Samsung S27A950D review

Samsung’s products have long been the epitome of style, and the S27A950D is another exceptionally pretty product. Its 27in screen seems to flow in an arc from its massive base, which holds the power connector and video inputs. The base and rear are finished in brushed metal, while the fascia is all glossy black. It’s all plastic, but that’s why the price isn’t in Apple territory.

The S27A950D’s 3D requires active shutter glasses, but they aren’t the ones provided by Nvidia’s 3D Vision system. Samsung’s glasses are far lighter and use a small watch battery instead of a fixed rechargeable battery. The screen supports 120Hz refresh rates, however, so there’s nothing to stop you buying a 3D Vision kit separately if you already own an Nvidia graphics card. It’s worth noting, however, that replacement Samsung glasses cost about £85, whereas a 3D Vision kit with one pair of glasses costs around £130.

Samsung bundles a copy of the TriDef 3D software with the monitor, and you’ll need to set it up differently depending on which make of graphics card you use. The S27A950D’s installation software places a special shortcut on your desktop after you install the software that lets you choose which type of 3D to use. ATI card owners get the best deal here, because the S27A950D worked almost seamlessly with an AMD card fitted during our tests. Unfortunately, Nvidia card owners need to jump through a few extra hoops.

With an AMD card, you can use Windows’ own Direct3D standard to play games, and we found Crysis to be smooth and immersive thanks to its 120Hz refresh rate. With an Nvidia card, you have to set TriDef to side-by-side mode. You then have to switch on 3D manually using the monitor’s touch-sensitive controls, which are located beneath the screen. The glasses won’t even switch on until you do this. Contrary to intuition, the raw image actually changes from two side-by-side images to a single, albeit fuzzy image when you switch the monitor to side-by-side 3D mode.

Its glossy screen is very reflective, and even the slightest reflection can disturb the 3D effect, so it’s best to turn the lights off. With both cards, reflections on water created patches of shimmering shadow that were as distracting as they were ugly. Gun crosshairs are also a problem: you can turn off the in-game crosshair and turn on TriDef’s 3D laser sight using a keyboard shortcut, but it’s not ideal as some guns have a separate laser sight.

Blu-ray 3D movies were also enjoyable on the S27A950D. In Ice Age 3, the animals’ furry coats were especially impressive, and distant objects seemed distant without the use of blur, which breaks the 3D effect when you look at it.

Most of these problems are common to all 3D monitors. The S27A950D’s basic image quality is surprisingly good. It’s a TN panel that could almost pass for an IPS panel because of its rich colours, and it’s even got good viewing angles. If anything, the monitor is far too bright, as shown by the fact that when we ran our calibration software, it darkened the image considerably.

Our initial reaction when seeing the S27A950D’s design was that its image quality could never match it, but we were wrong. It’s a fantastic screen, and the best part is that the price, while high for a 27in monitor, is actually great value if you factor in the fantastic design, the multiple inputs and the versatile 3D. Even if you think 3D is a gimmick, you’d be hard pressed to find such an attractive monitor with these features, plus fantastic image quality, at this price. It wins our Best Buy award.