Samsung XL20 monitor

What’s so special about LED backlighting? Conventional LCD panels include either a single sheet of electroluminescent plastic or LED side-lighting. Both are hard to control. Sidelighting looks patchy, while backlight panels can age and fade, and also offer poor colour consistency.

LED backlighting uses a matrix of LEDs that can be programmed easily to create different background brightness levels with precise colour temperatures. NEC started the ball rolling a couple of years ago with its SpectraView panels. The 2180WG cost more than £3,000 when it appeared, so there’s plenty of room for a price drop. The new Samsung XL20 is aiming at similar territory, but costs less than a third of that.

First impressions of the XL20 are mixed. This is a 20-inch panel at 1600x1200, and by today’s standards that’s not overly generous. Viewed from the side, the LED backlight system adds some extra bulk to the rear of the panel, but in normal use this will be out of sight at the back. Viewed from the front, it’s hard to say that this is a good-looking monitor. There’s the usual pro-level hood to cut down light, but the effect is spoiled by a bezel marked with a pointless LED tag, which can’t be removed, and functional rather than stylish buttons. Most competitors include peelable labels – a pro-level monitor should be visually neutral by definition. On the plus side the on-screen display is reasonably straightforward – not the best we’ve seen, but good enough for the job.

Also in the box with the XL20 is a re-badged GretagMacbeth Eye-One Display 2. This costs around £170 on its own, so the bundle is a reasonable deal for people who don’t own an Eye-One already. Calibration is recommended, because the preset modes on the XL20 are frankly a little wonky and don’t do the panel justice. Once it’s set up, though, performance is dazzling – brightness and colour are very impressive. While contrast isn’t industry-leading, the XL20’s strong point is that it offers the widest colour range of almost any monitor under £2,000. Overall performance is better than monitors comparable in price, but not quite up to the lofty heights set by NEC’s SpectraView reference range. So while the XL20 will give you more colours more accurately than a typical 1600x1200 panel, it’s still a notch or two short of what’s needed if you’re a full-time colour professional looking for a no-compromise solution.

Overall, the XL20 doesn’t make a great deal of sense as a main monitor because of the limited resolution and 20-inch panel size. At 1920x1200 and 22 inches it would just about squeeze through, but in today’s studios 1600x1200 is a shade too small for professional content creation. Still, if you’re looking for a second monitor for entry-level professional colour control, it’s an affordable choice compared with the competition, and also includes a colorimeter, which can be used for other jobs.