Samsung 171P TFT LCD Review

Porsche. Does that attract your attention? Well, to many, just the name will perk heads. Samsung’s new 171P 17” TFT LCD monitor designed by F.A. Porsche Designs will definitely appeal to many people. So, you may be asking whether it really makes a difference to have a product designed by a professional design team that incorporates style, fashion, and usability. Well, that decision will ultimately be up to the user to decide, but one thing is for sure, this is one of the best-looking LCDs that I have seen and reviewed. Samsung’s other product, the 151MP and 171MP are other very stylish LCDs but what the 171P offers is a much better combination of style and function. In many ways, this display rivals the Apple Cinema Displays in style, but wins head on when you combine the features and functions that the Samsung 171P can do that the Cinema Displays are incapable of. However, Apple’s products are not direct competitors to the 171P, there are many very good competing products from Sony, Philips, LG, NEC, and Viewsonic, among others. Therefore, style alone does not merit a good product but is definitely a major factor in purchasing a product nowadays.

Back in the day when all computer cases and monitors came in beige or dull gray, there wasn’t much to choose from in terms of style, but then again function and performance were the main issues at hand. Today, with stylish designs and a plethora of features, the decision making process is much more complicated and often extremely confusing. Often times the features and the quality are so similar that it just comes down to which brand the consumer prefers. Now to many people today, because so many products are very similar, the design and the style of the unit becomes a very important factor in purchasing. Quite simply, you would like to have a good-looking unit rather than some ugly one.

The Samsung 171P doesn’t disappoint those who are looking for something that will appeal to their senses. In many ways, it’s actually just a simple design, with a metallic gray color encasing accented with a black button and status bar. It sports a square design, thin profile with minimal but clean lines. The button and status bar are very nicely designed. The power button is concave in shape with the outer rim of the button lighted from behind giving a nice effect when it’s powered on and blinking during standby. The status or functional bar is completely black when the LCD is not turned on and when it is lighted it has a nice backlit effect as well. Furthermore, the status bar is touch-sensitive and brings up the onscreen menu and other standard controls. These touch sensitive controls are similar to Samsung’s MP line, except with the 171P, there are no buttons to press on so it can be deceiving at first. So, after raving about the design of the Samsung 171P, we must consider whether all the money was spent on the design or does its functionality and quality match its style.

First off, I must compliment the ability to rotate the screen 90 degrees in both directions and it’s very easy to do this and the feedback is very smooth as well, this I haven’t seen in any product thus far. You may think that this is just a rather “interesting but not useful” feature, but when you think about it, some applications you wish that the screen was in portrait view so you could see more since in landscape view you always end up with excess space on one end anyways when you don’t need to have two windows side by side. The Samsung 171P comes with software so that you can switch the screen from landscape to portrait quite easily. To graphic artists, this can be very useful as you can see more of the page without shrinking the image, and even to developers so you can see more code at once. The 171P also comes with a handle at the back to easily carry the unit but also to adjust the height of the screen and to tilt the vertical angle of the screen as well. Another very nice design feature is that the cords are all concealed by the stand. This is possible since the wires are attached to the base at the back, so you only have to plug them into your computer and not have to plug them in the awkward and hard to reach place right behind the screen like most other LCDs in the market. There are also two video output connectors, one for analog and one for digital. Now, when you compare this to a lot of other LCDs out there, you will see that most of those units will have some of these features, but not all the ones that the 171P has. Also, in terms of aesthetics alone, the Apple Studio Cinema displays are arguably better looking, but don’t even come close in the functionality that the 171P offers like portrait/landscape view and height adjustable screen.

First, lets take a look at the specifications that come with the Samsung 171P TFT LCD.

Type TFT LCD

Size 17"

Pixel Pitch 0.264mm H/V

Brightness 250cd/m²

Contrast Ratio 500:1

Viewing Angle 170°/170º (H/V)

Horizontal Rate 30-81KHz

Vertical Rate 56-85Hz

Maximum Pixel Rate 135MHz

Maximum 1280 x 1024 (Analog)

Set (W x H x D) 16.7" x 18.0" x 8.1"

Warranty 3 years parts and labor

3 years Backlight

These specifications for the 171P are quite extraordinary, but then again specifications are just what the manufacturers want you to see. You never really know how good or bad it is until you see it for yourself and use it for an extended period of time. First off, the specification that seemed most attractive was the contrast ratio of 500:1. Most LCDs do not have such a high contrast ratio and actually you can tell the difference. This is definitely an exceptional display with crisp, clear images and text. The color reproductions are very good with distinguishable lights on lights and darks on darks. There is minimal ghosting of text and images with a decent 25ms pixel-response rate. Ghosting was a problem with older LCD displays, but this has improved significantly over the years that now the response rate has improved to a point where most users would not notice the effect. Another old problem was how black the blacks were on screen. Blacks in the old days were more like dark grays, but as you can see in the Samsung 171P, blacks are finally black. Well, it should be noted that many products now have this quality as well but I found the blacks to be good on the 171P. The viewing angles on this display are adequate and can be easily viewed by several people at the same time, though I usually don’t feel this is that big of a deal most of the time. Viewing high quality images on the display resulted in very nice images with decent shading qualities, instead of some lower quality displays that are hard to distinguish similar shades so the images become somewhat blurry and less crisp. Text was very crisp even for small text sizes and when I tried light text on dark background or dark text on light backgrounds, all of these combinations resulted in very adequate results.

Now that I have used the Samsung 171P for some time, I find it hard to have to return it. Of course I could go out and pay for a brand new one for myself, but the price tag is somewhat high at $900 USD. Well, that’s not to say that this LCD display is not worth the price tag because it does offer a lot of features, and a nice combination of style and function that makes this LCD so appealing. You can proudly position this display in your work area or office and may even compel you to actually clean up your workstation to match this LCD display. I must emphasize that this display is very nice to look at in several ways. First, the design and style of this LCD makes it appealing to look at as a fixture in your office or home, but secondly, and more importantly, the display quality of the Samsung 171P is exceptional. Combine that with the functional capabilities of the rotating display, adjustable height, concealed wiring, and a slot for safely locking this display to your desk, and you have a LCD display that has the best of both worlds.

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