If the blinking blue standby light on your Samsung 226bw is annoying then you aren’t alone. I find it extremely annoying to go to bed. I went through the documentation, I searched online and there isn’t a way to disable the light without damaging the monitor. The solution I came up with takes all of 5 seconds to do and can be reversed in the same amount of time.

Tape. Use tape, black electrical tape is probably the best choice, masking tape works too. The button still works through the tape and you no longer have to see the blinking blue strobe light up your office. I would avoid using heavy duty tape like duct tape because it will leave a sticky residue behind thats harder to remove.

This is the only 22 inch widescreen that I would consider buying based on what I have read when making a decision to purchase this screen. I bought the screen from Newegg. Originally I was somewhat worried about the screen because about a week into using it I got a little red stuck pixel near the center of the screen but after another week of usage it went away.

I personally like it a lot for web/graphic use but I think it sucks for games. I don’t think any LCD can be good for gamers at this point. The problem I have with the screen is that there is a 5×3 grid of LCD panels that make up the total viewing area. Each panel seems to be updated at different times causing tearing in the same spots on the screen all the time. This makes tearing very noticeable and its horrible for anything with lots of horizontal motion. I received the ‘S’ panel which is supposedly the best one for games. I’ve messed around with it a lot and cant get the little mini panels to update all at the same time.

The other complaint I have about this screen is the power button. Its an extremely bright LED that blinks when the monitor is in standby. The blinking light is enough to light up my room at night and to fix this I had to resort to putting tape over the powerbutton to mask the light it produces.

This screen is extremely bright. After having Lasik, I had to turn the brightness down to zero to use it. I’m not knocking the screen, I think its great. It has great color reproduction and the lowest brightness is better than the highest brightness on my old 15″ LCD.

I’d recommend the Samsung 226BW to anyone who uses their computer for anything but gaming. I think its a great product.