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The term ‘convergence’ is a word that has been bandied about and overused for so many years now it’s something of a relief for the technology journalist to find products such as the Samsung SyncMaster 730MW that truly fall into that category. A downside however, is that it does make things a little tricky when looking up that product on the manufacturers’ web site. Do I look in the IT section or do I look in home entertainment? Obviously the 730MW could be used as both, though overall I'd say it’s more practical as a TV than a full-time monitor.

The SyncMaster 730MW is the widescreen version of the 730MP which we reviewed here. Essentially, what makes a monitor into an LCD TV is the presence of a TV tuner and speakers. The 730MW is equipped with an analogue TV Tuner and a remote control as well as large speakers at the sides. The silver speakers taper in slightly and match the panel’s stand. The stand does enable the panel to be tilted both forward and back, but only slightly and this limited range of motion means that if you place it too high up or low down compared to your viewing position, you won’t get a great picture thanks to the rather limited vertical viewing angle. This is quoted at a rather miserly 120 degrees in both planes. In practice it was worse vertically with a noticeable and unpleasant colour shift while to the sides it only caused a loss of contrast.

And as it won’t tilt back that far, the low stand means that to use as a desktop monitor you’ll want to raise the whole thing up. I simply placed it on a box, which rather spoilt the aesthetics. Alternatively you can wall mount the display thanks to its 75mm VESA mounting holes. The stand can be removed with the help of a Philips head screwdriver.

One major change from the 730MP is that Samsung has omitted the WiseVIEW card that was one of the 4:3 aspect ratio monitor’s key selling points. This is a shame but has presumably been done to keep the price down and the fact that this widescreen version is available for less than the 730MP shows that it has been successful.

This means that the talking point for the Samsung is its healthy range of connectivity. At the rear there’s a DVI connection for use with a PC or a suitably equipped DVD player and a D-Sub connection for a PC. Next there’s an RGB capable SCART socket, RCA Component connections, S-Video and composite. There’s also an RF input for the TV tuner a connector for an FM aerial and a headphone socket. This pretty much covers all the bases, but it is a little frustrating not to see a digital TV Tuner, which would automatically provide digital radio, even though this wouldn’t actually be DAB.

The remote control included is a unremarkable affair with rubbery buttons. There are no direct buttons for selecting the input you require, so instead you have to scroll till you get to the one you want.