The Samsung SyncMaster 173p is a 17-inch TFT-LCD display with both analog and digital inputs. This unique display offers Samsung's proprietary MagicTune software for a truly hands-free experience and MagicBright technology for enhanced viewing by application. This display offers a unique design concept, chic look and highly useful features. For users who demand picture-perfect image quality, the SyncMaster 173p utilizes Samsung's PVA technology, the latest advancement in liquid crystal cell structure for improved viewing. The display offers an extra-wide viewing 178 / 178 viewing angle, a 700: 1 contrast ratio, 270 cd/m2 brightness, 1280 x 1024 resolution and 0.264mm pixel pitch. Offered in an attractive silver color, the SyncMaster 173p includes a unique dual-hinge design that can be folded flush and can be wall mounted with the VESA bracket that is included. It also features a full 90-degree screen tilt for unmatched flexibility and height adjustment capability. The SyncMaster 173p sports a slim bezel that is just 0.8" thick and a sleek 1" panel profile. The 173p also features Pivot software by Portrait Displays for rotating from landscape to portrait viewing.
The 17-inch 173P from Samsung, a TFT LCD monitor with a small footprint and a variety of convenient extras, provides a high-quality image, advanced display technology, and a stylish design. Perfect for both home and business users as well as graphics professionals, the 173P delivers true-to-life presentations, thanks to 1,280 x 1,024 maximum resolution and 0.264 mm dot pitch. A high 700:1 contrast ratio combines with 270cd/m2 of brightness and 24-bit color support (16.7 million shades) to provide bright, clear images and easy-to-read text.
The 173P supports both DVI digital and analog input signals and connects to your computer via either a 15-pin mini D-sub cable (included) or a DVI cable (optional). With a small 15.1-by-9.3-inch footprint, the 173P fits easily onto any convenient surface and is also wall-mountable (VESA 75mm, bracket included), freeing up your valuable desktop space completely. A pivot function lets you turn the monitor 90 degrees, allowing you to view documents in either portrait or landscape orientation. Extremely wide 178-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles let you view the screen from nearly anywhere in the room, even edge-on. The MagicTune utility helps you to adjust your monitors settings for your particular viewing environment, while a number of preset display modes provide a quick and easy way to adjust settings.
The 173P consumes about 40 W of power during normal operation and under 2 watts during power save mode. TCO '03 and Energy Star certified, the 173P is plug-and-play ready to use right out of the box and is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms. It also comes backed with a three-year limited warranty on both parts and labor.
What's in the Box
Monitor, base/stand, D-sub signal cable, power cord, DC-adapter, VESA mounting bracket, quick setup guide, warranty card, user's guide and driver CD-ROM, pivot CD-ROM
1 Excellent Item - Worth every penny
I was looking for something that gives me the quality of an apple monitor without the expense. Compared this with Sony and after ample self doubt, decided to go in for a samsung monitor. I am more than overjoyed. It looks jaw-dropping-awesome, the design matches my mac mini, and gives amazing features and operation. If I need a second monitor, this would be my sure shot choice, any day!
2 This LCD Monitor Rocks!
The Samsung 173P is easy to set up. Just take it out of the box, plug in the power, then connect the LCD to your PC just like you'd plug in a normal CRT monitor. Then power up your PC and enjoy!
The 173P's out of the box setting is a little bright. Luckily, they give you a driver to install (on a CD), and two great programs, Magic Tune and Natural Color.
Magic Tune lets you adjust the resolution, brightness and contrast then save them as presets. You can change your monitor preset by right clicking on the desktop and pick one of the presets you've saved.
Natural Color lets you adjust the color of your monitor to the ambient light level and light source (daylight or incandescent, or whatever). It really takes the colors of your LCD to the next level. You can also match the color of the 173P to your printed output, but I haven't tried that yet.
Benefits of the 173P are:
- more screen real estate than a 17 inch monitor
- significantly less eye strain
- text is easier to read.
