Samsung SyncMaster 245T

One more niggle

A final disappointment is the presence of inverse ghosting. As we have mentioned previously, inverse ghosting is a problem that's thought to be a result of pixel-response-enhancing overdrive technology. In simple terms, it involves a trail or shadow that appears in the wake of moving objects in some situations, typically in more or less the opposite colour to the moving object.

Most of the time, it's a minor issue with the 245T. But with certain colour combinations, it results in some pretty horrific rendering artifacts. For instance the text on this page exhibits some particularly horrible black trails and smearing when jostling the window around.

It's absolutely not what you expect from a premium brand like Samsung. What's more, if you had just invested over £600 on this monitor, well, you'd have every right to feel extremely let down.

Final Thoughts

There's a lot to like about the 245T including its static image quality, viewing angles and contrast performance. But at this price point, something close to perfection is to be excepted. At £600+ any major flaws are simply unacceptable and the fact that the 245T actually has two – moderate input lag and occasionally serious inverse ghosting – might seem pretty shocking.

However, these problems are related to the PVA panel technology that dominates the high end 24-inch monitor scene at the moment. More precisely, they appear when pixel overdrive techniques are used to speed up the extremely slow response. In other words, they are hard to avoid on PVA monitors.

So, what we would really like to see is more choice in this part of the market. Without question, IPS panel technology has some weaknesses compared with PVA as contrast performance and the depth of rendered blacks are typically a little off the pace. But PVA technology has enough drawbacks that mean the extended choice would be very welcome.


In any case, the key points to note about the 245T go something like this. Yes, it is that little bit more vibrant and accurate than cheaper PVA monitors from lesser brands; the colours boast better fidelity, the blacks are deeper and the whites a touch cleaner. But even Samsung has not been able to eradicate the overdrive related glitches that commonly spoil 24-inch PVA monitors.

With all that in mind, it's pretty hard to recommend the 245T. If you can live with the minor image quality issues, then you are better off with a significantly lower priced but only slightly inferior model from a lesser brand. Even a TN+Film 24-incher with slightly sludgy colours and washed out blacks makes more sense – it's certainly a much cheaper option and will do a much better job for games.

Until a monitor maker manages to solve the input lag and inverse ghosting issues with PVA screens or plops in a quality 24-inch IPS TFT alternative, the perfect 24-inch panel will remain infuriatingly out of reach.

• Performance
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• 8/10

• Features
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• 9/10

• Value
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• -
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• 6/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 7/10

What do these scores mean?