The Samsung 971P was shown at
CEBIT last year, and was immediately noticed for it's unique design and
adjustability. The 971P is available in either white or black versions and
offers a glossy finish to the plastics which form the versatile stand and
relatively thin bezel. Not only does the display offer an impressive appearance, but it features
an excellent spec on paper. Nowadays, it is quite rare for manufacturers to use
technology other than TN Film in the 19" market, but the 971P makes use of
Samsung's own PVA panel:
Size |
19" |
Colour Depth |
16.7
million colours |
Resolution |
1280
x 1024 |
Viewing Angles |
178 / 178 |
Response Time |
6ms G2G |
Panel Technology |
PVA |
Contrast Ratio |
1500:1 |
Interfaces |
DVI-I (Analogue and Digital) |
Brightness |
250
cd/m2 |
Colour |
Black or White |
Special Features |
Extremely diverse stand, rotate, tilt and height adjustable. 2x USB 2.0
Ports. MagicColor,
MagicBright2, MagicTune with Asset Management, MagicRotation (Auto Pivot) |





Above: Normal
front view (left) and rotated into portrait mode (right)
Below: Rear view of the screen
It was hard not to fall immediately in love with
the design of the 971P as I set it up on my desk. The stand is extremely
versatile, and the glossy finish of the plastic looks very attractive. The range
of positions possible from the tilt adjustment was very impressive
and the monitor was very easy to set up at a suitable level for every day use.
The screen can be easily tilted from a vertical position to as far back as you
like, in fact the screen comes packaged completely folded down (as shown below),
so the range of motion is very good. The height adjustment is a little limited,
but at least there is some variation there to offer. The movement is smooth and
well balanced and the rotation feature is also easy to use. One minor thing
which was a little annoying with the rotation is that when you move it back to
the landscape mode, there is a point at which the rotation is automatically
restricted so you know when you're back at a normal level. However, this is a
little too far on the 971P and so if you move it back all the way, it actually
rotates a little too far and you have to fiddle with the angle to get it level.
While the glossy plastic finish of the screen looks nice, it can show finger
prints up quite easily when you move the screen around, and taking pictures was a
little tricky due to reflections. Samsung however, have provided a small cloth
to wipe the screen and keep it smudge free, which is a thoughtful touch. The
screen itself uses traditional matt finish AR, rather than any glossy finish,
coating.

Above: Animation
showing stand functionality

Above: Side
views and various tilt and height adjustments
Below: Folded down (not all the way either!)

The monitor features an external power brick, and
as such, the DC input to the back of the monitor is discreet and well hidden.
The monitor features only a single interface which is cleverly hidden underneath
a section of the base, with a small opening at the back where the cable can lead
out. The interface available is a DVI-I connection which means you can connect
it to your PC using either a DVI > DVI cable, or using a VGA > DVI cable. Both
are provided in the box. One minor complaint I have about the hidden DVI-I
interface is that it leaves no room for a DVI cable with a plastic section to it
(as shown below), so I could not use the DVI cable I already had connected to my
PC from my main monitor.
Above: Showing
DC power connection at the back of the stand along with 2x USB 2.0 ports (and
USB upstream)

Above left:
Underside of stand showing DVI-I connection and groove
Above right: DVI cable with plastic section on cord not suitable for this screen

Above: Power
button on edge of stand, and illuminated blue when turned on.
The power button is touch sensitive and located on
the side of the stand. This button glows blue when the monitor is
turned on which looks very nice. There is also a single button on the opposite
end of the stand which can be used to operate a few functions. If you hold this
button down while you turn the screen on, you can choose to set this button to
operate 'MagicBright', 'MagicColor', 'auto adjust' (runs analogue auto image
adjust), 'source select' (digital vs analogue) and 'Color Tone' (cool, normal,
warm). Probably the most functional option is to have this single button cycle
between the MagicBright preset modes, which can be quite handy for movie viewing
and gaming.

Above: MagicTune
software used to calibrate RGB and other settings instead of using an OSD
Apart from 'power' and 'select', the 971P doesn't
feature any further buttons to operate the screen. Instead you need to install
and use Samsung's MagicTune software to operate the equivalent of the OSD. All
the settings for colour, brightness, contrast, analogue/digital etc are software
controlled. I'm of two minds about this personally. On the one hand, the
software was easy to operate and proved efficient in setting up the screen
correctly. It made calibration of the screen with the
LaCie Blue Eye Pro pretty simple and it also meant the monitor was clean and
free from extra operational buttons. On the other hand, you can't do anything
with the settings without software, so you have no choice really but to install
the MagicTune package. I would have liked the option to do either really and it
limits the monitors 'plug and go' feeling.

