Customer Reviews
HDCP - HDMI and DVI both allow HDCP control inputs 
2008-09-29
I keep reading posts stating that this monitor does not support HDCP on the HDMI port. I have my ONKYO A/V receiver with an XBOX 360 ELITE (HDMI) and a TIVO SERIES 3 (HDMI) connected to this monitor on the HDMI port. I can play all my HDMI (HDCP protected)content and games without any issues. My computer connects using the DVI port also w/o issues. I do not know where all these people are getting that this monitor does not support HDCP.
I like the ease of use of this monitor. The only problem that I had the first month was, as other actual users have posted, the menus. They are hard to see even with a lamp. For this reason alone the monitor gets 4/5 stars instead of 5/5.
The profiles that this monitor includes are also great.
sharp, bright, but too blue and the controls are very hard to use 
2008-09-21
The image on this display is bright and sharp. It has fairly good contrast. The size is very nice too.
However...
The color is far too blue, even with color adjustments, but not enough to ruin the experience, but enough to nag at your attention if you use more than 1 display together. I wish I could see another in person to see if the blueness is defect or just the way the display is.
The other issue is that you cannot use the controls by feel and because the display is bright, you cannot see the markings for them when the monitor is on unless you have a strong light behind you, which of course would cause some annoying glare on the display.
The controls are not buttons. Instead the surface of the bezel in the lower right corner has a set of touch sensitive areas that are the controls.
Amazing monitor with crappy buttons 
2008-09-16
Yep, just like the other reviewers say, the "invisible" buttons on the front panel absolutely stink. Good thing that you don't have to use them much more than the initial setup and then hitting the power button as needed.
The glossy finish on the bezel is great, the stand is sturdy, sexy and very functional- including the ability to flip the entire monitor to document (portrait) orientation from the traditional horizontal (landscape) direction.
I'm using it with a dell latitude 630 laptop as well as a mac mini using a KVM and it works very well, the 1920x1080 resolution that my laptop can put out looks fantastic on this monitor, the text is sharp as a tack.
After considering the apple cinema 30" which costs almost 5x as much, I'm very glad that I went with the Samsung. The nearly 26" widescreen monitor is more than ample and the quality is what you would expect from Samsung.
Bottom line: If you're looking for a large, top-notch LCD for general use (documents, email, web browsing, video and graphics work, etc.), this is a great monitor.
I'm Planning on buying this monitor and bought it 2008-09-01
I'm planning on purchasing this monitor and have done plenty of research on a lot of the 24-26 inch monitors...Samsung, Viewsonic, Sceptre and others.
First off....this monitor is Vista compliant....which means this monitor is HCDP compliant. The DVI input is fully complaint with any HD content that is copy protected.
As far as the HDMI input...that's another issue as yet unresolved. I have an email into Samsung to get this answered. It would appear at first glance that the HDMI port on this monitor would and should be HCDP compliant. If Samsung installed the chip to activate the DVI port..why not the HDMI? I've read too many reviews on multiple websites by people stating that the HDMI port is not HCDP compliant....therefore I wrote the email to Samsung to clarify this issue. I am hoping that the HDMI is fully compliant with the HCDP 1.3 standard....if it isn't I probably won't buy this monitor.
Regarding the playback of Blu-ray movies through the HDMI port on this monitor. At the present time, the movies released on Blu-ray do NOT have the HCDP activated....so whether the HDMI port supports HCDP or not isn't an issue at this time...the Blu-ray movies will play using that port. The "rub" comes when Sony decides to use the HCDP feature on future releases of Blu-ray (and we all know they will)...Then, if the HDMI port on this Samsung is not compliant with that standard...Blu-ray movies will no longer play through that input in full HD.
However, there are conversion adapters available that can convert the HDMI plug into a DVI plug.....so worst case...you put the DVI adapter on your HDMI out from your player and all protected content will display on the monitor at 1080P.
When I get the response from Samsung...I will post it to this thread.
Cheers
BTW...3 star rating if the HDMI is not compliant....if compliant the monitor gets a 5.
Update: 9/2/08 Bought the monitor today. HDMI is not HDCP compliant. The DVI is. All the Blu-ray and games will play through the DVI connection with no problem..even after Sony activates HDCP on the Blu-ray. I bought this monitor in spite of the fact the HDMI port isn't complaint. Most of the comparable monitors that have HDMI ports are also non-compliant with HDCP...it's the odd case where you find one that has both DVI and HDMI compliant. That being said, here's my thoughts on the monitor:
This this is huge and bright on your desk top. I returned a 24 inch and replaced it with the 26 and there is a noticeable difference in size between the two. 26 inch is NICE!
