Date: April 30th, 2004
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Samsung
<----Shop for a SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 172X LCD TFT MONITOR

PRODUCT COMPOSITION

Currently, there is no shortage in 172X vendors online and you can pick one up for about US$560-$580.

If you do purchase this monitor after reading this review, don't expect a huge box to be dropped off at your door. The packaging is rather small, compact and very protective. With the amount of form fitted styrofoam inside this box, you can rest easy that your package can take quite a licking and will definitely be ticking when you fire it up onto your desk. Ok.....enough about the damn box.

As always, you will receive a small bag containing the monitor driver CD (install the drivers and don't use the standard plug and play monitor driver in Windows), along with a quick setup guide and the warranty paperwork. All Samsung LCD monitors come complete with a complete 3 year warranty. Will you need it? I doubt it. I have yet to see even a broken pixel on the 16 or so LCD monitors I have reviewed from Samsung. No cheap crap here......

As a very interesting and handy extra, Samsung chose to include a wall mount plate if you want to clear up all your desk space and mount the monitor. Everything is included from instructions to hardware. With a lot of monitors, the wall mount plate is a separate purchase and is never cheap. As you can see, I like extras. More bang for the buck should always be on the consumer's mind.

Also included is both the standard VGA monitor cable along with the DVI. Either way, you are covered.

To keep the monitor size to a minimum, Samsung chose to use an external power supply which you can neatly tuck under your desk and out of harm's way. From wall plug to the monitor, you have 6 feet of total cable length to play with.

And finally, you will be able to take the protective covering off of your new monitor and perch it proudly on your desk for everyone to envy. As I will cover in the next section, the profile of the 172X is one, if not THE thinnest LCD monitors I have reviewed on Tweaknews. It's simple, it's modern, it's stylish.