- frees up desk space.
For editing digital pictures, a high quality CRT is likely going to beat out the 173P by a little. However, for general home or business use, this monitor rocks!
The 173P fit and finish is very classy. This LCD monitor for the money is well worth tossing your 17 inch monitor out or keep it as a boat anchor.
3 decent monitor; but no Mac driver
I bought this as a second monitor, and as such it performs nicely. The price was right ($320 after rebates), and it's one of the thinnest 17" moniitors I've seen. Image quality is nice, and contrast ratio is better than many models, but it's a big dissapointment that there are drivers available for all versions of Windows and even Linux, but no Mac driver! (so Mac users won't be able to use the main feature of this monitor, its ability to rotate 90 degrees to display a page in portrait orientation, or control the brightness (which I assume the software driver could do, but I can't install it, so I'm stuck faking it with my system monitor control).
Samsung's tech support is dicey too. After several automated replies telling me to use a Macintosh adapter to make it work on my Mac (works fine; it's the software driver I asked about, nitwit!), I finally reached a human who told me what I already knew; Samsung doesn't offer one.
I give this a marginal thumbs-up, but only if you get it under $350 (the average price of a non-pivoting 17" LCD)
4 Fabulous monitor...
This thing is great! Best image and text I have seen. Colors are splendid. Being able to rotate the screen 90 degrees for portrait mode is excellent. The software controls that came with it work well too. I am very pleased with this monitor.
5 the best
by far the best lcd ever ... if looking for slightly less better ... with a more better price try the Neovo LCDs they are cheap on amazon
6 Buy Samsung at your own RISK
I bought a Samsung flat-panel television in March, and it the panel went dead in April. I brought it to a one of Samsung's certified dealers for repair, and waited and waited. Finally in May, I was told that the the television panel was indeed defective and couldn't be fixed, so the manufacturer was obligated to replace it under the warranty. It's now September, and guess what, I'm still waiting for the replacement. Buy from Samsung at your own risk. From my own experience, they don't stand by their products.
7 Excelent design and image
This monitor pleases your eyes in two ways. The image is excelent! The design is very cool.
8 BAD A$$ MONITOR!
I just replaced a 19" Sony Trinitron CRT with this monitor and my only regret is that I didn't go Digital LCD sooner! What a difference! As sharp as the Trinitron is, this Samsung will eat it for breakfast....and here is the reasons why-
Eye Strain- Goodbye eye strain! Flicker free images....no glare...nice sharp text and edges.
Colors- The reds are red and the blacks are black and the whites are BRIGHT!...no bleeding or faded colors. I work extensively with Photoshop and Illustrator....The colors are true and crisp with this monitor and this is the big issue that keeps most graphics designers from going to LCD.. well, this and price. Believe me, this monitor is worth every penny and the colors are more vivid than you'll ever get from a CRT.
Functionality- This baby can be tilted and turned in uncountable positions. You can actually tilt the screen 90 degrees to view the display on it's vertically longer side... the included Pivot Pro software will flip the text and images on the screen for you....this is great for MS Word, surfing the net and etc.. because you don't have to scroll as much.
Adjustments- The feature that makes this LCD so user friendly is the feature that it lacks...buttons! There is a power-on button and that's it...everything is controlled with the included Magic Tune software...No More clumsy menus! The software is a breeze to use and your results come much quicker than with the typical button layout found on other monitors. One cool thing about the included software is that it has a color calibration feature so that what you see on the screen is what you get when you print to paper. This is great for anyone that uses Photoshop or similiar image editing software because "What you see is what you get"... software like this is fairly expensive if you had to purchase by itself.
Digital- If you use the DVI output on this monitor all you need to do is plug it in and adjust the contrast, resolution, and brightness...color adjustment is spot-on with no adjustment necessary when you go digital. Have I mentioned brightness?....this LCD can be adjusted to be very BRIGHT!