Colour Quality and
Accuracy
The Samsung 971P utilises an 8-bit Samsung PVA panel,
capable of producing a 16.7 million colour palette. The standard CCFL
backlighting used offers a gamut covering 72% of the NTSC colour space. An important
thing to consider for most users is how a screen will perform out of the box and
with some basic manual adjustments. Since most users won't have access to
hardware colorimeter tools, it is important to understand how the screen is
going to perform in terms of colour accuracy for the average user. I restored my graphics card to default settings
and set it to its standard profile. The Samsung 971P was tested at default factory
settings out of the box using the
LaCie Blue Eye Pro and their accompanying software suite.
Default settings of the screen were 100 brightness, 75 contrast ratio, and 50
for each of the RGB values (as detailed in the MagicTune software).

Samsung 971P - Default Settings


|
Default Settings |
Brightness (cd/m2) |
237 |
Black Point (cd/m2) |
0.14 |
Contrast Ratio |
1692:1 |
Out of the box the screen looked a little too
bright, but not as much as I have experienced with some other displays, it
wasn't too over-bearing. This is
probably owing to the modest 250 cd/m2 brightness specification of the display
and even at 100% brightness setting, the screen was usable. Colours actually
looked pretty good and there was no obvious tendancy towards any particular
shade. The LaCie Blue Eye Pro showed a pretty decent result, with an accurate
gamma level (2.1), decent colour temperature of 6175k (we were aiming for 6500k
here) and a good representation of the sRGB colour space. Luminance was recorded
at 237 cd/m2, which was fairly close to the specified maximum value achievable
for the screen. This was obviously a fair way off from the desired 120 cd/m2
luminance suitable for LCD screens in normal lighting conditions, but remained
usable in practice. Black depth was very impressive measuring at 0.14 cd/m2 even
at 100% brightness setting. This
gave an extremely high 1692:1 contrast ratio, and this without any dynamic contrast
technologies being used!
The graph on the right shows the DeltaE values for
colours tested by the LaCie Blue Eye Pro. As a reminder, the lower these bars
down the Y-axis, the better, in terms of colour accuracy. For reference, LaCie
describe the DeltaE readings as:
-
If DeltaE >3, the color displayed is significantly different from the
theoretical one, meaning that the difference will be perceptible to the
viewer.
-
If DeltaE <2, LaCie considers the calibration a success; there remains a
slight difference, but it is barely undetectable.
-
If DeltaE < 1, the color fidelity is excellent.
The 971P showed a fairly good result here
considering out of the box default settings were being used. Average DeltaE was
only 2.9, a drastic difference to default colour accuracy of other screens I
have tested, including the S-IPS based (and well regarded)
NEC 20WGX2 for instance. Samsung have done a good job here with default
colour accuracy, and to the eye, there didn't seem like much needed changing
either, other than perhaps lowering the brightness a touch to suit the ambient
lighting conditions.

Samsung 971P - Calibrated Results

|
Calibrated Settings |
Brightness (cd/m2) |
120 |
Black Point (cd/m2) |
0.1 |
Contrast Ratio |
1200:1 |
During calibration the screen was changed to 60% brightness and 70% contrast
using the MagicTune software. After calibration the luminance, gamma and colour
temperature were more accurate and the monitor covered the sRGB gamut range
more evenly. DeltaE was on average reduced to 0.5 offering excellent colour
accuracy as measured by LaCie. The maximum DeltaE was only 1.6 and so any slight
difference between the desired colour, and produced colour was barely
detectable. While the default colour accuracy was fairly good, improvements are
possible with correct calibration and the 971P was very good in this regard.
Black depth was recorded at 0.1 cd/m2 and with the
luminance now set at 120 cd/m2, this gave a usable contrast ratio of 1200:1.
Again, this was very impressive and the black depth of the PVA panel used is
very good. In practice the colours looked vibrant and well respresented, and
contrast was excellent. Colour gradients were pretty smooth with no obvious
banding and only slight gradation in darker tones.

Viewing Angles


Above: (top) Viewing
angles shown from front and sides
(bottom) from above and from below
Being PVA based, one could expect good viewing
angles from the 971P. This was the case in practice, as shown by the pictures
above. Viewing angles were superior to those of TN Film panels, especially
vertically, but remained a little behind those of S-IPS based screens. The panel
did exhibit the characteristic contrast shift of VA based matrices as you move
your line of sight away from a perpendicular view. This was minor, and not
something I personally find an issue in normal use. Some users have commented
that VA panels are difficult to use for colour critical work, but I think it is
wise to see a VA panel in person before you decide whether it will suit your own
needs. Viewing angles of the 971P were perfectly adequate for movie viewing and
there was no off-putting colour temperature shift as you move your line of sight
vertically as I have experienced on some TN Film based models.

Panel Uniformity

Above: panel
uniformity of a black screen in darkened room. Click for full size
In a darkened room, there was some uniformity
issues with the 971P, and backlight bleed was detectable from each of the 4
corners. This is somewhat exagerated in the above image, but gives an idea of
the screens backlight eveness. In pratice, this wasn't a major distraction
really, but was a little disappointing.

