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Starry Night · Jun 25, 2003, 01:20 AM

G'day,

Part of this inquiry goes in the Power Mac forum, and part in the peripherals forum, please excuse me that I've combined them both into this post.

I'm planning on getting the recently released Power Mac G4 1.25ghz (single processor) for $1299. The G5 looks great, but I don't need that much horsepower (mostly web work) and would rather get a super display with the savings.

Questions:

1) Power Mac specs say it has both ADC and DVI connectors. The Samsung Syncmaster 172T comes with both a DVI and VGA cable. Will I be able to plug the Samsung into the PM with the supplied DVI cable or will I need some kind of special Mac DVI cable/adapter?

2) Will the Samsung be plug and play with the Powermac?

3) Am I crazy for considering the 17" Samsung 172T over the 17" Apple Studio LCD? Has anyone done a visual side by side comparison of these two displays? I live out in the boonies, thus can't go see them myself.

The Apple has a 350:1 contrast ratio, while the Samsung has 500:1. The Samsung has a 3 year warranty out of the box, Apple has 1 year. The Samsung is said to come with a wall mount bracket included in the box at no extra charge, all for about $650, which is $50 less than the studio display.

The Samsung seems to offer a lot more for the money while the Apple offers specs a generation or two old, yet still charges a premium price.

Any insight is appreciated!

mysterio · Jun 25, 2003, 01:42 AM

I'm not sure were your looking to purchase the 172T from but you can get it from newegg.com for under $500 (check here). They are probably the best hardware vendor on the web and I'm sure most people on the forums can back me up on their great reputation if you aren't already familiar with them.

Starry Night · Jun 25, 2003, 01:49 AM

Originally posted by mysterio:
I'm not sure were your looking to purchase the 172T from but you can get it from newegg.com for under $500 (check here). They are probably the best hardware vendor on the web and I'm sure most people on the forums can back me up on their great reputation if you aren't already familiar with them.

Thanks for the tip, that is a fantastic price. I appreciate that newegg is very forth coming with their dead pixel policy. They state that only 8 or more dead pixels qualify for an exchange.

I'd rather pay the $650 at amazon or compusa and have more flexibility in the returns department..... potentially 7 dead pixels is too much for me at newegg...

benb · Jun 25, 2003, 03:28 PM

Originally posted by Starry Night:
Thanks for the tip, that is a fantastic price. I appreciate that newegg is very forth coming with their dead pixel policy. They state that only 8 or more dead pixels qualify for an exchange.

I'd rather pay the $650 at amazon or compusa and have more flexibility in the returns department..... potentially 7 dead pixels is too much for me at newegg...

FWIW, I bought 2 (not from NewEgg though) and neither had a single dead/stuck pixel. I would be incredibly surprised if you got 7.

The 172t will plug right into your Mac, no hassle at all. There was a thread in the Peripheral's forum all about the 172t, do a search there, lots of good info and reviews.

And lastly, I would say you are nuts for going with the 1.25 over the 1.6. I know the price point is good, but the new G5 is just so much awesomer! I am a sucker for shiny new electorics though. Just ask my wallet!

Starry Night · Jun 25, 2003, 06:54 PM

Originally posted by benb:
FWIW, I bought 2 (not from NewEgg though) and neither had a single dead/stuck pixel. I would be incredibly surprised if you got 7.

The 172t will plug right into your Mac, no hassle at all. There was a thread in the Peripheral's forum all about the 172t, do a search there, lots of good info and reviews.

And lastly, I would say you are nuts for going with the 1.25 over the 1.6. I know the price point is good, but the new G5 is just so much awesomer! I am a sucker for shiny new electorics though. Just ask my wallet!

Hi Benb,

Thanks for the info. The G5 is tempting, but I really really don't need that much speed. Plus there are likely to be G5 bugs worked out over the first year. The G4 is tried and true, and cheap, all things that matter to me more than latest greatest speed. I'd rather have the cool display instead, budget won't allow for both a G5 and super display.

How do you like the 172T? Is text sharp and clear in OSX?

Mac Zealot · Jun 25, 2003, 07:05 PM

172T is an awesome monitor both in looks and performance.

However there are more recent LCDs that have less lag for example.

It depends, if you're going to be doing mainly 2D/graphics work I suggest the samsung every time, but if you want to play games I sugest the 1760V or 1760NX from NEC, they are only VGA *but* they have a mitsubishi 15ms pixel response rate, and are currently recognized by tom's hardware (see report here

The samsung is also reviewed on that site and I believe it's the 3rd or 4th best LCD on the market for gaming.

I find it funny how the cheapest display is also one of the best. LOL. Anyway, yeah, if you want a high performance LCD get NEC or samsung.

The Apple Studio display is only good at looking pretty. IMHO

Starry Night · Jun 25, 2003, 09:05 PM

Originally posted by Mac Zealot:
172T is an awesome monitor both in looks and performance.

However there are more recent LCDs that have less lag for example.

It depends, if you're going to be doing mainly 2D/graphics work I suggest the samsung every time, but if you want to play games I sugest the 1760V or 1760NX from NEC, they are only VGA *but* they have a mitsubishi 15ms pixel response rate, and are currently recognized by tom's hardware (see report here

The samsung is also reviewed on that site and I believe it's the 3rd or 4th best LCD on the market for gaming.

I find it funny how the cheapest display is also one of the best. LOL. Anyway, yeah, if you want a high performance LCD get NEC or samsung.

The Apple Studio display is only good at looking pretty. IMHO

Mac Zealot,

Thanks for the tips. The NEC LCD 1760V looks pretty good. Amazon.com has it for $468 after the $20 rebate with free shipping.