Reputation and Warranty- The 173P was voted best 17" LCD by Ziff Davis (www.zdnet.com) and CNet.com. Read the reviews and you'll soon see why this bad boy is untouchable. You get a great 3 year warranty with this monitor, and if you fill out the registration and send it in within 10 days of the purchase date you'll get an extra 3 months added to the warranty.
It's packaged very nicely and comes with all the necessary cables and software to have you up and running in a few minutes time. Just be sure to go to the control panel (Windows OS) and adjust the resolution to 1280 x 1024 (native LCD resolution).
I do have one gripe about the resolution. I'm used to using 1024 x 768 on a 19" CRT....going to 1280 x 1024 does make the icons and text a little smaller, but it's still well worth it! I'm slowly adjusting to this and I almost prefer this resolution over the other now. You can use this LCD in whatever resolution you want but you'll notice a big difference if it's not set to the recommended 1280 x 1024.
That about sums it up. If you're weighing cost vs. quality then you're wasting your time. This monitor is worth it. You can keep my Sony Trinitron and 10 others just like it for the 173P...there's no comparison and this is the BEST 17" out there!
9 Want a REAL review?
Click on the link below for a full in-dept review by me. I've had this up before any of the major review sites. It's been up since November 2003, right about the same time it was officially released in the U.S.
http://alumni.imsa.edu/~agent006/173P/index.htm
By the way, apparently there is actually a way to switch input modes via hardware. Just put your finger on the power button and hold it there for a few seconds. The output changes automatically.
10 Beautiful, but beware the software-only OSD
I recently purchased two of the 173P displays for use in a dual-monitor setup. They are truly gorgeous, with respect to both image quality and exterior fit and finish.
Unfortunately, Samsung's choice of the MagicTune software instead of a true hardware-based On-Screen-Display can be problematic. In my case, I wanted to calibrate the displays using my EyeOne system. Now, the first step in any good color calibration process is to accurately set the white point. I expected to use MagicTune to accomplish this, but found it sorely lacking. With a DVI-powered 173P I got no white point control--there was just nothing to click, a blank spot in the interface! Portrait Displays, the vendor that makes Display Tune (the software OSD rebranded by Samsung as MagicTune) says on their support site that "[the white point] sub menu may not function if you are using the digital connection of your graphics card and monitor".
(Update: 2004-12-17)
I finally got everything calibrated after using a DVI to VGA adapter to run both displays in analog mode. That enabled color controls for both monitors, so I could set the white point and calibrate as usual. Nevertheless, I was very disappointed that I was effectively unable to use my new monitors with DVI.
I emailed Portrait Displays tech support, and they claimed that the reason color options are limited when running via DVI is that the 173P does not fully support DDC/CI (the VESA standard used to communicate the settings to the monitor) over DVI. Bummer!
Some googling indicated that NEC/Mitsubishi may have a more robust software-only OSD solution. Their NaViSet program is advertised as working over DVI and VGA, on both Windows, OS X, and OS 9. (I have no personal experience with this product.) It might be worth considering an NEC or Mitsubishi monitor instead of the 173P if you want better compatibility with DVI or the Mac. However, the 173P gives beautiful (although untunable) images with Linux and the Mac after auto-adjustment, which is done by holding down the monitor's power on button for a few seconds.
In spite of my ordeal, I really love the 173P and am satisfied. MagicTune is great when it works, but there are some significant shortcomings with the 173P that are not well documented by Samsung.
(NB: my primary system runs Windows XP w/ a Radeon 9600XT)
11 172X or 173P?...
After my 21 inch trinitron monitor started to go, i decided it was finally time to jump into the flatscreen arena. My desk is now supporting 50 less pounds, is much more open and i couldn't be happier. All thanks to Samsung's 173P monitor.
For the longest time, i've been one to say, "there's no way any flat screen could ever match (let alone beat) my trinitron in terms of image quality." Once the trinitron began to die, the idea of purchasing a new 60 pound beast with the knowledge that lighter and sleeker looking monitors are availabe, was not too appealing to be honest. So i began to search around online.
