color adjustment scale than an OSD ever could so I would recommend everyone use these before resorting to an OSD.


HDCP is for….higher-end monitors?

Really Samsung, a 30”, $1400 monitor without HDCP? Give me a break. Should I be coming down even harder on Samsung for not including HDCP and a HDMI connector? Hell yes but what I want to say isn’t meant for prime time. Sorry folks.

What Samsung has done with the exclusion of HDCP compatibility on this monitor is effectively hamstring it from accepting any high definition signals from a Blu-ray or other high def video source. So here we have a beautiful 30” monitor which can’t be used to its full potential. Not only does this narrow the potential market for the 305T but it also left me scratching my head in confusion. This means that right now there is a massive gap in the Samsung line-up since they don’t even have one 30” screen with HDCP compatibility in the sub-$4000 category.

Every time I went to play a Blu-ray movie on my 24” Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP monitor, I glanced over longingly at the 305T hanging on the wall wishing that it was the Samsung monitor with HDCP and not the Dell. All in all it was depressing.


The "Why?" Factor

My girlfriend saw the 305T and promptly rolled her eyes at the ceiling and mumbled “why not just get a TV?” You guys know this well-rehearsed drill as the infamous Why Factor where someone (girlfriends, parents, forum trolls, etc.) is constantly giving you grief for your newest big-ticket purchase. Everyone will ask you why you bought such a large computer monitor…until they see it in action and then the phrase quickly changes. Within minutes of me using it in the latest of our graphics card reviews, my girlfriend stopped rolling her eyes and was pushing me out of the way to get her turn flinging grenades at North Koreans in Crysis.

To say that this monitor is absolutely stunning running at 2650 x 1600 is an understatement of titanic proportions since nothing can describe playing a game at the 305T’s native resolution. Even though I am risking giving too much away at this point in time but I have to say that Samsung’s flagship was as close to perfection as I have seen in a monitor at its default settings when playing games.

 

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Picture Quality

Picture Quality

We always recommend that before you buy ANY monitor online, you find a store with the model you are looking at in order to have a look-see. This is because one person’s vision differs from the next and thus one may find a monitor to their liking while the other will hate the color it produces.

Before we start with these somewhat subjective tests, it should be noted that the Samsung 305T has an S-PVA panel which is built by Samsung.


Viewing Angle

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Overall, the viewing angles of the Samsung 305T are excellent with very little color shift as you more off-center. There was a bit of an increase in image contrast as I went more than 150° off-center but it was almost unnoticeable. I found this to be one of the best monitors I have used to date when it comes to viewing angles and this really came in handy considering it is mounted on a wall which means that direct viewing is sometimes hard.


Contrast

For this test we used the Lagom LCD test since additional subjective impressions regarding contrast will be covered in the General Usage Impressions. As you can see below, we used the Contrast Test where we should be able to see all of the squares from left to right increasing very slightly in intensity from one square to the next. You can go to the Lagom site here: LCD monitor test images to test your own monitor or use the image below.

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It seems like Samsung really hit the nail on the head with the factory calibration of the 305T because contrast was absolutely spot-on according to the test with clear distinctions seen from one color to the next in the test. This was borne out when using this monitor in other situations as well where there were clear definitions between the greys and blacks in nearly all images.


Color Hue / Saturation

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With past monitors, I have always had to resort to renting color calibrating tools from LaCie or other manufacturers in order to make the necessary changes to the colors on a monitor so they suited my viewing habits. To be honest with you I didn’t put too much stock in this monitor’s claim of being “pre-calibrated” at the factory but the second I got it up and running I was stunned. To my eyes all the colors were spot-on in both daylight and low light conditions without any colors being oversaturated. If there was one thing that gives this monitor its wow factor it is the accuracy with which it represents colors. It is simply amazing.

 

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General Usage Impressions

General Usage Impressions

Movie Impressions

All of the movies were played with a Pioneer DVR-215 internal DVD drive using PowerDVD 8 through a 9800 GTX graphics card.

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Unfortunately, with such a large screen-size and the inability to play high definition content through our Blu-ray player, this is one area where the Samsung 305T really falls flat on its face. Due to the fact that the image has to be upscaled quite a bit to fit on the screen (even when playing in 16:9 format), graininess rules the day with colors getting washed out and contrast really suffering. There are also noticeable signs of compression which get quite distracting when watching almost any movie.

If you are willing to make some sacrifices like minimizing the movie to a smaller size, you will naturally get a clearer picture but if you are willing to do that, there wouldn’t be any use of getting a 30” monitor for movie watching.

