I love this monitor.

I do wish it had a better stand, it has frustrated me endlessly that it does not have HDCP.

However, I solved that with a "Star" video converter/scaler. The scaler, however, was useless to me to convert YpBpR signals to VGA. S-video, composite, 480, it do, anything else, noo! Noo! I was off by one character, "C". The "Star" scaler I have works on "YCbCr", which is
some kind of digital voo dippity doo doo standard that is great for engineer's pocketbooks and frustrating for consumers. I got it for an insanely low price, half of what I had seen it for on eBay from buy.com. I do NOT like the Star scaler. I initially did, but it's a POS.

Apparently I'm not alone in this disregard, some EQUIPMENT manufacturers mislabel one for the other, though I can't be sure of that, that's what someone in a message area said. I tried to get it going in Component, and anything above the lowest setting on my cable box wouldn't work. (Boo fricking hoo! Moving back a few feet will work in s-video) I can't say I'm impressed with the converter/scaler, I don't know if it's the scaler or my cheapo unshielded cables, though the jury on that is out for lunch, but s-video through the scaler from the cable box, I can live with it until a cheaper solution comes along. Buying a "hd fury" -- which I can say I sometimes wish I would have done to view 1080p -- my Time Hotdog cable box doesn't HAVE 1080p, and this monitor does not support it. I'll wait for something more logical to come down the bitstream.

I mainly want the s-video for using with my camcorder.

I've had a Gateway FPD2185W, the bad caps in that went out after a year, right after the warranty went out, and after I had disposed of it, I saw a fix for the bad caps on the Web. I had an Acer 22", I have a Samsung TN panel downstairs that cost me as much as this one did and is 17", which has HDCP. It does 720p. I'd rather "put up" with the Soyo.
I do more Youtubing than boobtubing, anyway.

I may be ultimately an unhappy camper, Smellfeetica, I've had a lot of ho-hos and horrors with hardware. Monitors seem to be pretty touchy creatures. But I've homebuilt (Yeah. Right. Homebuilt, mail-ordered) systems, and only one did not work when I first booted it.
But one was a Gigabyte and it was fried later.

I read reports of Soyo making crappy motherboards once upon a time, but this is the best of those three monitors purely in terms of visitude, which is what I spend all my time DOING on it. Yeah, the Gateway was nice, it had all those inputs and HDCP, but not having a headache from eyestrain on the job is nice, too. Having a monitor in a year's time will be nice, if this one lasts.

I've read lots of reports of dead pixels, I have a frozen one in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. I took a black magic marker to the logos. It looks AWFUL under harsh lighting, and I don't recommend anyone do that, (also, don't take a pressure washer to your screen, as
one wise a- wise man wonked), and as soon as I find my roll of electrical tape, I'll go after the power LEDs, though I approve of the color choice. Maybe masking off the bezel and using flat-black paint hijacked from a "Krylon" Corp. freighter would have been the answer. But someone into modding their monitor like that would have the Dell 30" or whatever, and conversely, not have to mod their monitor in the farcet place.

I got the M-PVA 6 ms version. Could be happier, but not for the amount of money I paid. I was going to take this back to Wal*Wartz and trade it for an HP 24", and if they didn't have such a draconian policy on returns (as well as on humanity itself) I would have done that, and I would have HDCP, but as a MONITOR, for half of what I paid, it's a good deal. Even Amazon's price is kind of sheep, I'd stay.

Want the Best TV? Then Don't Miss Our:
Flat Panel Plasma & Lcd Tv Reviews & Buying Guide Section

Samsung provided free shipment of this model for repair. It took only a week to get it back. That was almost 6 months ago. I was able to watch the summer Olympic Games in full HDTV glory! I just hooked up an Xbox for kids to play. The video game graphics of this thing is awesome! Samsung customer service was very helpful. I'm glad I've kept a copy of the free two-year warranty offer when I bought this lcd tv. The repair was nothing major. The power source had just needed to be replaced. If you ever had problems similar to mine, check to see if you could just replace the power source of your tv or call Samsung if yours is still covered by the warranty.


Want the Best TV? Then Don't Miss Our:
Flat Panel Plasma & Lcd Tv Reviews & Buying Guide Section

I've had this Akai 27" for over 1 1/2 years now, so my review is based on extensive use and long past the factory warranty.

It's just as good as described by all the happy customers who've posted their comments here.
I don't know what to add, except that after 20 months it's still going strong.

The DVD player works fine, except of course it's not as good quality as the more recent DVD players that have come out during the past year. Still, the convenience is wonderful, and the quality is as good as anything I've been watching for the past five years on DVD.

My only complaint would be that the sound cannot be turned up to a loud volume: small room volume only.

This TV/monitor is being used about 8 hours every day, and I could not be more pleased.


Want the Best TV? Then Don't Miss Our:
Flat Panel Plasma & Lcd Tv Reviews & Buying Guide Section