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With a fully adjustable stand and claimed viewing angles of up to 178°, the Samsung SyncMaster F2080 is ideal for environments with awkward seating or desk arrangements. The sturdy, telescopic stand offers almost 13cm of vertical movement. Plus, the screen itself swivels through 90° both horizontally (side-to-side) and vertically (portrait mode). A thin screen bezel and plain, rectangular base create a minimalist look which is slightly spoiled by the lack of a cable tidy to route cables out of sight. A small silver wedge below the screen displays the menu button labels, with the buttons themselves hidden underneath. The menu is large and clear, with white text on a dark grey background. As well as brightness and contrast, you can also adjust sharpness and choose from preset image modes. Uniquely, there’s a choice of three response time settings, but we couldn’t see any difference when switching between them. There’s control over red, green and blue levels, plus gamma controls and various effects such as greyscale or sepia. Despite this vast range of options, the F2080’s contrast simply wasn’t good enough and the image was far too dark overall. Samsung’s MagicColor option produces deep but unnatural colours and Dynamic Contrast is far too harsh, with sudden transitions from light to dark producing visible changes in backlight intensity, while many scenes in The Dark Knight were simply too dark to see. It means that blacks are incredibly deep, but details in shadows are lost, while bright scenes looked dim.
Viewing angles are very wide, but this is of little consolation considering the disappointing image quality. Matters are made worse by the surprisingly high price. Iiyama’s ProLite E2008HDS-1 has far better image quality and costs £45 less.
