CNET Monitor Reviews

How reliable are their rankings?

I went to Best Buy and looked at LCDs. Just by looking at image quality I would rank the Viewsonics and Sonys at the top (don't remember the model names). There were 3 or 4 of each brand I looked at both 15 and 17". The interesting thing I noted was that all the Samsung monitors sucked when comparing side by side. They seemed slightly fuzzy or out of focus.

CNET has a bunch of Samsung monitors at the top of its rankings but few or no Viewsonics. What's the deal here?

Anyway what are YOUR direct experiences Samsung vs. Viewsonic 15 and 17 inch LCD only please.

If I were to buy just based on image quality it'd be Viewsonic hands down.

Cnet is pretty reliable. There are probably two main reasons that you result differ from cnet's. First, the video signal is split into multiple signals resulting in degraded quality. Second, cnet rates on more then just picture quality. Price is also a big factor. I noticed that they kept saying you'll pay more for the sonys and viewsonics.

Yes the video signal is split, but you would think that the degradation would be distributed randomly, and not only affect the Samsungs. The monitors were not isolated brand by brand.