226BW and 226 CW

GhostlyPea

GhostlyPea

GhostlyPea

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I think I read this somewhere but I'm going to buy tonight and wanted to confirm, the 226CW is, for all intents and purposes the same as the BW but without the panel lottery, i.e. guaranteed S panel? Im happy to pay the extra to guarantee the best panel with it, as even sending it back under distance regs. is gonna be a massive postage fee, and I don't want to mess around. I know there is some kind of additional backlighting feature explainging why the monitors are all S panels also.

Basically - to confirm this monitor is literally just a guaranteed S panel on its predecessor?

thanks a lot

- Pea0n
 
Well i reckon the chances of guaranteeing a better monitor are higher (as its more or less just a revamped version). samsung can't legally say they are all S panels and then not make them with those so thats a given. either way its a safer bet than buying a BW. I'll order one tonight and get a mini-review up on friday :)

- Pea0n

p.s. well either that or maybe a 2232BW if these are all S panels also? or are they in the same lottery as the 226BWs?
 
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yeah i gotta agree with the post 2 places above....i wouldnt trust samsung.
i do recall reading somewhere that even though samsung claim that they are all made by them ...thats a lie.
also i read 1 user review of the monitor and the guy wasnt happy with it and exchanged it. after looking at my own S panel ...i just cant see how he wasnt happy with it and got something else for a similar price.

i'd probably go for a 2232bw ...they are on offer aswell...about 180 quid from this very site. you just cannot go wrong for that price.
i do understand where your coming from...i felt the same when buying a monitor....i didnt mind paying extra aslong as i got a S panel....i ended up taking the lottery from a place where i knew would take it back if i wasnt happy with it.
 
Just bought a 226BW, very happy with it. Ended up getting a Samsung panel, which isn't as easy to identify as previously thought. However, backlight is very uniform and with a little tweaking (brightness mostly) had it to a perfect setup. Spot on for desktop/photoshop/games and then some.

Was skeptical, but heard that all panels are now Samsung following the A/C fraccas of late so took the plunge - don't regret it at all :)
 
Baddass said:
regardless of whether it's a Samsung panel or not, does it matter THAT much? there's far too much hype about this....

have a read of my post here from last week: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10085112&postcount=26
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i tend to believe user reviews more than places like xbitlabs or what ever its called.
if the a/c panel was better than the samsung panel then why were there so many moans/groans about it across the net ?
the only reason places like behardware took another look at it was because so many ppl complained that websites had gave this monitor amazing reviews and it was a major disappointment for some.

who knows the real reason why behardware changed their tune or xbitlabs are claiming the rest of us cant see whats good for us....maybe they need to pay for their websites bandwidth and samsung have offered to help.

no offense to you in any way but ive seen so many pictures of dominance in blue and extremely bad backlight bleed (and its always been the A/c panels) but i believe the general public over these websites
 
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fair enough, that's up to you who you go with. Personally, I;'m very wary of the hype and a LOT of mis-informed opinions and reports across forums....you see it time and time again for many different things sadly. Personally, I wouldn't let it worry me if it were me buying a Samsung screen right now. I dont think i've seen any forum user compare all three models side by side, and the only places that have done seem to suggest the issues are exaggerated. I'd trust Oleg at Xbitlabs more than most, but you're quite right, they are only the opinion of 2 different people.
 
Well I ended up purchasing a 2232BW ad its amazing. Perfect color, clear, no dead pixels, no ghosting and no light bleed. All in all couldn't ask for more :)

- Pea0n
 
I agree with Badass, there is far too much hype over the panel 'lottery'.

Of the most in depth reviews I found, the only conclusions they seemed to make was that the S panel's tended to be better calibrated straight out of the box, whereas the A and C panels needed some tweaking to get the optimum configuration.

I bought a 226BW a few weeks back - I haven't even bothered to look at what panel it is, as I've had no reason to - it has far exceeded my expectations.
 
I get the feeling that a lot of this "don't believe the hype" attitude is solely down to differing from the general concensus through nothing more than a rebellious attitude to the norm.

Surely people have created hype (and sustained it) through good reasoning, i.e stack loads of proof in the form of tests on the 3 panel types and their varying physical characteristics and screen properties.

