Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor review: A sleek looking monitor with issues

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Curved panel displays are becoming more popular, and curved monitors are no exception. Our latest review takes a look at the 1080p Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor to see how it stands up for gaming, media consumption, and daily computing tasks.

Specifications

The Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor has the following features and specifications:

  • Model Number: LC27F591FDN
  • Screen Size: 27″ (16:9)
  • Display Type: VA
  • Curvature: 1800R
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080
  • Brightness: 250cd/m2
  • Static Contrast Ratio: 3,000:1
  • Dynamic Contrast Ratio: Mega ∞ DCR
  • Viewing Angle (Horizontal/Vertical): 178°/178°
  • Tilt: -2° ~ 20°
  • Response Time: 4 ms
  • sRGB Coverage: 119.30%
  • Color Support: 16.7M
  • Power Supply Type: 14V/3.22A
  • Power Consumption (Typical): 36W
  • Power Consumption (Stand-by): 0.3W
  • Max Stand By Power (DPMS): 0.3W
  • Inputs: 1x HDMI, 1x Audio In (3.5mm), 1x Display Port, 1x D-Sub, 1x Headphones
  • Features
    • Built-in Stereo Speakers
    • Mac Compatible
    • Windows Compatible
    • Samsung MagicBright
    • Samsung MagicUpscale
    • Eco Saving Plus
    • Eye Saver Mode
    • AMD FreeSync
    • Flicker Free
    • Active Crystal Color
    • Gaming
    • Image Size
    • Easy Setting Box
  • Dimensions (W x H x D) with stand: 24.2″ x 17.0″ x 10.6″
  • Weight with stand: 9.7 lbs
  • Color: Silver

What’s in the Box

  • 1x Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor (LC27F591FDN)
  • 1x Power cord
  • 1x HDMI cable
  • 1x Quick Setup Guide

Design

There’s no question the Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor has a sleek looking design. Aside from the obviously curved screen, which always tends to add to the sleek look of a monitor, the silver frame has a very thin bezel on the top and sides. The bottom bezel is roughly 3/4″ thick with the Samsung logo in the middle. Other than that, the only other thing you’ll find on the front of the monitor is a small blue LED light in the lower right corner.

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The Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor has a pretty sleek looking design.

The monitor frame itself is just under 1/2″ thick around the edges, bulging out towards the center of the back. The monitor rests on a circular silver base about 8″ in diameter with a rounded white stem angling from the back of the base out towards you so the monitor itself actually sits above the center of the base. The stem has a cable management clip on the back, and the monitor can tilt up and down between -2° and ~20°, but it doesn’t swivel from side to side. I did find that the base sits kind of low and the monitor required tilting upwards to get a good view.

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The stand allows you to tilt but not swivel the monitor.

As for the back of the monitor (which is white), the far left-hand side (far right-hand side when looking at the front of the monitor) is where you’ll find the circular menu toggle. Pressing the toggle in will bring up the menu, and you can then adjust the brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and other usual monitor adjustments. Samsung has added a couple settings of their own which I’ll discuss in the display section below. Not quite 1/4 of the way up the back of the monitor is where you’ll find your ports: 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, 1x D-Sub, 1x Audio In (3.5mm), 1x Headphones, and your power port.

samsung-27in-led-curved-monitor-review-11
The menu and volume are accessed and controlled by a small toggle on the back of the monitor.

The design on the Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor was a tough one for me. It looks pretty sleek, is nice and thin, and I really liked the thin bezel frame around the front. I would have liked to see the stand a bit higher up, as my eye level was at the top 1/4″ of the monitor when sitting in front of it at my desk. The toggle on the rear of the monitor to control your settings, as well as the volume, was also a bit awkward and took some getting used to. Once I did get used to it, it wasn’t bad, but I would have preferred to see more standard type buttons under the front or even on one of the sides of the monitor.

Display

A 27″ monitor with 1080p display can be a bit of a mixed bag as that size is almost too big for that resolution. It actually took me a bit of time to get the settings just right, even with the Samsung MagicBright and Samsung MagicUpscale presets. MagicBright allows you to set an optimum picture quality suitable for your working environment and allows you to choose from Standard, Cinema, and Dynamic Contrast, as well as letting you set the brightness, contrast, and color manually. If you choose Custom mode, you’ll also be able to toggle Samsung MagicUpscale — which enhances picture detail and vividness — off, or to one of two modes.

Once I did get it set up to my liking, the display was pretty decent for the most part although I still found that on occasion some of the text was a bit artifacted or ghosted and it wasn’t quite as crisp as I’d like. Samsung MagicUpscale definitely helped, although the second mode was definitely overly crisp and enhanced the ghosting I experienced.

Once in a game, the issues I experienced when viewing black text on a white or light background were definitely less noticeable depending on the game you played. In games like Hearthstone where there is a lot of text, I did find the text to be less crisp than it is on other monitors, including the 24″ Samsung that I use on a daily basis. Smaller text in Diablo III was also a bit tougher to read than it should have normally been. I tested the monitor both over HDMI and DisplayPort, unfortunately I wasn’t able to test out the AMD FreeSync feature as the computer I was using has an NVIDIA card but I’m sure that wouldn’t make a difference with text issues.

samsung-27in-led-curved-monitor-review-07
The Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor has DisplayPort, HDMI, and D-Sub outputs.

While the colors and refresh rate was more than acceptable on this monitor, the issues with text clarity — or over sharpness — overshadowed the experience for me. I even asked my wife and she said that while she could read it, the text wasn’t as clear as it should be. It’s an odd issue as well, and a quick look at the Amazon reviews are a mixed bag between those saying the clarity is fine, while others have similar issues as I experienced.

Speakers/Sound

The Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor comes with stereo speakers, an option I usually find comes with mixed results. In the case of this monitor, I was pleasantly surprised at the sound it produced. Volume levels were decent, and listening to it at about 50% volume was more than adequate for listening to music or in-game sound. While there wasn’t a lot of bass, the range was pretty decent and the sound was crisp and clear and not muddied at all.

Price/Value

The Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor has an MSRP of $349.99USD and is currently on sale for $219.99 which in most cases is a pretty decent saving. Unfortunately, given the clarity issues I encountered with it, while $220USD is a decent price for a 27″ curved monitor, it’s still hard to justify recommending this monitor.

Wrap-up

While the Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor is a sleek looking monitor, issues with text crispness overshadow the design.

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*We were sent a demo unit of the Samsung 27″ LED Curved Monitor (LC27F591FDN) for the purposes of this review.
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