Samsung T260HD Monitor... ?

Sasqui · Sep 11, 2009

I'm thinking about getting this, though it's a TN panel, the features are impressive and it also sports a NTSC, ATSC & QAM Tuner, plus 2 DVI inputs. Not to mention the 1920x1200 native resolution.

I'd use it for both computing on a second PC and have my comast cable plugged into it for TV - we get about ~10 different HD QAM signals.

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=407747

Thing is HUGE compared to a 22"! Pic looks quite nice, it's @ $349. Sams Club has a 6-month return and it's in stock.

Anyone seen or used one?

Darknova · Sep 11, 2009

The 240 (24" version) also has a TN panel, but all the reviews I've read have said it's an excellent monitor.

I'd jump on it to be honest mate.

DanishDevil · Sep 11, 2009

I've got one, dark2099 has one. They're AWESOME. I paid $450 for mine and think it was worth every penny. You can spend MUCH less now.

If you want pics, just ask

Sasqui · Sep 11, 2009

DanishDevil said:
I've got one, dark2099 has one. They're AWESOME. I paid $450 for mine and think it was worth every penny. You can spend MUCH less now.

If you want pics, just ask

I've already drooled over it at Sam's club

, they have like 5-6 in stock. With the 6-month return period, what do I have to lose!

I also noticed an SPDIF out... I wonder what sort of formats it supports for sound?

DanishDevil · Sep 11, 2009

Not sure. I'm pretty darn happy with the sound from the TV itself for watching television. Movies and such go through my computer and my Z-5500's first anyway.

Sasqui · Sep 11, 2009

DanishDevil said:
Not sure. I'm pretty darn happy with the sound from the TV itself for watching television. Movies and such go through my computer and my Z-5500's first anyway.

Yea, I was surprised that the reviews didn't bash the sound quality! Most small sets with embedded speakers suck at sound, first hand experience.

Honestly, I didn't even realise it *had* speakers but for the reviews.

So... I have one in the back of my car, just need the time to get it set up and try it!!! :rolleyes:

Thanks!

Sasqui · Oct 14, 2009

So... I've use this for a few weeks and am returning it. Thankfully, Sam's has a 90-day money back. Reasons:

The bad:

The sound is really bad. Like a cheap plastic radio, though in stereo A friend bought a 19" RCA LCD TV and I thought that was bad... this is about as bad.
From PC: DVI pixel precision is CRAP! I felt like I needed glasses, the fonts are fuzzy and washed. Using "Clear type" made it worse. I tried this with a cheap DVI cable and X850XT, and a very good quality DVI cable with a 4870 card. Close to the same results. Both at 1920x1200 res.
Only good viewing angle is close to straight-on.

The good:

The QAM tuner rocks
The remote and input sensing are WAY cool. It knows what inputs are connected, and only jumps to those.
Decent color rendition.
Great aspect ratio options

As I originally wanted this as a monitor, the DVI "fuzziness" is the deal breaker - it's going back to the store.

DanishDevil · Oct 14, 2009

Really? You must have gotten a really shit panel or something. There's no fuzziness on mine! Sorry to hear that bro!

And as far as the speakers, IMO they work fine for TV, but of course you're not gonna get great sounding music from built-in speakers.

Was the panel scaling properly?

Sasqui · Oct 14, 2009

DanishDevil said:
Really? You must have gotten a really shit panel or something. There's no fuzziness on mine! Sorry to hear that bro!

And as far as the speakers, IMO they work fine for TV, but of course you're not gonna get great sounding music from built-in speakers.

Was the panel scaling properly?

I wish there was an easy way to try a few different units, perhaps I got a dud?

Yea, no problem scaling, I can tell the 1920x1200 res is 1:1 on both computers. It seems like there's a pixel shadow, or "bleed" from one to the next with text and some images. Enabling Clear type is like seeing a yellow/green shadow to the right of each letter.

Edit: in contrast, I'm looking at a 2405FPW right now which has always been beautiful - am I expecting too much???

A Cheese Danish · Oct 14, 2009

Sasqui said:
I wish there was an easy way to try a few different units, perhaps I got a dud?

Yea, no problem scaling, I can tell the 1920x1200 res is 1:1 on both computers. It seems like there's a pixel shadow, or "bleed" from one to the next with text and some images. Enabling Clear type is like seeing a yellow/green shadow to the right of each letter.

There is a chance you got a bad one. I haven't had any issues with mine at all.
Shame you had a bad experience with one mate

DanishDevil · Oct 14, 2009

Yeah either we're both blind, or you got one that eluded the quality control dude

Mussels · Oct 14, 2009

interestingly, the information says "1080P" input, not 1200.

so its a 1200P screen with 1080P tuner and inputs?

Sasqui · Oct 14, 2009

Mussels said:
interestingly, the information says "1080P" input, not 1200.

so its a 1200P screen with 1080P tuner and inputs?

Yea, Hanspree makes a similar 28" unit, with 1920x1200 resolution.

You have the option of showing the 1080 picture as true, with black bars above and below, or to fill the full 1920x1200 of the screen.

It really is a great TV, one of the best remote and menu interfaces I've seen to date. There are all sorts of "niceties" such as separate adjustment memory not only for each input, but also each signal type (at least on the tuner side)!

