You probably haven't heard of Sampo before, since they are new to the UK and
currently only have one supplier. This silver and black affair has very chunky
styling, contrary to the trend for slim casings and thin bezels.
Specifications are unremarkable, with a 430:1 contrast ratio
and 25 ms response time. Since it includes a pair of tiny 2-watt speakers in
the bezel, it is most suited to general office use. The OSD is hard to use,
and the buttons have a tendency to press twice when you only intended to press
them once. Colour adjustments are limited, and rather non-obvious. Luckily the
colour balance defaults are perfectly good, and the full brightness setting
is very bright.
If you make sure font smoothing is turned off, it scales very
well to 1024 x 768, and 800 x 600, good news for those with glasses. At £215,
the Sampo S1722 has nothing to recommend it over the slightly cheaper and much
faster response LG and AOC monitors.