I took the plunge on the 226BW as I'd heard that Samsung had started using their own panels again, and having used a Samsung 19" TFT for the last 18 months to great success I wanted to be sure I got one of their's again. In addition to that, I also wanted to be sure I was getting what I'd paid for - which I believe is the main reason for the bitter taste in people's respective mouths. People buy Samsung because they want Samsung, not AU Optometrics or Chi Mei.

Summarily, people are entitled to believe what they want and convey what they want - this is a public forum after all but the facts remain that Samsung operated with some pretty questionable manufacturing ethics and the community did what was right by questioning it. It's obviously done some good, because Samsung LCDs are now Samsung again - and I'm a happy consumer once more :)
 
I completely disagree. The hype about the panel lottery seems to have snowballed due to misinformation and a lot of people jumping on the proverbial bandwagon.

Most of the detailed reports that I read seemed to indicate that there was very little difference between panels, so long as they were all configured correctly.

Talk of back light bleeding and such faults are almost certainly one-off cases, and I have seen no evidence that a particular panel is more prone to such faults than any other.

randal24 said:
but the facts remain that Samsung operated with some pretty questionable manufacturing ethics and the community did what was right by questioning it. It's obviously done some good, because Samsung LCDs are now Samsung again - and I'm a happy consumer once more :)
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I don't think it is questionable at all.

I believe Samsung have repeatedly stated that ALL panel types exceeded their own quality tests.

You may be happy that Samsung monitors now all include Samsung panels. But don't forget that there are thousands and thousand of people out there with A and C panels in their 226BW. I would happily place money that the vast majority are entirely happy with their purchase. So these thousands of people are no doubt very happy at Samsung chosing not to stick to one panel type.

If Samsung hadn't decided to use the other panels then the following problems would have occured.

1) Prices for the 226BW would have increased due to the shortage of supply. (We saw this happen before the A and C panels came into circulation).

2) Thousands of people would not have been able to buy the 226BW, as Samsung just simply couldn't produce them quickly enough.

I an ideal world maybe it would have been nice if Samsung could have produced enough S panels to meet demand. The simple fact is that they couldn't. Maybe they could have shiped the different panel types as a slightly different model number. But they obviously decided that as ALL panel type met their own quality tests, then there was no need to distinguish between the panels.

I for one am glad they used the additional panel types to meet demand. There will always be a handful of people on the internet that get carried away with tiny differences, but from all the research I did, I've yet to see any reliable test that showed any worthwhile difference between the panels.

(NOTE: I researched this thoroughly a long time ago before getting bored of hearing the same things over and over again. There may be some new comparisons done that I haven't read about, but I'd be incredibly surprised if they showed anything different to the ones I read)
 
C64 said:
Can i ask if you have owned a 226bw cmo panel?
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HI there

We have a 226BW here and was very impressed on how it looks up and running. Set brightness to 50, Contrast to 85 and put the magic bright set too intelligent.

Now it looks fine, colours are good, not dead or stuck pixels and I can't see any backlight issues. Out of curiosity I pulled it apart, it was manufactured in August and is a CMO panel.

Now in my eyes this is a damn fine TFT and its a CMO one, which I am guessing is supposedly the poor screen? Next to an Acer and Asus 22" screens we have here this Samsung CMO 226BW has better colours without a doubt, its viewing angles are no worse than the Acer and better than the Asus model.

Put it this way I have a 223BW also running which I believe are supposed to be S or Samsung panels and the 226BW with CMO panel looks easily just as good.
 
So what was the misinformation that confused everyone? I was under the impression that the bad publicity surrounding the whole 3 panel affair was that Samsung were shipping out S panels to reviewers and limited stocks of S and majority A/C to the general public for retail consumption?

That in itself is misinformation to the public, and certainly constitutes questionable ethics in my opinion. Fact remains, "exceeding specifications" or not there was still a noticable difference in quality between the C and A/S panels (and to a lesser extent between the A and S panels).

Admittedly, yes there was the option to tune panels and reconfigure colour profiles on PCs to make the non-Samsung panels more in line with the quality of the Samsungs - but at sacrifice of contrast ratio. Also, why should the general public have to do this? Would you buy a brand new car, then expect to have to tinker with it yourself to get the best performance?