Sucks that I'm either too picky or the unit is sub-par.

Sasqui · Oct 21, 2009

So... I found another one yesterday at a different Sam's Club on my way home from work. It's noticably better. One thing I found that the "sharpness" adjustment has a BIG effect on the quality and readability of fonts. Too low and it looks out of focus, too high and you get color bleeding to the edges of the fonts.

So I'm returning the first and keeping the latest one!

Thanks Y'all! :toast:

DanishDevil · Oct 21, 2009

Yay! Do you think it was because the settings were all whacked out, or still a bad unit?

Sasqui · Oct 22, 2009

DanishDevil said:
Yay! Do you think it was because the settings were all whacked out, or still a bad unit?

Yay is right! :toast:

Side by side, the new one is visibly better than the other one, no matter how much I mess with the sharpness setting. Got the first one boxed up in the back of my car, and receipt in wallet for the return today

DanishDevil · Oct 22, 2009

Good deal man. Bad to hear they let a shitty one slip through quality control, but at least you get to enjoy the real deal now!

System Name	Senile
Processor	I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard	MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling	Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory	16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s)	GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage	Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s)	34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (34401440) FREE_SYNC*
Case	Rosewill
Audio Device(s)	Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply	Corsair HX750
Mouse	Logitech G5
Keyboard	Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software	Win 10

Processor	AMD FX 8320 @ 4GHz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 rev1
Cooling	Corsair H70
Memory	4 x 4GB DDR3 Ripjawz 1600Mhz
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Vapor-X AMD R9 280X
Storage	1 x 500GB Samsung Evo 850, 1 x 500GB Vrap Data Drive, 3 x 2TB Seagate, 1 x 1TB Samsung F1
Display(s)	3 x DGM IPS-2402WDH
Case	Coolermaster HAF X
Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	Coolermaster 1000W Silent Pro M
Mouse	Logitech G502
Keyboard	Logitech G510
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

System Name	Big Devil
Processor	Intel Core i5-2500K
Motherboard	ECS P67H2-A2
Cooling	XSPC Rasa \| Black Ice GT Stealth 240 \| XSPC X2O 750 \| 2x ACF12PWM \| PrimoChill White 7/16"
Memory	2x4GB Corsair Vengeance LP Arctic White 1600MHz CL9
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 780 ACX SC
Storage	Intel 520 Series 180GB + WD 1TB Blue
Display(s)	HP ZR30W 30" 2650x1600 IPS
Case	Corsair 600T SE
Audio Device(s)	Xonar Essence STX \| Sennheisser PC350 "Hero" Modded \| Corsair SP2500
Power Supply	ABS SL 1050W (Enermax Revolution Rebadge)
Software	Windows 8.1 x64 Pro w/ Media Center
Benchmark Scores	Ducky Year of the Snake w/ Cherry MX Browns & Year of the Tiger PBT Keycaps \| Razer Deathadder Black

System Name	Senile
Processor	I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard	MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling	Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory	16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s)	GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage	Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s)	34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (34401440) FREE_SYNC*
Case	Rosewill
Audio Device(s)	Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply	Corsair HX750
Mouse	Logitech G5
Keyboard	Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software	Win 10

System Name	Big Devil
Processor	Intel Core i5-2500K
Motherboard	ECS P67H2-A2
Cooling	XSPC Rasa \| Black Ice GT Stealth 240 \| XSPC X2O 750 \| 2x ACF12PWM \| PrimoChill White 7/16"
Memory	2x4GB Corsair Vengeance LP Arctic White 1600MHz CL9
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 780 ACX SC
Storage	Intel 520 Series 180GB + WD 1TB Blue
Display(s)	HP ZR30W 30" 2650x1600 IPS
Case	Corsair 600T SE
Audio Device(s)	Xonar Essence STX \| Sennheisser PC350 "Hero" Modded \| Corsair SP2500
Power Supply	ABS SL 1050W (Enermax Revolution Rebadge)
Software	Windows 8.1 x64 Pro w/ Media Center
Benchmark Scores	Ducky Year of the Snake w/ Cherry MX Browns & Year of the Tiger PBT Keycaps \| Razer Deathadder Black

System Name	HTPC\|\|Lenovo IBM ThinkPad
Processor	AMD Phenom II x4 965 stock 3.4GHz\|\|Intel C2D T9300 @ 2.5GHz
Motherboard	Zotac 890GX-ITX WiFi\|\|Lenovo 8918CTO
Cooling	Stock 3x 120's\|\|Stock stuff
Memory	8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 6-6-6-15\|\|3GB DDR2
Video Card(s)	Asus 3870x2\|\|nVidia Quadro NVS 140M
Storage	1TB Seagate Barracuda, 1x 2TB WD EARX \|\|Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM
Display(s)	Samsung T260HD\|\|
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Audio Device(s)	on-board\|\|on-board
Power Supply	Cooler Master 450W\|\|6-cell
Software	Windows 7 Pro x64\|\|Windows 7 Pro x64/Linux Mint x64

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Memory	2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s)	Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage	2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s)	Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) \| Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) \| Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case	Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s)	Logitech G560 \| Corsair Void pro RGB \|Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply	Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse	Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard	Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD	Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software	Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores	Nyooom.

Samsung T260HD Monitor... ?

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