Verdict: The excellent image quality justifies the price.
TFTs are like buses - you wait all year for the arrival of an alternative to Dell's 30in 3007WFP-HC, then two come along at once. Okay, so you rarely have to wait nine months for a bus, and a TFT won't get you from Finsbury Park to Camden Town in 25 minutes either. The point is that until now you didn't have much choice about which 30in TFT to buy - it was essentially the Dell 3007WFP-HC or nothing. However, with both this Samsung and the Hazro on p52 costing less than £1,000, there could now be an alternative.
Like the latest iteration of Dell's 3007WFP-HC, the 305T boasts wide colour gamut technology. This uses a pure white LED backlight to provide finer colour control. The traditional cold cathode backlights contain a touch of green, so they only allow 72 per cent of the colour gamut, which means that it can only display 72 per cent of the colours output by your graphics card. Wide-gamut TFTs can offer greater coverage of the visual spectrum, with Dell quoting 92 per cent for its HC displays. However, Samsung is upping the ante further by claiming that the 305T can replicate as much as 97 per cent of the colour gamut.
Theoretically, this puts the 305T slightly ahead of even Hazro's S-IPS-powered HZ30W, which offers 92 per cent colour gamut. The 305T uses a PVA panel that typically offers a brighter, more vibrant image. The greater brightness rating of 400cd/m2 compared with the 300cd/m2 of the Hazro is therefore no surprise. Both screens have the same quoted contrast ratio of 1,000:1. Samsung also uses an overdrive system to achieve a very respectable 6ms pixel response rate. This isn't as quick as the 2ms now being quoted for some smaller displays, but the 305T is the most responsive 30in panel we've seen - at least on paper.
The 305T isn't as spartan in terms of ports as the Hazro - there's a 4-port USB 2 hub, for example - but neither is it festooned with gimmicky extras. As on the Hazro, there's only one DVI-D video input, with no analogue input (ruling out component, composite or S-Video connections, as well as D-SUB). Samsung has also eschewed a screen-based OSD in favour of a more detailed, PC-based version communicating over USB. Only the brightness can be directly controlled from the monitor, although there's 80mm of height adjustment with which to play.
We put the 305T through its paces using our usual suite of synthetic and real-world tests, including the industry-standard DisplayMate calibration software, a selection of games, and both DVD and Blu-ray HD video.
The 400cd/m2 brightness was clearly evident as we switched between the Samsung and Hazro monitors, with the whites appearing purer on this screen. Like the Hazro, the 305T has pleasingly wide viewing angles. Thanks to the wide-gamut technology, virtually every shade of grey towards black was visible, and every shade of grey before white. A 2 per cent colour saturation was clearly visible against white, which means that the 305T lives up to Samsung's claim of wide and accurate colour reproduction; the 305T displayed a precise handling of even delicate colours. We were therefore looking forward to richly detailed shadows, super-realistic colours and a vibrant overall image.
The excellent synthetic test results translate into real-world tests very well - digital photos looked stunning, with every nuance of skin colouring and colour detail visible. Gaming proved to be equally pleasing, with the dark recesses of Prey particularly well rendered. Deep, dark shadows looked even more foreboding, with plenty of detail present. The garish streets of Need for Speed: Carbon were recreated in all their neon-lit glory, making the game much more enjoyable than the gameplay merits. Again, the darker areas showed more detail than we've seen from virtually any other TFT, bar Dell's 24in 2407WFP-HC (which uses a similar wide colour gamut technology to the 305T).
DVD playback wasn't quite as vibrant as on the Hazro, but it was still very pleasing. However, while the S-IPS panel of the Hazro was marginally better with the DVD film, the 305T was superior at displaying our Blu-ray film. Subtle nuances of colour and greater detail, particularly in glossy surfaces with reflections, were apparent on the 305T. As with the gaming performance, the 305T's video playback hammered home the potency of wide-gamut technology. The Hazro's S-IPS competes well, but only another wide-gamut panel stands a chance of bettering the 305T.
Conclusion
A grand is a lot to fork out, and most of us spend less than this on an entire PC - you could even buy two of the excellent 24in Dell 2407WFP-HC for the same money. You'll also need a monster of a system if you want to game at the screen's native 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. However, resolution scaling can be your friend here, and the impact that this screen gives to everything you run on your PC is almost overwhelming. The 30in Dell 3007WFP-HC can sometimes be found for less, but this Samsung is a notch better and worth the extra cash. If only buses inspired so much joy...
