Besides the vivid and sharp quality of the picture, the color contrast was also remarkable. The black color of my desktop background never looked so true on any other LCD; all other colors also appeared to be pretty close to my main display which is a 19" CRT. For a better a analysis I used the DisplayMate utility which displays a sequence of test images that give you a good idea of your monitor’s capability. The color range and pattern tests confirmed my first impressions. The sharpness/resolution pattern test looked nearly flawless. And as for the view angle, although I cannot confirm Samsung’s claim of 170/170 degrees, I can tell you it definitely a step above the midrange LCDs you may have seen in stores.