Quite quickly, i arrived at the conclusion that i wanted a Samsung LCD. i found an endless supply of accolades for Samsung's LCDs. i thought about the apple cinemawide monitor, but i absolutely despise apple as a company, and the technology in their cinema displays is outdated anyway - thus my decision to go with Samsung was finalized.
I narrowed my choices down to either the 172X or the 173P.
I initially purchased the 172X. The 12ms pixel refresh rate really hooked me. Ghosting has plagued LCD's since they first came about. The idea of no ghosting, really made me feel comfortable purchasing my first LCD.
I received the 172X and was impressed by the sleek look and the small footprint of this monitor. There was absolutely no ghosting. However, as was said before in an earlier review here, the viewing angle is ATTROCIOUS on this monitor. Even when looking at this monitor dead on, it can still be difficult to aviod seeing washed out colors...bright whites melting into yellows, deep reds bleeding into pink. It was really dissappointing. So, after about a week with the 172X, i decided to send it back and shell out another 50 dollars for the Samsung 173P monitor...
boy, was it worth it.
The Samsung 172X monitor looks great, but the 173P monitor one ups it. Even before you turn it on, this monitor wows you with it's design. There are NO buttons on the face of the monitor, minus the touch sensitive power button and input changing button (hold your finger there for a moment and the monitor will turn on or off with a beep, keep your finger there for a few seconds and the inputs will change. very cool.) The power light on this monitor is a blue led which also looks really nice. But it's when you turn this monitor on that you truly realize just how great it is.
Text on this monitor is razor sharp, where text on the 172X was merely very sharp. Color vibrance on this monitor beats the 172X, which is already great. While the 172X has a 500:1 contrast ratio, (how bright colors look) the 173P has a contrast ratio of 700:1, and it shows. The brightness of the 173P is very much superior to the 172X. The biggest problem with the 172X, the terrible viewing radius, is not only alleviated, but a "claimed" 178 degree viewing angle, sets an indrustry high water mark in this area and equates to stunning performance in this respect. While maybe not quite 178 degrees as Samsung claims, the viewing radius is VERY close to this, as looking at the monitor flat from the side reveals only a slight degredation of color quality. Whether you are looking at this monitor dead on, or very nearly entirely from the side, the colors stay rich and vibrant. And most surprising, despite the slower refresh rate of the 173P, i found there to be NO GHOSTING in games. If i would have known ghosting would have been a non-issue with this monitor, i never would have bothered with the 172X in the first place.
NO DEAD PIXELS were found on the 173P and this was a very pleasant discovery. My 172X had 1 dead pixel, which, while annoying, was by by no means the reason i was dissatisfied with it.
After coming from the trinitron, i can not believe how well the 173P performs. Unlike trinitron monitors, there are NO geometry issues. Straight lines are straight and not bowed in or out. Constant adjustments to picture size and geometry are no longer necessary. Degaussing every day is no longer necessary. Colors are so much more vibrant and accurate on this LCD monitor that i can not explain how much better pictures online or from my digital camera look than on the trinitron. It is quite simply, a revelation. Lastly, the space saved and super-swank aesthetics of this monitor really do make it an ultra high-class product.
Just remember that this monitor does not come cheap. At around 600 dollars, it is the most expensive 17" LCD monitor out there. Also, while crts are measured by screen and frame size, lcd's are measured by viewable size. So, while a 17" crt offers less than 17" of viewable screen size, a 17" LCD actually offers 17" of viewable space.
If you want the best 17" lcd money can buy, you would be making a mistake buying anything other than the Samsung 173P monitor.
12 Rotating feature is the super!
Not much to say! The best 17" LCD monitor on the market. I used many of them including NEC, Dell, and others. This one looks the best and works the best. Sharp picture, great text! I found extremely usefull to rotate monitor 90 when browsing internet! I love it! Was delivered from Amazon on the second day when I choose "free super saver" shipping option. Bought for $609.