To be brutally honest with you; if you are looking to play a lot of movies now or in the future on your monitor it is best to avoid the Samsung 305T. Its lack of anything but a DVI connector is a huge negative in my books especially when there are competing products selling for nearly the same price which are equipped with HDMI and even in some cases Display Port.


Gaming Impressions

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When it comes to gaming, this monitor simply shines. Since we are now using the 305T for every one of our graphics card reviews, I have had the chance to use it quite a bit for gaming and can tell you that its abilities in this field are beyond reproach. There is next to no ghosting when playing fast-paced portions of various first person shooters and all the colors were spot-on. If you are an RTS player like I am you will drool over the possibilities of using this thing in games like Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes and Medieval II: Total War because the amount of screen space it gives you is stunning. I’ll tell you this straight up: once you move to a 30” monitor for gaming you will never go back…ever.

However, with over four MILLION pixels being rendered at the same time there is a small caveat…

30” Monitors & the Great Video Card Conundrum

Naturally, when you buy a huge, high res monitor you will want to play games at the native resolution of 2560x1600 and to do so you will have to purchase a suitably priced video card. When we say “suitably priced” we mean something in the $400+ range with over 512MB of memory but I guess that if you can afford a $1400 monitor you should have the coin to splurge on a high end GPU…right? Maybe or maybe not but believe it or not at this resolution I have found it nearly unnecessary to enable any form of AA. The only thing you have to remember is that you will need some serious graphics horsepower to play games on this monitor so be prepared to pony up some copious amounts of money.


Graphic / Text Impresstions

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In my opinion, the size of this monitor is not optimal for text viewing since it is next to impossible to see letters at its native resolution without putting your face a foot from the screen. Yet, this can vary form one person to the next even though I know I don’t need a 30” monitor for word processing and while pictures don’t do it justice at all, the text is extremely crisp so eye fatigue should be minimal.

On the other hand, I find the Samsung 305T absolutely perfect for programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator since you are able to open numerous documents on top of one another while having literally the maximum number of toolbars open. To keep things simple, if you are using any professional program like Quark, Maya, AutoCAD, 3DStudio and so on, this monitor is exactly what you want even though it can “only” display up to sRGB color and cannot reproduce the color gamut demanded by the Adobe RGB color space. As you can see above, I could have nine 640 x 480 pictures open at the same time in Photoshop with room left over for additional toolbars.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

When it comes to Samsung monitors, we have come to expect great picture quality and throughout the two months I had it, the SyncMaster 305T met and in many cases exceeded all of my expectations. From the moment I plugged this monitor in (with a proper DVI cable that is) I was absolutely stunned again and again by the magic that Samsung has conjured with a pre-calibrated monitor. Granted, there is no OSD but to be honest it isn’t needed since the preset colors are absolutely spot-on and the contrast beggars the competition. Usually “pre-calibrated” raises a red flag for me but I was proven wrong by Samsung.

With all of the beauty offered by the picture produced by the 305T, there are two areas where it really shines: playing games and in professional applications. It doesn’t matter which game you play since they all take on a whole new dimension when played at the drool-worthy resolution of 2560 x 1600 but there is one major trade-off with such a large monitor: graphics power. Don’t expect to play your favourite game on the 305T with any budget graphics card since it takes some serious horsepower to render all the pixels a 30” screen can display. While gamers are one portion of the market, on the completely opposite end are the professionals who use their computers for graphics work and this monitor will open up amazing realms of flexibility for them. Even though the color gamut is not as wide as some competing products; Photoshop, Maya and other programs benefit quite a bit from the extra screen space and thus productivity will increase.

There are so many things to like about this monitor but then you look at the connectors which Samusng installed and it becomes evident that there is something missing. In this day and age I feel that the inclusion of a HDMI connector and HDCP support isn’t an option; it is a necessity, especially on a high-end 30” monitor like the 305T. As we saw in the movie viewing section, the full screen picture quality displayed by non-HD content on this monitor is absolutely atrocious and there is no possibility of playing HDCP protected content on it at all. To me this is a deal breaker since there is no way I could see myself spending $1400 on a monitor without it having what I feel are the most basic connectivity and compatibility options. What a shame this is considering the 305T is one hell of a monitor in every other respect.

Samsung has been working long and hard to release the best products for consumers since day one and the 305T could have been their crowning achievement. Unfortunately, the omission of HDCP has the potential to make it an also-ran in the 30” monitor war. Everything about it is superb and indeed if you don’t intend on ever watching high definition movies on it, it should be at the top of your list when looking for a 30” monitor especially since the price is very competitive.


Pros:

- Very good picture quality
- No ghosting
- Wide viewing angles
- 3 year warranty


Cons:

- No HDMI or Display Port
- Not HDCP compatible

Thanks to Samsung for providing us with this monitor​

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