In Practice
As the measurements suggested, this monitor was pleasant to use for office applications. Gaming has directly benefited from the progress Samsung has made in terms of response time. Color fidelity was good enough, and the black level was better than average, so you'll get full enjoyment out of even the murkiest game environments. The 710T also has the same high-quality pixel interpolation we'd noticed with the previous generation of Samsung monitors. The control electronics do their job well. Changing from the 1024 x 768 native resolution was no problem. At 800 x 600 it wasn't quite as good, but it's better than the competition. On the other hand, screening movies was hampered by viewing angles that are too narrow. The 160/160 degrees Samsung claims for this model are unrealistic. The Samsung is intended for a single user sitting directly in front of the screen. Reduction of sparkling is not it's strong point either.
Conclusion
Samsung seems to have scored a lot of points with its new panel. Other manufacturers have built it into their monitors, as you'll see on the next page. The 13 ms panel is not as responsive as the AU Optronics 8 ms panel, there's no doubt about that, but it sacrifices less functionality to responsiveness. It's a good monitor for multiple uses. Even gamers won't be disappointed. Only the most fanatical among them should consider the 8 ms panel.