The monitor comes with the brightness cranked up to 100...way too bright. Adjust it down to 60 and it's about right...still bright be not blinding. Also adjust the contrast down to 50 if you want details to show in the light or white backgrounds. Beyond that...the monitor stock settings were pretty much dead on right out of the box. I checked and tested them against a monitor setup program and everything looked good to me.
The menu controls on this monitor really kinda "wonky". On my desk top in normal lighting I cannot read the adjustment marks on the monitor bezel. I suppose you could keep a flashlight on your desk to use the menu. I literally have to put my nose next to the bezel to see where the controls are. These control are not buttons be rather a touch pad sensor type of control...you literally lightly touch the bezel where the control marks are and the On screen menu appears. The controls are pretty straight forward...although very sensitive and it takes some practice to see what control your touching with your finger tip. As I mentioned above..the only two items I needed to adjust were the brightness and contrast....so once they were set....I won't be messing with the touch sensor pads again.
One other quirky thing I found with this monitor. When I log out of windows and shut my computer down....the monitor will stay backlit and show a square with "Digital, HDMI, and Analog" cycling in the upper left of the screen....so after logging out ...I touch the off button on the bezel and the monitor goes to black. Every other monitor I've had...when Windows shuts down..the monitor goes to sleep and the back lite goes off.
The monitor has the TN panel and is not designed for photo editing or anything that requires exact color representation. If you move your head around there are color shifts on the display. These shifts are not noticeable to the average user...in fact, I didn't notice any color shifts until I put the monitor through the graphics set up program where they display a page with patterns that will point this flaw out. Your desktop and windows applications will look great with this display. This monitor is perfect for gaming, movie viewing, surfing the Internet and pretty much anything a normal computer user will do. Just remember, it's not a LCD TV Set....it's a computer monitor and made to be viewed straight on. If you read some reviews, you'd think this monitor display is really trashy...particularly the 1 and 2 star reviews. It's not. It's designed to have fast pixel response and a bright colorful display....it's made for the average consumer....not a graphic designer.
It was a no brainer for me to buy this monitor....it was on clearance and I paid less for it than a Samsung 24 inch monitor.
Cheers :-)
Kickazz LCD! 2008-08-15
I'm really, really happy with this monitor, and I ain't easily pleased. In fairness, I had to RMA my first one due to problems with the touch controls, but Samsung cross-shipped, so I didn't have to wait. The clarity on this screen is beautiful, and I have not experienced any color anomalies or problems of any sort. Yes, the labels for the touch controls are hard to see, but how often do you use them? It's set it and forget it. I've been using it for six months, and I'd buy another one without hesitation.
Great monitor! 2008-07-30
The 2693HM has everything that you need. With a Height Adjustable Stand (HAS), built-in-speakers, HDMI technology, full 1080p input and fast response time, you will be able to power through a work day and watch a movie or play games with all of the extra free time that you will have. Not to mention, the eye catching bezel design will fit perfectly in public view or in the comfort of your home office. The 2693HM is Microsoft Vista certified and works hard while looking good. With the 2693HM it is not hard to imagine.
Took a bit of adjusting 2008-07-06
I did a lot of research on monitors, learning the lingo which had changed since my last monitor purchase. I upgraded from a 21" Sony Trinitron Multiscan 500PS which I was very happy with, but Sony no longer makes monitors so I was back to square one. After reading many reviews on various brands I decided on a Samsung. Overall the reviews were very good, and Samsung had the best warranty (3 years). Some brands I researched folks said crapped out the minute the 1 year warranty expired.
After creating a chart of specifications and plugging about 15 Samsung models into it, and reading reviews on Amazon and several other websites, I decided on the Samsung 2693HM. First thing most folks wouldn't know is that Samsung has a BUNCH of different models, most aren't available in stores so go to their website and you can see a very detailed PDF file of the specs for each model.
I found a really good price here on Amazon but was afraid to buy online because of the few bad reviews. What if I hated the quality or it had bad pixels? Virtually all the manufacturers allow some bad pixels and won't take it back for that. I couldn't get a clear answer on how easy returns would be so I figured I'd go to a local store and look at it in person.
That didn't help. The picture clarity in the store was AWFUL. But my tech fella who went with me told me that the way they hook up monitors in stores to display them isn't going to show you the best it can offer. He said I could not trust what we were looking at.
