Samsung S27C750P review

Samsung has always produced stylish products, and the S27C750P is no exception. This 27in monitor has a slender, glossy bezel and an equally slim silver base and stand. You can even remove the back of the stand and route cables through it to keep your work area neat and tidy. When the back of the stand is reattached, the wires come out near the base.

This is a thoughtful feature and the display inputs are conveniently located just above the stand. The S27C750P doesn’t have a wide variety of inputs, but its pair of HDMI inputs and its single VGA input should prove suitable for many users. Even so, we expect other types of inputs, such as DisplayPort or DVI, on a monitor at this price. The only other connection is a 3.5mm headphone output. The S27C750P doesn’t have any internal speakers, so the headphone output is particularly handy.

The S27C750P’s colour accuracy was adequate. The S27C750P uses a Samsung-specific panel technology called WVA, which stands for wide viewing angle. While its Full HD display looked incredibly bright and vibrant when we first turned it on, our colour calibrator showed it was only displaying 91.1 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut at its default settings. Warmer colours had good coverage, but cooler colours weren’t as well represented, with a particular shortage in lighter greens and blues. Much to our disappointment, we couldn’t increase this score after calibration. This is a shame, as there are plenty of equally good-looking IPS monitors available at lower prices that can produce much more accurate colours, such as the Asus MX279H and AOC i2757Fm.

Where the S27C750P really excels is its high contrast levels. We measured a contrast ratio of 2,538:1 after calibration, which is more than double the ratio of standard monitors and it really showed in our subjective image tests. Colours were a little washed out compared to our reference screen and its matt finish produced quite a bit of glare, but we saw a superb level of detail in both the light and dark areas of each photo.

Even more impressive were its deep blacks. We measured a black level of just 0.12cd/m² after calibration with our colour calibrator, which is one of the lowest scores we’ve recorded, and we didn’t see any evidence of backlight bleeding. Reds, greens and blues were similarly rich and vibrant, and whites were bright, true and evenly lit across the screen.

The S27C750P can also rotate 90 degrees to let you work in portrait mode in addition to the more usual landscape mode, and unlike other 27in monitors with this feature, the S27C750P didn’t feel like it was towering over us. Its ultra-wide viewing angles were another highlight. Even in portrait mode, we had to be almost viewing its sides before we saw any shift in contrast, and even this was barely noticeable.

Sadly, its menu system is a little more frustrating. It’s very easy to navigate thanks to the responsive buttons underneath the bezel, but its options aren’t particularly flexible. There are five pre-set picture modes available through Samsung’s Magic Bright feature, including Standard, Game, Cinema and Dynamic Contrast. If you change the brightness, contrast, sharpness, gamma or colour tone settings for any of these presets, the S27C750P will automatically switch to the Custom preset.

We recommend finding your own preferred settings, as most of these modes have a few key weaknesses. We found that the Standard preset’s brightness settings were a little too low, whereas Game was far too bright. Cinema, on the other hand, increases the sharpness so much that images look quite harsh and grainy as a result. Dynamic Contrast remedies this to some extent, but made images appear darker overall.

The Samsung S27C750P is a very attractive monitor. Its excellent contrast levels and wide viewing angles give it a clear edge over other 27in monitors, but its adequate colour accuracy prevents it from being truly outstanding. It’s a poor fit for tasks such as graphic design or fine photo editing, which is arguably where its viewing angles and high contrast ratio would be most beneficial. Consequently, it feels rather extravagant for use as an ordinary monitor. The more accurate and equally good-looking Asus MX279H currently costs less, but if you want the very best contrast levels, the S27C750P is for you.