Widescreen Gaming Forum

the 275t got rave reviews from extremetech, so i am thinking about saving up for the 305t, which newegg has for about $1200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001098

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2169578,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2071730,00.asp

just ordered it, so i'll let folks know what i think in a week or so

spent a few hours with it tonight, tried out x3, crysis, and oblivion, and watched some of my serenity dvd on it. it is superb!

Glad to hear it's working well for you. Would love to see a User Review.

Do you have some cool pics?

Greetz

Glad to hear it's working well for you. Would love to see a User Review.

well, i am likely not knowledgable enough to go into great detail, but i can tell folks that the color distribution is superb- huge screen but looks consistent throughout, unlike the underwhelming viewsonic. also, viewing angle doesn't seem to matter much, since i tried looking at the screen from many angles.

at the res of 2560x1600, there is none of that pixilated quality like on the 27.5" viewsonic at 1920x1200.

the monitor tilts, swivels, and has an adjustable height stand, which is nice.

there's no hdcp input, which might matter to me at some point down the road if i get a blu-ray drive. i still don't really know how not having hdcp will affect my movie watching ability.

saw parts of serenity dvd (regular, not HD) and it looked fantastic.

there are no drivers to install for it, which doesn't really matter to me i guess, but seems curious since w. the viewsonic and the NEC CRT i have, there are drivers. windows device manager just recognizes it as a plug and play monitor and isn't able to locate specific drivers for it. this is probably b/c there aren't any, afaik. went to samsung-downloads for the syncmaster 305T and only thing there was a .pdf manual.

i wonder why samsung doesn't have drivers for it, and does prevent any sort of specific calibration or fine tuning that could improve the quality of its performance in windows? i would find that hard to believe, given it's a top of the line monitor.

what do folks think?

it might be irrational, but it sort of bugs me that windows won't recognize it by name/type, only recognizing it as "plug and play monitor"

anything i can do about this? updating the drivers isn't doing it. is there a way to manually check?

Congrats! :)

As Ibrin mentioned, a User review would be nice to have, especially since people are often in the same situation of what you have been.

Unlike the TN of the 28" viewsonic, the "limitations" of the viewing angle of the 305T manifests itself a bit differently. This is natural, since it has a different crystal matrix and crystal positioning. You won't get the large shifts at vertical viewing angles like the viewsonic, but you'll get more subtile shifts with only a few degrees angle shift. Especially in the dark level detail and colors. Colors wash out slightly at minor angle shifts and black level detail appear more at angle then center view. If you have a picture up with some black level detail and move your head slightly back and forth, you should see some shifts. Some have reported shifts in white as well (turning a bit yellowish at angle).

Drivers wouldn't add any special functions for this screen. They are more for analoge screens. Since the 305T transmits the information about its standard resolutions via the EDID data on the DVI, the need for the drivers are less. You can add custom resolutions in the drivers for your GFX if nessesary. The only thing I can think of with drivers that has impact is the standard .ICC color profile that often gets installed with the drivers.

Samsung have a tool called Magic tune which is used to tweak their screens further (colors, color temperature etc). I don't know if they have included support for their 305T yet, but its worth checking out.

What would be interesting for several here I think is the coating of this screen. Several of the other 30" screens have an agressive anti-glare coating which gives a bit grainy surface. Some comments about the anti-glare on the 305T would be useful, especially since I suspect it has a less agressive type implemented. :)

[quote]Glad to hear it's working well for you. Would love to see a User Review.

well, i am likely not knowledgable enough to go into great detail, but i can tell folks that the color distribution is superb- huge screen but looks consistent throughout, unlike the underwhelming viewsonic. also, viewing angle doesn't seem to matter much, since i tried looking at the screen from many angles.

Our user reviews aren't intended to be multi-page articles, or hugely technical pieces. We hope that they are good at conveying your experience as a "normal" user, to other "normal" users. Check out the User Reviews section, and post what you can. A few pics would be nice as well.

And, I was going to say the same thing as Tamlin about the driver, and it's importance. About the only thing that would give it the proper name is the .inf or .icc. The NV Control Panel may do a better job at picking up the panel name, than Windows.

thanks guys

ok, will dig up my girlfriend's digital camera and post some pics and comments

screen looks fine to look at, so i doubt there's any sort of aggressive anti-glare coating

playing games on this thing is a real joy!