The current vogue for LCD flat panel monitors is ever-decreasing circles of response times. In layman's terms, an LCD's response time is a measurement in milliseconds of the time it takes to update the screen, the theory being that a panel with a lower value will be able to better handle fast-moving images, such as games and movies, with no ghosting or blurring effects which are traditionally linked to LCD monitors.

Lately manufacturers have been engaged in some sort of limbo competition, with times shrinking from 16ms, to 8, and now 4 or 3ms displays. And Samsung's engineers must have put their backs out with the SyncMaster 940BF's 2ms rating, which is the lowest we've ever come across.

We don't want to waffle on too long about this, but there's certainly controversy about whether you'll notice the difference between 4ms or even 8ms compared to 2ms. Some claim that even a zero rating would still show some slight blurring, due to the way the backlight and screen work together.

But it's undeniable there's a difference in smoothness between the slower panels we used not so long ago and this new breed. And we can certainly expect more from the SyncMaster 940BF when it comes to games and multimedia.

Anyhow, best get on with the business of evaluating the monitor as opposed to the issues. It's a very tidy looking 19-inch model which is solidly built and comes on a circular stand. One initial disappointment is that the stand neither swivels, tilts, nor does anything in fact, other than keeping the panel off your desk. There's certainly no portrait mode here.

On the plus side, the package comes with a DVI lead, and we were pleased to see that there were no dead pixels on our test unit. While driver installation was a simple process, we hit a snag when we installed the bundled Magictune software. This is used to tune the monitor's picture, but it conflicted with our McAfee anti-virus software and locked up our PC totally.

We had to work around this by disabling McAfee, then calibrating the monitor, before uninstalling Magictune so we could re-enable virus protection. Not exactly an ideal state of affairs, but at least Magictune did a good job of helping us get the SyncMaster 940BF's colour settings looking natural.

The screen provides a crisp picture and is easy on the eyes with text. As to the vaunted games and multimedia performance, it's excellent. Colours are extremely vibrant and game worlds are really brought to life, plus there's no discernible ghosting. Response rate controversy aside, this panel puts out a very impressive performance here.

The SyncMaster 940BF's basic controls are a snap to use, too. The on-screen menu is well laid out and there's a one-touch button which allows you to switch easily between pre-configured picture settings, such as 'games', 'movies', 'text' and 'internet'. There's also a 'custom' setting, which lets you define your own, but unfortunately there isn't a facility to implement more than one custom mode, which seems a little short-sighted.

The SyncMaster 940BF is certainly on the pricey side, and it has a somewhat basic feature set considering this premium. What you're really paying for is the display quality, which is crisp and clean under Windows and top-notch with games and multimedia.