With regards to your opinions on production and supply, I don't think that unprecidented public demand is sufficient enough a reason to outsource panel production to such extents. Surely the poor market speculation for a panel of this type/size is Samsung's own fault? On one hand kudos to Samsung for getting of their behinds and pulling out stops to meet this demand (and no doubt make a pretty penny doing so, and bravo what is being in business all about?), but on the other I still believe that marketing different panels under the same model number was wrong - and Samsung's constant denial of the production specifics of this model is also wrong. If Samsung felt the need to push this production out to others they should have done so under another model number or stuck a disclaimer on the product explaining the sourcing of panels so the consumer could be forewarned without having to shell out their hard earned.

Irrespective of your research, there are still thousands - if not more who were duped into buying a non-Samsung panel. Some of which who were savvy enough to apply their own reparations to bring the panel up to spec, some who weren't. I'm willing to bet that a lot of those who haven't applied the tweaks through either lack of knowledge of them or otherwise probably also haven't bothered to post their discontent.
 
C64 said:
Can i ask if you have owned a 226bw cmo panel?
Click to expand...

Quite possibly! - read my earlier post. I'm more than happy with my screen so haven't even bothered to check what panel it is.

Gibbo said:
<snip>
Click to expand...

**Does not compute - goes against inferior panel theory** :rolleyes:

Thanks for posting your comparisons Gibbo - its always good to have someone who can compare multiple screens side-by-side :)

I am almost certain that anyone who buys a 226BW will be happy with its performance no matter what panel they get. Unless they are unlucky and just get a duff screen (can happen with any screen/panel made by any manufacturer).
 
randal24 said:
So what was the misinformation that confused everyone? I was under the impression that the bad publicity surrounding the whole 3 panel affair was that Samsung were shipping out S panels to reviewers and limited stocks of S and majority A/C to the general public for retail consumption?
Click to expand...

The early 'comparisons' between panels that started a lot of the hype about the so called lottery were done by people without a clue. We're talking some seriously flawed testing.

Nice conspiracy theory on the 'S' panels to reviewers and 'A' and 'C' to the public!! :D You sure its not more likely that (as we already know) all the early panels were 'S' panels and most reviewers like to get their hands on a screen as early as possible?

I certainly found loads of review sites that had done comparisons with different panel types. Their conclusions were usually that the S panel gave slightly better results out of the box, but that the other ones could still be configured to similar performance. Note that this doesn't mean that some S panels won't also need some manual tweaking for optimal performance.

randal24 said:
Irrespective of your research, there are still thousands - if not more who were duped into buying a non-Samsung panel.
Click to expand...

You say 'duped' like they were conned.

Put aside the 'inferior panel' theory for a minute and pretend that the panels may all give the same performance. Now has anyone been 'duped'?

The simple fact is that the 226BW is a HUGELY popular screen, irrespective of panel. Yes there are a few people who seem to think that small differences in the quality of the panels means they can't afford to take the 'gamble'. If this is the case they they just need to consider another monitor. Samsung have created a fantastic screen at a great price and it appeals to a huge range of people. I am convinced that almost everyone who buys this screen will be happy no matter what panel they get.

If you are in doubt, then consider paying more for peace of mind and get the 226CW, or even a completely different screen.

But please, lets stop with the conspiracy theories.
 
What conspiracy theory? i tested my cmo 226bw next to an acer which is rated at 150/150 viewing angle and the cmo wasn't as good which concurs with cmo's own 85/85 quoted viewing angle for their 22" panel.Personally i think this is just their 85/85 panel with the samsung overdrive to bring it to 2ms.
There is no conspiracy it's just to the average user they probably will not mind or even notice any difference and after all nobody forces people to buy this model you read up and make your choice.
I would in fact too say most people will be happy with this screen when they buy it it's just that i wasn't and am entitled to say why and air my opinion having owned one at least.
 
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The conspiracy theory I was referring to was the one Randal brought up by suggesting that Samsung had deliberately supplied review sites with S panels and then given 'inferior' panels to the general public.

I agree that you are quite entitled to your view and more than entitled to post about it. :)

PS: Viewing angles on my screen are fine. Not got much to compare it with though, as my old tft is 4 years old and clearly has much inferior viewing angles to my 226BW!
 
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