13 Worth the money
I wanted an LCD with top image quality for precise photo editing, as well as general use. The 173P was above average in price, but the image quality is outstanding. I use the DVI input at the native resolution of 1280x1024 and it looks great. In my opinion, the image quality is the best of any monitor I have seen. Contrast, color, and angle of view are all excellent.
I was worried about color and tonal accuracy when editing my images because many serious photographers recommend against LCD monitors for photo editing. These "experts" must be behind the times because my images on the 173P come the closest I have experienced to looking at my original slides on a light table. I calibrated with an eye-one display calibrator, but even before calibration I would rate the color accuracy as excellent.
I also use this monitor for text and gaming. Text looks great and is very readable, especially using ClearType on Windows XP. When gaming, I don't see any visible ghosting or other motion artifacts, so the response time must be adequate.
As you can tell, I am extremely satisfied with this purchase. I'm a picky buyer and usually have some nits to pick with almost anything I buy, but after 2 months of use I am 100% satisfied with this monitor. Not only does the image on the screen look great, the monitor itself has a very elegant design. It looks clean and simple and has a great range of position and angle adjustments. My 173P doesn't have a single bad pixel. You can get a cheaper LCD if you only want to use it for text, but if you want the best, you won't be disappointed with this one.
14 Deciding between the 172X and 173P?
After owning both the 172X and 173P, I must say I definitely prefer the 173P. The picture is sharper, the viewing angle is wider, and the included stand has a much larger range of motion, not to mention the excellent pivoting feature.
On the 172X, unless you're looking at it dead on, the picture can become washed out. With the 173P, the picture seems to stay clear no matter what the angle. The importance of this cannot be underestimated! It's quite annoying when you're only a couple feet off to the side and the picture looks poor.
As for the stands, the 173P has about twice the height adjustment range of the 172X. I couldn't get the 172X more than inch or so above my keyboard, and that's just too low for me.
I thought the lack of external controls would be a problem, but it really isn't. The auto adjustment mode works great, and the most I've had to do is a brightness and contrast tweak with the included MagicTune software, which isn't that bad. You can uninstall it once the monitor settings are to your liking.
The 172X does have a faster response time, but for my purposes, image quality is more important. Even with the 25ms response time of the 173P, most reviews say it still works well with games and movies. To me, it was definitely worth the small price jump!
15 Awesome LCD!
I'm an average computer user - mainly MS Office apps, photoediting, and Internet, but the switch from CRT for these simple computing tasks is amazing. The color and clarity are unbelievable.
But my favorite feature is the pivot function. WOW! Why didn't someone think of that a long time ago? I LOVE being able to read my email, Word docs, and web sites on one screen, with little to no scrolling. And I was able to plug and play. I've read some reviews about PivotPro not working correctly, but I haven't had any problems whatsoever (I use WinXP Pro), including leaving it in portrait view when I turn it off and back on.
One more thing - and this may be picky - but I didn't want a black monitor. My office is light and bright, and this monitor is very aesthetically pleasing plus super thin. I also haven't made any adjustments, except for setting it to 1280x1024 res.
I bought this product sight unseen based on reviews, and I couldn't be happier. I haven't needed the DVI capability yet, but wanted to have a digital-capable product for future needs. This LCD IS kinda pricey, but I'll have it for years. Great investment.
16 Very Pleased
This is my first desktop LCD monitor. I was looking for something very good, 17 inch, maybe around $500. My search at that price was not successful. Enter this Samsung 173P. Altho more expensive, I am extremely pleased. Very bright, very clear, and easy to use. Height & tilt adjustment, and 90 degree rotation are very simple.
I used the 173P first with an analog input, which was satisfactory. Now I am using digital input (DVI) and the results are even better.
Bottom line - pricey but great.