Long story short I bought it locally, in the store with a really good return policy in case I hated it, their return policy allowed even for bad pixels, got it home and hooked it up to my MacPro1,1 (the original MacPro that came out in 2006). I paid $120 more for buying it locally to have the return policy peace of mind.
I do not have any addons to the MacPro, no extra graphics or game cards, just how it came off the shelf. It took a LOT of diddling to get it to my happy place, both in it's calibrations and using the Mac preferences. But once I got it to the happy place, the picture is excellent. No problems with the viewing angles or colors fading at the edges. No bad pixels that I can find. The picture is very clear. I had to change the fonts for everything, finally settling on Verdana 14 for most things. And turned font smoothing off for 9 and smaller. Originally the text was awful and hard to read until I made the changes. I had to make the text much bigger for this monitor and go with a heavier font.
Would I recommend this monitor? Yes, absolutely. Picture quality is excellent, this model has a lot of features including built in speakers, height adjustment, swivel, tilt, pivot, fast 5 ms response time.
Downside: Yup, as everybody said the buttons are awful. Not only do you need a flashlight, but the menu keeps turning itself off before you've finished making your changes so you have to bring it back up again. Of course once you've gotten to your happy place the buttons won't matter anymore so it's a minor downside. Also, don't make a bad judgement until you've done everything possible to maximize the picture quality and font quality. I spent hours getting it to its happy place. Especially the font (which you'll need to change the default in all your programs) because it initally looked awful, fuzzy and hard to read. If you have it too small some of the letters turn green. If you increase the size and choose heavier fonts the green goes away and the text becomes very clear.
What do I use it for? I create graphics for t-shirts and computer games, so image quality is important to me.
Beautiful 2008-06-17
This LCD Screen is great! It is enormous. It is bright, and very colorful. Setup was easy, although I had to get a new video card to really experience the beauty of it.
I would easily suggest this to others interested in a wide screen LCD with vivid color.
Not that great 
2008-05-26
I recently purchased this based on some good reviews, but now that I have one I regret the purchase. Bigger is not better here. The monitor uses a TN panel which means it does not maintain solid color top to bottom, left to right. When viewing normally the top is slightly darker than the bottom. So looking at a gray strip in photoshop, the gray will be noticeably darker at the top than at the bottom, creating a gradient effect. Even when viewing left and right, there is a slight red shift on the edges. When the monitor is turned vertically, the viewing angle is really bad and if viewed from the side a bit the image will invert. If you care about color quality and a stable image (read graphic designer or photo person) stay away from this thing. You will be very disappointed. I learned my lesson the hard way about what is happening in the LCD market with less quality TN screens becoming popular with larger screen sizes. If you are a gamer or just a casual computer user you may not really care about this stuff, but if you care about image stability on an LCD, move along to something else. Oh, and another thing. The touch monitor controls are awful. I had to use a flashlight to see the labeling since it is printed with a dark gray on black. Really ridiculous...very poor usability.
Finally, Wide Display with decent dot pitch 0.2865mm 2008-05-11
I did not have a good luck with 20",22",24" monitors, mostly due to the very small pixel size 0.25 - 0.27mm. I only feel comfortable with 4:3 19" monitors with pixel size 0.291mm. Anything smaller would usually put more stress on my/your eyes. It could be improved a little with enabling "Clear View" option in windows, but it makes small fonts excessively fuzzy. Also, some monitors luck a deep black level. This one is as close as it gets to be perfect and very easy on eyes. I dropped brightness to 50%. This was the only adjustment I had to make to get my test color charts to provide very good color gradation and rendition. No stuck or dead pixels. It is almost impossible to find inexpensive monitors with angels of view more than 160 degrees this days and even with 160 you may get big color variation even with in specs. I did not experience any color inconsistency with-in normal working position angles of view or across the screen. At extreme angles colors will either wash out (looking from the top) or darken (looking from the bottom) as expected.
Of course, the display controls are hard to manage and even to see. You will need a flash light during adjustment process, so you would touch correct touch sensitive spots on the bezel. I never change settings once it is done, so it is not an issue for me.
About HDCP: This monitor does support HDCP, but on DVI input only. HDMI input does not have this feature. If you are in desperate need to connect HDMI equipment required HDCP, you can always use HDMI-to-DVI cable or converter. There will be no loss of quality.
I do not use built-in speakers, so I could not comment.
If you want reasonably priced monitor, easy on your eyes and 97% of color gamut (makes it acceptable for pro: photo/video editing)- this monitor is a bargain.
