Samsung F2380: 23'' Full HD and PVA. Will it be the screen of 2009?

A great screen is a screen that comes with a VA or IPS panel for wider viewing angles, is responsive, sits on an intelligent stand and for a lot of people today, offers a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.  The Dell 2209WA is a great screen, but it's expensive, has less than perfect contrast and has a resolution of just 1680 x 1050 pixels.   The Samsung F2380, which is about to be launched, might just steal the show.

	Samsung F2380     E-buyer 220.09 Amazon.co.uk 220.11 OYYY 222.93 Misco UK 229.99 Amazon Marketplace UK 244.00 Compare prices

Currently only available in Germany (where Amazon.de has listed it at 309 euros), it has the following tech specs:

• 23'' Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels
• PVA panel, like the Dell 2408WFP
• Viewing angles: 178° / 178°
• Height-adjustable stand with pivot mode
• Official response time: 8 ms -- but forget about this.  Because it's a PVA screen, the actual response time will be close to a good TN screen with an advertised response time of 2 ms
• Video inputs: VGA x 1, DVI x 2 (but no HDMI!)
• Energy consumption: 1 W in standby but a maximum of 45 W when in use -- which represents progress for PVA screens, if it's really the case

The risk of Samsung 'juggling panels' and shipping different hardware to what it's advertised is almost zero.  In the whole world, there's only one supplier of PVA panels ... and that's Samsung.  It should be impossible for them to make any major changes to the screen.  What might happen, though, is an update of the panel, designed in theory to improve it, by changing its default colour rendering, for instance.

For it to become widespread, a screen like this is really going to have fall under the £200 barrier, but that won't happen immediately.  But even at its current price, which might be even lower in other online stores, this is a screen that could prove attractive to a lot of users, whether at home or in the office.  On paper, it's not far off what we'd consider our perfect screen to be ... here's looking forward to a chance to test it!

> Product Survey: 23'' Monitors and up