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As for specifications there appear to be differences between the US and UK web sites, though I’d be more inclined to go with a UK site for UK product. Then again it does give the native resolution at 1,280 x 1,024, which is patently wrong, so maybe it’s best to ignore it altogether. For what it’s worth though the brightness is rated at 400 candelas and the contrast ratio at 500:1. The response time is listed as 25ms.

To start of testing we hooked up to a PC using the DVI connection. The picture was sharp and colours appeared accurate. However, I immediately noticed an overall bluish tone to the image. This was correctable by going into the menu and changing the ‘Color Tone’ option from Normal or Cool to Warm. It’s also possible to quickly switch between four image presets of ‘Internet’, ‘Text’, ‘Custom’ and ‘Entertain’. The latter is almost overly bright and comes at the expense of contrast.

Image quality in Windows was fine but the 768 lines of resolution proved to be a problem. Even the most basic 17in monitor will have a native resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 so while widescreen is more pleasant to sit in front of it does mean more vertical scrolling.

In our DisplayMate tests, the sharpness and accuracy of colours was noticeable, but there was some banding evident in the grey scale tests. However, the panels strengths came to the fore when watching DVDs or HD DIVX files. The image quality was very pleasing and I couldn’t notice any smearing issues caused by a relatively high response time figure. However, gaming is an entirely different kettle of fish. As soon as I fired up a first person shooter, (Counter-Strike: Source) the image suffered from very noticeable tearing. Applying the vertical sync option in the game sorted that problem out, but nevertheless moving from my 21in CRT, there was a sense of sluggishness that affected my play. Unreal Tournament 2004 suffered even more with no widescreen option and no vertical sync option either.

A big feature was is the fact that you can easily connect gaming consoles. The first connection I tried was the SCART socket but strangely this didn’t work with no picture appearing at all. I had no luck with a Sky Digibox either. This turned out to be a fault in the unit and Samsung quickly shipped out a replacement which exhibited no problems. However, playing Halo 2 via the RGB scart connection I still wasn't blown away by the picture quality, with there seeming to be a dithering effect over some colours and effects such as smoke. Images over the SCART were definitely preferable to the S-Video connection though which lacked sharpness and exhibited some colour bleed. As you might have expected the composite connection was even softer so I’d only recommend using it if there no other option.

The analogue TV and FM tuner perform a fairly fast scan of the airwaves and image quality is good, though the nature of analogue signals means that it won’t show the panel off to the best of its abilities. The Picture-in-Picture function worked as advertised and the box can be placed in the desired corner.

Output from the speakers was surprisingly good with a fairly weighty sound. The 3D option really did seem to expand the sound field which worked particualrly well in games.

Verdict

The 730MW falls between two stools. It’s not high resolution or speedy enough to act primarily as a work or gaming monitor, with occasional TV duties, and it’s barely big enough to act as a secondary TV. However it could pass muster as a bedroom Media Center system or a screen for the kids to have in their room for both PC use and console gaming and the price is not unreasonable too. However, my search for the perfect all-in-one multimedia screen will have to continue.

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