Three-Way 23" LED LCD Roundup: Dell, HP, And Samsung

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We've spent a lot of time evaluating the performance of graphics cards and processors, but a good monitor is almost every bit as important to gamers and professionals alike. For our first look at monitors in 2011, we are starting out with three 23" LCDs.

Power Consumption

Samsung PX2320 has an extra feature known as MagicEco. It allows users to adjust a monitor’s brightness based on different energy consumption levels with four preset options: 100 percent (25.7 W), 75 percent (18.3 W), 50 percent (13.2 W), and Power-Saving Off. Even though we measured our power consumption with MagicEco disabled, this might be an important feature for those considering a multi-monitor setup. However, there is nothing magic about MagicEco. It is merely a feature that offers three pre-set brightness values.

Samsung's PX2370 still turns out to be the best monitor when it comes to power consumption. Using our P3 power meter, we detected zero power drain when the monitor is turned off. Unfortunately, this only applies to Samsung. We do not see similar performance from Dell or HP. The truth is, most of us tend to leave our monitors in standby mode. In that scenario, Dell's 23" SR2320L performs the worst, consuming twice as much power as the PX2370 (though that's still a fraction of a watt).