Office and Windows Use
The 971P offered a sharp image when using both
analogue and digital connections. Remember, the screen itself only features a
single DVI-I connection and so the signal type is determined by the interface
selected on the graphics card. There was perhaps a very slight improvement with
DVI in picture quality, but once auto adjustment had been used in VGA mode, the image
was sharp and clear. The monitors rotation feature is easy to use, and along
with MagicRotation software (discussed below), this makes the screen genuinely quite usable in
either portrait or landscape. I personally feel that 19" is perhaps a sensible
limit for using a rotation feature, as larger screens become a little unusable
in portrait mode, and moving them around is often difficult. The 5:4 aspect
ratio of the 971P meant that it was not possible to run windows side by side for
multitasking, and I really feel you need a 20"WS or larger model to achieve this
properly. Once you've used a WS format screen of 20" or above, it's hard to
adjust back to only having a small 5:4 aspect desktop to work with. However, I
won't hold that against this screen since it isn't designed to offer this
functionality. The screen's viewing angles and excellent contrast make it
suitable for office applications and photo / colour work. Colour accuracy is
good and the modest lumincance is suitable for comfortable office use, without
excessive brightness and the risk of eye strain.

Responsiveness and Gaming



Above: PixPerAn
testing showing best case (left) and worst case (right) images captured with a
camera on fastest shutter speed
Despite the quoted 6ms G2G response time of the
971P, I didn't feel the screen had really made any real improvements in
responsiveness compared with the Dell 2405FPW which uses a 12ms G2G rated PVA
panel. In PixPerAn tests in clone mode, the 971P actually showed slightly more obvious
blur of the moving image, and it was also certainly a step behind modern S-IPS
and TN Film panels. In gaming, this was also evident, with motion blur being
comparable to the older PVA generation, and not competing with the smooth
appearance of models such as the
NEC 20WGX2 and
LG L1980TQ I've tested in the past. Having said that, in practice the screen
was usable in some gaming conditions, and I found it adequate in many cases.
However, I would suggest it probably isn't as suitable as some other 19" models
for FPS gaming or for those who are 'pro gamers'. It appears that Samsung
haven't really made any major improvements in responsivenss of their 19" PVA panels,
and so if you're wanting a gaming screen, perhaps something like the LG L1980TQ
might be more suitable, or some of the other highly regarded 19" models like the
ViewSonic VX922 for example.

Movies and Video
The Samsung 971P performed pretty well in movie
tests using Microsoft's HD content. There was some twinkling from close range,
but colours looked vivid and black depth was impressive. I was actually quite
please with it's performance in this regard, and certainly from a metre or two
away there was no real problem with watching movies on the screen. The panel
uniformity issues were noticeable in some circumstances, but not overly
obtrusive. The 5:4 format of the screen is not ideal for movie viewing, but the
PVA panel technology is a nice change from TN Film in the 19" market. At least
PVA offers decent viewing angles for multiple person viewing. Particularly
important here I find is the vertical viewing angle, allowing you to watch
comfortably from a distance without needing to worry too much about the
distracting contrast shift shown vertically on TN based models. Combine the
decent viewing angles with a good contrast and black depth, and I was quite
happy with the 971P's performance here.

Bundled Software
The Samsung 971P came with several pieces of
software on the accompanying CD including MagicTune, MagicRotation and Natural
Color Pro:
MagicRotation installs a plugin which means
that when you rotate the screen between landscape and portrait modes, the image
is automatically (after a second or two) rotated with it. This is obviously
pretty handy if you think you might use the rotate function much, and with a
screen as flexible as this, and at a small enough size, this is a realistic
possibility. The MagicRotation software also integrates into the right click
functionality of Windows as shown below for manual adjustments.

Above:
MagicRotation integration into Windows right click menus
MagicTune I mentioned a little earlier as
well. This is used to control all the settings of the monitor, and on this
particular model, it is used in place of any OSD control from buttons on the
monitor. You can set up brightness, contrast and RGB colour levels as well as
selecting the interface used (analogue vs digital) and selecting any of the
preset 'MagicBright' settings. A handy configuration tool and easy enough to
use.

Above: Natural
Color Pro software for monitor calibration and profiling
Natural Color Pro offers the user the
ability to calibrate their screen through a series of steps as well as create an
ICM profile for their set up. I had no real cause to use this, having the LaCie
Blue Eye Pro available, but did try it out. It made no real difference in
hardware colorimeter testing but did help a little to make the gamma level more
accurate and the colours more even. If you don't have access to any hardware tools,
this is a pretty decent software calibration process which can help you set up
the screen.

Conclusion
I was suitably impressed with the design of the
971P and it certainly has the feel of a 'premium' range 19" model. The
adjustability and sleak curves of the stand, combined with the glossy finish to
the plastics made for an attractive monitor for anyone's desktop. It was a
pleasant experience to see a PVA panel used in a 19" model, and some of the
improvements over even modern TN Film panels was evident. Contrast ratio and
black depth were excellent on this model, and colour accuracy - even at default
settings, was very good. I think the 971P is a screen suitable for those who
want an attractive design and a good screen for office and general use. The
responsiveness was not as good as modern TN Film or S-IPS based screens, but
adequate for average use. The screen was let down a little by it's relatively
slow response times in practice, and some panel uniformity issues; but overall I
felt the 971P was a good performer in other areas.