The monitor’s menu not only allows you to turn response time compensation off (this technology is referred to as RTA by Samsung) but also to choose from two RTC modes:
When the RTC mechanism is disabled, the SyncMaster 2053BW becomes an ordinary 5ms monitor. Its response time average is 13.1 milliseconds (GtG) with a maximum of 24.7 milliseconds. That’s not fast at all.
Mode1 enables RTC for some transitions while others are as slow as before. The response time average is 7.3 milliseconds (GtG) with a maximum of 20.4 milliseconds.
Of course, there appear RTC-provoked artifacts. The average value of the RTC miss is 4.1% with a maximum of 46.1%.
RTC works for all transitions in Mode2. One column is surprisingly as high as 16.6 milliseconds but the matrix is quite fast on average: 3.4 milliseconds (GtG).
The level of RTC errors grows up, too. The average is 12.5% with a maximum miss of 65.5%.
What mode should you prefer? If you buy this monitor for work and for watching movies, you may want to turn RTC off altogether to avoid any possible visual artifacts. If games are your priority, you should choose Mode2 to have the highest speed of the matrix. And if you are going to use the monitor for both games and work, and the characteristic RTC-provoked artifacts (such as light shadows behind letters when you’re moving a window on the screen) irritate you, you should try Mode1. It is close to the RTC Off variant when working in Windows but much faster than it in games.
Ideally, I would like Samsung’s engineers implement the RTC adjustment option in a different way. Their implementation disables RTC for some transitions in Mode1 but I guess it would be better if the overall level of RTC aggressiveness changed, so that you could lower the level of RTC errors by increasing the response time somewhat. The matrix would have about the same speed for all transitions in each mode.
Highs:
- Appealing exterior design
- Adequate setup of MagicBright modes
- Multiple operation modes of the RTC mechanism
Lows:
- Inconveniently placed buttons
Recommended usage:
- Text-based applications (documents, spreadsheets, Internet)
- Viewing and simple editing of photographs
- Movies and games (including those that require a fast matrix)