17 Samsung 173P is amazing!!!!
Samsung has been an active topic of LCD display reviews on Bytesector in the past. Today we bring you a review on one of Samsungs' latest LCD monitors, the 173P. This display brings many key features to the table and delivers them in a great device. First of all, this is sort of the 171P the continuation in the "17 inch P series". This display comes with the highest contrast ratio I have seen in an LCD display yet; with a 700:1 ratio, they are no mistaking greys for whites or blacks. The back of this monitor is a nice pure white which leads us to believe that there was a bit of an Apple influence in the design of this display! Read on to find out what we think of this display. (full review available @ bytesector.com)
18 Software must improve
It's a great monitor except for the software that replaces the usual buttons for brightness, contrast etc. The idea of replacing the buttons with SW may make some sense but Samsung has made a poor implementation. Every time I log in, the Samsung SW will put an hour-glass in the middle of the screen for up to 30 seconds while it communicates with the monitor over DVI. I really don't know what it is doing, because it does not even restore the view settings I last used, they are always set to the default values. Hopefully this will be resolved in a SW update sometime.
Except for the problems mentioned above it is a great monitor. It has a little ghosting when playing fast action games, but not too severe. The package includes a DVI cable and using that the picture is crystal clear with very nice colors.
19 Great monitor!
What a great package! No more silly buttons and menus.
The software replacement for the monitor menus works very well and it is very pleasant to use. A shame it is only for Windows.
Also, I was using nvidia's rotational utility with my old monitor and it wasn't as fast as the rotational software that came with this monitor.
Probably the best hardware/softare package I've ever purchased.
20 Great Looking Display!
This LCD monitor is pricey, but it's also light, stylish and produces exceptional images. I purchased this as a gift for my wife who is a photographer and spends lots of time editing photos in Photoshop. The pivot feature is awesome as it allows her to view full size 8x10 photos with no problem and the viewing angle at almost 180 deg. rivals crt monitors. The included monitor calibration software is also easily to use and allows you to adjust all the key screen characteristics as well as calibrate the monitor with the printer. Definitely worth the price if you're a media or graphics professional.
21 No Pivot Pro Software Needed
I recently purchased the Samsung 173p, looking forward to using its pivot function for word processing, seeing the whole page by pivoting the monitor 90 degrees. Pivot Pro software came bundled with the monitor, which was supposedly necessary for enabling what you see on screen to make the 90 degree shift along with the hardware.
Immediately, I ran into a serious pivoting problem. Whenever I turned the monitor off, with it remaining in the 90 degree position, it would not work properly when I turned it back on. Instead, it would come on stuck in the lowest possible resolution, too low even to show normal images on the screen. I would have to delete the Pivot Pro software in order to get the monitor functioning properly again.
I discovered an effective solution. While waiting for Pivot Pro tech support to respond with a solution, I downloaded the latest graphics card driver from the NVIDIA web page. My graphics card is the aging NVIDIA GeForce 2 mx/mx 400. It turns out that the new driver contains the pivot function! It works with my monitor more efficiently than the Pivot Pro software did, and there are no problems! Ironically, the tech support solution, which I received a day later, was to download upgraded graphics card drivers from NVIDIA.
I tried the same thing with my monitor at work, and it worked beautifully also. It is the Dell ultrasharp 1703, with the NVIDIA GeForce 5200 graphics card. This is without any Pivot Pro software being anywhere near that computer.
I have read that the latest ATI Radeon grahics card driver update contains the pivot function also, but I have no experience with an ATI graphics card.
Finally, the Samsung 173p is definitely cool. But, the price needs to come down.
22 great in everything but price
beautiful display, the 700:1 contrast really pops out at you, especially with an all black background - there really is a noticible difference between this monitor and my 19 inch eizo lcd at work.
the pivot software does not work with windows 2003 server. i haven't checked to see if there's an update. i got this 5 days ago from amazon for 555 delivered - not sure why the price has increased.
overall, i'm very satisfied!
