Samsung Touch Of Color T260HD 25.5-Inch LCD HDTV Monitor

Comment: I bought this monitor a year ago to help with my research. As a grad student, at any one time I can have open a paper I'm writing, an important journal or article, maybe a program I've written and perhaps a web browser. With the size of this screen I can have almost everything up at once and not have to minimize anything! It works so well with the windows 7 snap feature. When I have a report I'm writing and a paper I'm citing, I can just snap one to the left and the other to the right. Instantly I can see the size of the entire page on both sides and comfortably write my paper.

Movies, text... pretty much everything looks fantastic on the monitor. I have an hdmi input from my computer and I'm going with the coax for the tv. If anybody needs to know, this worked instantly with Fedora. I've had no problems on the linux side.

The monitor is not perfect though. I do notice there is a color shift as far as brightness is concerned. If you move your head down you'll notice it get darker and lighter if you move your head up. This doesn't bother me because I always sit in the same location, but I could see how this would be a problem for somebody else. The speakers aren't particularly great, but come on... what were you expecting? I rarely watch tv on the monitor... but when I have, I've had no problem with audio quality. The only real problem I have with this? The power button! I've had it for a year and I still don't turn it on every time that I try to. As many of the other reviews mention... there's no actual button to press. Just a sensor area. So you have to try to learn to put your finger on the right location. I quickly realized the easiest way to do this was just to swipe the bottom corner with my thumb and it turns on about 80% of the time.

The monitor it self looks great. I really like the glass edge and the curve on the bottom of the monitor. I always get compliments when people see the monitor for the first time. It's size certainly gives a nice wow factor. I was originally looking for a 30" monitor... but the price jump was just ridiculous. I'm extremely happy with this monitor.

Comment: We bought a refurbished unit from an Amazon competitor last December for considerably less than it is sold here. In any case, while the frame of the first unit arrived cracked, the manufacturer replaced it very promptly and we have been happily watching digital television on this unit ever since.

Our only issue is with the sound volume, which is sometimes too soft, even at 100%, when watching old movies on TCM. For the most part, however, that is not a problem.

As to others who complain about this unit, I cannot imagine why.

Even 30" and 32" screens cost a great deal more than this unit. We admittedly have never had one that large, but our old analog sets were never any larger than this one, either. We could not understand why anyone would spend so much more for a few inches more of TV screen, and we're perfectly happy that we didn't.

If you want a set that works fine with cable or antenna signals, this Samsung unit is terrific.

Comment: Hi,

Just in case it's helpful to someone: I accidentally bumped this TV/monitor when I was moving it (my fault, careless) and I put about a 3" scratch in the screen, with a deeper divot at one end. My heart sank. I looked up fixes online and darned if there weren't quite a few ways to approach it. Here's what worked for me. Take a Q-tip or similar product, put some vaseline on the end of it, then slowly work the vaseline into the scratch lengthwise. Wipe off the excess. You may choose to do this several times, depending on how well the first patch works. My result is about a 90% improvement, and from normal viewing distance I can't see it if I try. Yay! The reason that this works, apparently, is that the thin plastic sheet that covers lcd screens has similar light-conducting (transferal?) properties to vaseline, since they're both petroleum by-products. Interesting. The bottom line is- it works! Good luck.

BTW, the only deductions I give this otherwise-excellent TV is for the sound. It's awful. I turned mine to the least tinny setting and it's tolerable, but I wouldn't plan on using it for any serious AV viewing. I bought a Logitech computer speaker system for $26, including subwoofer, and it's a big improvement over the default TV sound. It seems Samsung put all of their money into the video, and that's okay with me because it's a good looking TV.

Comment: I was looking for a display that would replace the Apple LED Cinema Display 24-Inch MB382LL/A I had at work. I wanted one with equivalent brightness (300cd), resolution (1920 X 1200) and good contrast. I also thought about doing an HDTV tuner as well, because the display will be in our office at home for a good portion of the day without my mac hooked to it (I work in the office but freelance at home). I was sold on the price which was about $500 less than the apple display.

I was a little nervous about the size though; though this display is the same resolution as the Cinema Display, it was 1.5 inches larger. Once I unpacked it and started using it, that was less of a problem. Especially in my particular setup... I use the display about a foot behind my laptop on a rack. And of course, when used as a TV, the size is not an issue.

Colors are great, though need some tweaking at first. Brightness is phenomenal and the picture seems clearer in terms of text rendering than my MacBook Pro's 17" HD display. So far, I am really liking this display. I haven't even started to think about using all the inputs, but there are plenty for whatever your setup may be.

Comment: I brought this mainly for its 1200 vertical resolution, I just want to buy one before they were all replaced by the 1080 ones. I mainly use this for document viewing and programming purpose, with 1200 vertical resolution it's easier to view two pages of PDF documents at a time.

Overall this is just as good as other Samsung monitors, I use it to watch TV when not connected to my laptop as external monitor. This thing is especially good as a TV, but I do have an issue with it being used as a monitor: The VGA cable that came with it seems not very good, at least not working properly with my Thinkpad T60 laptop, there are always minor image distortions no matter how you adjust it. In contrast, my other VGA cable that came with an ACER monitor doesn't have this problem when I use it to connect my T60 and T260HD. But my final solution: brought a new laptop which came with HDMI port, that solved everything and now the picture is perfectly clear.

And I have to point out two errors in other reviews:

1, A reviewer said it's impossible to adjust brightness when digital connections were used, like DVI or HDMI, not true, you can adjust them in the menu when connect with DVI or HDMI and it's not difficult.

2, A reviewer said you can't adjust the TV picture to 16:9 (with black blank on top and bottom) and they always been stretched to fill the screen, what I found out with my comcast cable is that you can always adjust the display mode with a button on the remote. It do have different mode sets for digital and analog signals, but 16:9 is always available.

I will give it a 5 star simply because this is the best of the few 1920 by 1200 monitors left on the market, and the fact that I got it for only 330USD.