SyncMaster 770P

You might think a price tag of $899 was a bit high for a 17in TFT display - about $100 too high. However, we reckon it justifies this extra cost. For starters, look at the specifications. A contrast ratio of 1,500:1 isn't just impressive, it's staggering. The Samsung's 6ms response time isn't a record-breaker but it's certainly very fast indeed, and a viewing angle of 178 degrees on both the horizontal and vertical planes is as good as anything else on offer.

Good specifications are all very well, but what really matters is the performance. And although it does do a generally sterling job, we thought the 770P lacked a certain something. It can't match the colour palette of other 17 inch screens we've seen, but it certainly offers excellent definition.

The real beauty of the Samsung, though, is its adaptability. The stand allows it to sit almost flat on its base, or it can be raised to tower above everything else on the desk. Either way, you won't have a problem getting the SyncMaster to a comfortable height. What's more, the screen can be rotated through 90 degrees so you can use it in portrait mode - handy when working on Word documents, among other things. Samsung's proprietary Magic Rotation software means the image is automatically rotated when you pivot the screen.

The screen also swivels on the base, so it can be moved to show someone else what the user is looking at without physically picking the whole thing up. The design of the Samsung isn't just functional, though; it's really quite attractive. There's a choice of four colours - white, blue, red and black - so you can pick one to suit the rest of your system or the room that it's going to live in.

Image quality is sharp, although the colour depth isn't the best. But what we really liked about the SyncMaster 770P is the fact that it can be adjusted to suit the user in a variety of ways - it can be tilted, raised, lowered and rotated into landscape and portrait modes. Perhaps it is a touch on the pricey side, though.