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Samsung Monitor - text looks jagged/blurry!

R

Rofl

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 7, 2010
56
0
I just recently got a Samsung P2450H 24" monitor and I've connected it into my MBP with a mini Displayport > HDMI adaptor and with a HDMI cable.

I've changed the default setting from AV to PC in the Samsung Monitor menu as recommended by others on this forum, and now I'm getting the maximum 1920 x 1080 resolution available on both Windows 7 and Mac OS with no overscanning issues etc. Everything fits on the screen. However, the text and font on websites looks a bit jagged and a bit blurry on Mac OS and I'm not sure why. If you stand far away, it's not that noticeable, but sitting at a reasonable distance (say 2 feet), you can definitely notice it. It just doesn't look that sharp in general.

People have said HDMI connections don't work that well on Samsung Monitors and I'd be better off with a DVI connection, but I can't see why there would be a discrepancy between the two modes. Which leaves the other reason - that this is an inherent issue to do with all Samsung P2450H models being affected with Mac OS, and not the cable itself?

Has anyone experienced the same issues I've just alluded to? Perhaps I'm just being pedantic, but I'm pretty sure blurry/jagged text shouldn't be a characteristic of this monitor.

Thanks.
 
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I'll be interested in any answers that folks might have. I have a Samsung T260 (26") and via a mini displayport to hmdi cable I purchased, my 2010 17" MBP's output to the Samsung is considerably lacking sharpness at the native 1920X1200 resolution. In Windows the screen looks great but considerably less so from the MBP.
 
You've probably already read this topic, but that particular monitor seems to work best with a DVI or VGA cable. I tried it with an HDMI cable when I first got it and it looked terrible. Switching to the VGA (with a minidisplayport to VGA adapter) solved everything and it looks great.
 
SHADO said:
You've probably already read this topic, but that particular monitor seems to work best with a DVI or VGA cable. I tried it with an HDMI cable when I first got it and it looked terrible. Switching to the VGA (with a minidisplayport to VGA adapter) solved everything and it looks great.
Click to expand...

Did it still look terrible after you configured the monitor's menu settings from 'AV' to 'PC'? Because that made all the difference for me - it looks sharp with my HDMI cable connected now (Win 7).

As I said before, the only problem is with the Mac side.
 
Rofl said:
Did it still look terrible after you configured the monitor's menu settings from 'AV' to 'PC'? Because that made all the difference for me - it looks sharp with my HDMI cable connected now (Win 7).

As I said before, the only problem is with the Mac side.
Click to expand...

It looked ok after I did that, but still not what I expected. It did look better on my W7 Ultimate side than the SL side, but when I used the VGA cable, it looked great on both sides, and that's what I was going for haha I didn't really want to have to switch the cables every time, and I use OSX way more than W7 anyways. It probably has to do with non-native Mac support for connections through HDMI cables.
 
Okay, I don't have any experience with this, but I think I read somewhere (probably here) that a mini-Displayport-to-HDMI supports only 1080p whereas a mini-Displayport-to-DVI (or Displayport) will support the maximum of the monitor. I think the same apples to mini-DVI versions of the adapters/cables. Not sure how either of those work with the VGA variants.
 
SHADO said:
It looked ok after I did that, but still not what I expected. It did look better on my W7 Ultimate side than the SL side, but when I used the VGA cable, it looked great on both sides, and that's what I was going for haha I didn't really want to have to switch the cables every time, and I use OSX way more than W7 anyways. It probably has to do with non-native Mac support for connections through HDMI cables.
Click to expand...

By looking 'better', do you mean the same quality as when you used the VGA cable?

I just think there must be a way of solving this without having to refund my HDMI adaptor and repurchasing the DVI adaptor.
 
Thanks. But that didn't have any effect unfortunately :(

Perhaps people who've connected it via VGA/DVI instead are able to see the subtle difference I'm on about in Win7/Mac OS? Or is the quality of the font rendering exactly the same?
 
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I'm starting to think the difference is actually down to how Windows and Mac render font differently. Windows' font is a lot sharper than Mac's. I just compared it without the LCD monitor plugged in and my suspicions were correct. I've just been too used to using Windows 7 that I didn't notice the difference, but now the 24" monitor has magnified it in front of my very own eyes.
 
Rofl said:
I'm starting to think the difference is actually down to how Windows and Mac render font differently. Windows' font is a lot sharper than Mac's. I just compared it without the LCD monitor plugged in and my suspicions were correct. I've just been too used to using Windows 7 that I didn't notice the difference, but now the 24" monitor has magnified it in front of my very own eyes.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that. In my experience, Mac's render fonts much better than Windows and have better smoothing. And in terms of the quality of the HDMI connection vs. the VGA, the quality when switching from AV to PC definitely improved. I still prefer the VGA, but the HDMI is very close, so I would say just go with that.
 
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