I wonder what kind of difference the lack of DVI will have in terms of clarity?

gator · Jun 25, 2003, 09:46 PM

It used to be that DVI was a big deal in making the display better, but now several places will argue that VGA is pretty close to DVI in display quality. If you're not using it heavily for gaming, I'd suggest the Samsung. They've made great LCDs for quite a while.... I currently have the 170T (they made that 2 years ago), and it's a great monitor. Great display quality, only thing is maybe a slight lag on things like UT2K3, but nothing that wouldn't prevent me from giving a recommendation for the 172T.

I think Anandtech just did a review of the 172T in case it wasn't linked below somewhere.

benb · Jun 25, 2003, 09:53 PM

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=134643

Mr. Blur · Jun 25, 2003, 10:58 PM

Originally posted by benb:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=134643

i've got a few posts in that thread.....and i'd recommend to the starter of the thread to have a look there....eug provided some good links to info about the samsungs (and pics too)....i ended up with 2 172t's for myself and i couldn't be happier...they're superb.

JustinD · Jun 25, 2003, 11:13 PM

booo! for a little more, I say go for Samsung's 172W!

I just picked up three of them (replacing two 17" Studio Displays). same basic specs as the 172T, but wide-screen (16:9!) not the best if you use lots of business apps that tent to display information horizontally, but they are great for media apps since they're so wide. =)

Eug Wanker · Jun 25, 2003, 11:16 PM

Yeah, great monitor.

IMO it's foolish to get a monitor without DVI. VGA can be great, but it isn't always. For example, while the VGA quality from my PC's ATI Radeon 9100 is excellent, the VGA quality from my TiBook (via the DVI-VGA converter) is only pretty good. DVI is slightly better than the PC's VGA, and MUCH better than the TiBook's VGA.

And I didn't have a single dead pixel on my 172T either.

One thing I did notice however. While the monitor is great in bright background light, if you have dim lighting you have to turn the backlight of the screen way down.

As for gaming I don't play much anymore, but from what I've seen with UT2003, ghosting isn't a major issue (for me at least). Some hard core gamers do notice it, particularly with red on a dark background (and I have seen it too), but for the vast majority of situations, it's not really noticeable.

A lot of the super fast screens out there don't have as nice colours as the Samsung 172T. eg. The faster Hitachi isn't rated as nice as the Samsung, but it's very popular with gamers. It depends on your priorities.

benb · Jun 25, 2003, 11:31 PM

Originally posted by JustinD:
booo! for a little more, I say go for Samsung's 172W!

I just picked up three of them (replacing two 17" Studio Displays). same basic specs as the 172T, but wide-screen (16:9!) not the best if you use lots of business apps that tent to display information horizontally, but they are great for media apps since they're so wide. =)

I say you don't pay a little more, but pay a little less and get the 172t. You see, widescreen is nice, but why in your right mind would you want to pay more for less? The 172t is 1280x1024 and the 172w is 1280x768. Why not just get the 172t and use the extra 256 pixels for a hugengous dock? You are not gaining horizontal space with the w, only losing vertical space.

Lizard7 · Jun 26, 2003, 01:34 PM

I compared a 172T side by side with an apple studio display 17. The 172T was considerably brighter and had more vivid colors. The whites on the studio display looked almost yellow in comparison.

I say go with the 172T.

Starry Night · Jun 26, 2003, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by Lizard7:
I compared a 172T side by side with an apple studio display 17. The 172T was considerably brighter and had more vivid colors. The whites on the studio display looked almost yellow in comparison.

I say go with the 172T.

Aha!, the side by side comparison. Thanks for your feedback. I think I'm going to order one of the Samsung 172T's and one of the NEC LCD 1760V's. Take 30 days to see which one I like best, send the other back. I checked w/Amazon, and they are fine with all of that.

I can simply find no compelling reason beyond "Apple is great and it sure does look nice" to order the studio display. Performance (and warranty) is my priority.

Starry Night · Jun 27, 2003, 03:01 PM

Here's an interesting Tom's Hardware Article in which they compare seven 17" LCD's to the ElectronBlue CRT and LCD for color accuracy. They also point out that the 16ms LCD's can only meet that speed for 262,000 colors, not millions.

Mac Zealot · Jun 27, 2003, 04:25 PM

*nod*

One more thing for you to chew on, apple's display support is LOUSY at the best, that I say from experience.

They also have a very high defect rate and dealing with them about LCDs is almost impossible so you're not really missing anything.

I woulda happily gone for 3 samsungs vs the cinema display I hav enow, and that leads me to one more thing..

I didn't know about the thousands of color thing!! OW!

Starry Night · Jun 27, 2003, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by Mac Zealot:
*nod*

One more thing for you to chew on, apple's display support is LOUSY at the best, that I say from experience.

They also have a very high defect rate and dealing with them about LCDs is almost impossible so you're not really missing anything.

I woulda happily gone for 3 samsungs vs the cinema display I hav enow, and that leads me to one more thing..

I didn't know about the thousands of color thing!! OW!

Yeah, Tom's says that as long as your game's colors are one of the 262,000, then all is well, it's true for all of the 16ms displays. If not, then there may be some light ghosting. Apparently, all seven of the displays are ultimately made by just two manufacturers, Hyundai and another one which I've forgotten.

No matter, the NEC has a great price, I'm eager to check it out. I'm a light gamer, thus a little ghosting is no big deal to me. However, I was impressed that on the NEC, 95% of the colors are accurate and in some regards, bests the electron blue....