It is NOT a glossy screen, the frame around the screen is glossy, so its only for looks. Has a tendancy to slightly reflect light coming off of the screen on the edges, but it doesn’t bother me at all, nor is it very apparent. If you don’t want the glossy frame, get the 245B

Overall, excellent screen.

In the store, there was minimal backlight bleed. I compared this monitor to the HP and Gateway, setting the background to black, and using the old hand cup method (cup your hand against the monitor screen, and put your eye up to it to block out store lighting) looking for backlight showing through. It will usually be worst around the edges. This monitor had the least bleed through of the ones I looked at - with the exception of the 22 inch Samsung 2232GW. These two were about a draw. So - I elected to buy the 245BW for the higher resolution, increased screen space, and non-glossy screen (better for me, because there is a window behind me that creates nasty glare in the afternoons), …and I do mean I took the one off the shelf that I was looking at. No dead pixels, and I could see that it worked fine - and had a very good display compared to the other display models. Also - the Circuit City sale price of $379 applied to floor models or open box items.

Got it home - making the DVI connection was simple, old nVidia 6800GT runs this monitor well at 1920×1200. In my low light room computer room, I did notice bleed around the edges (left and right sides mostly), extending an inch or so onto the desktop. This is only the case if the screen is displaying black or very dark content. With other than very dark colors, the bleed is not noticeable. Acceptable for me (and much less than my previous Viewsonic 19″ gaming monitor). The screen is very bright, but has very good control options. I got the brightness set at about 30 and contrast at about 65 for my liking. I was having trouble getting text and applications to “look” clean with proper color balance. Menu text looked pixelated, and too blocky. I was getting a little disappointed, but once I found and played around with the Sharpness control, I was able to get text on menus to look very good. I backed off the setting from 100 all the way down to about 20. This made a huge difference. So take note.

The manual on the CD was very nice, and shows examples of the OSD menu settings, with explanations of what they do. Best thing to do - play around. There are preset modes for movies (which I don’t typically watch on a computer screen), gaming, internet, etc. Lots of options for color control. Driver install was quick and simple. Running this on XP Pro. Vista drivers are available on the Samsung web site.

As I noted - this is NOT a glossy panel. The bezel is a nice glossy black, but the panel itself is matte. Only cons would be no HDMI, or USB ports. No speakers either, but honestly, most people either have good speakers, or use headphones (I use 5.1 surround phones - very nice for me and those around me). But, it is HDCP compliant, and Vista approved for what that’s worth. Also, it comes with both VGA and DVI cables. And, the 5ms response time is not noticeably slower than my Viewsonic’s 2ms RT. No ghosting or blurring when I fired up DOOM3 (that IS when I noticed some backlight bleed though - those very dark scenes). But, the game looks beautiful on this monitor, and the screen width is perfect for full immersion if viewed from about two feet. Wow.

Monitor performance is very subjective depending on the owner, and applications being run. All in all, the 245BW is a very satisfying monitor. Comes with a three year warranty, and if you register right away, that gets extended a few months. I can’t imagine this monitor not doing a great job for anyone especially at this price! It’s definitely a buy recommendation.