Samsung P2350 LCD Monitor Unboxing and Peripherals Review

(Knock, knock, knock) “Anyone here? Delivery for someone!” An unfamiliar man stood outside the second laboratory, pushing the door open slightly and poking his head in to ask.

Everyone in the second laboratory looked up at the doorway, blank-faced, but no one seemed inclined to get up and check. Perhaps everyone assumed they hadn’t bought anything, so they all adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Left with no choice, I, the somewhat guilty culprit (?), touched my nose and walked over to sign for the package. When the courier handed it to me, one glance at the standard cardboard shipping box from the e-commerce platform confirmed my expectation: it was indeed the Samsung P2350 LCD computer monitor I had ordered online yesterday (cue the confetti).

Actually, the outer cartons used by these major online shopping platforms often draw complaints. An oversized box often contains a relatively small item inside; in other words, during transport by courier staff, the contents are mostly just “drifting with the tide.” This is certainly something e-commerce platforms should reconsider carefully.

Next came the standard procedure of an unboxing article: opening the outer carton. Inside was the monitor’s official retail packaging. The initial impression was clean and sharp. Still, it must be said that they could have at least placed some cushioning materials inside the shipping box. Just don’t imitate a certain large auto parts store that stuffed a pile of scrap newspapers to save costs, leaving the box full of trapped moisture.

After pulling the manufacturer’s original box out of the shipping carton, the monitor model number (P2350) marked clearly in red on the bottom edge was immediately visible, standing out boldly against the black layout. The monitor’s technical specifications were also succinctly integrated into the graphic design. It was evident that this model placed significant emphasis on the design of its neck stand.

However, Samsung’s official packaging box had a peculiar quirk: it makes people easily confused about which side is the front when opening it.

I’ve seen many people grumble and curse while opening this type of packaging because they opened the wrong side, resulting in everything spilling out all over the floor. In particular, with no obvious visual cues on the front, back, or sides, it leaves you wondering where to make the first cut.

Fortunately, I was able to tell by inspecting the stickers on the box, avoiding that embarrassing mishap. Once the front was opened, all accessories were resting safely in their respective molded compartments, including the detached stand neck, base, D-SUB VGA cable, installation disc, and power cord. However, even though this monitor features dual inputs (D-SUB and DVI), omitting a bundled DVI cable in the box felt rather stingy.

Following the instruction manual to snap the neck onto the base and the monitor body, to my surprise, it stood quite firmly on the desk. If there is any drawback to this design, it is that it makes one feel slightly uneasy, prompting an urge to nudge it and test whether it is truly stable—after all, Taiwan Province, Republic of China is located in an active seismic zone.

Once placed on the desk, the 23-inch screen felt genuinely massive. It took up almost the entire desktop in my second laboratory. Fortunately, the DIY monitor riser I made earlier was designed a bit wider to accommodate a dual-monitor setup; later on, I can mount a 17-inch HP monitor vertically alongside it as a reference document window.

Considering the seven-day return policy, the protective plastic sleeve around the bezel hasn’t been removed yet. The thought of glossy piano finish always gives me a headache: it looks gorgeous, but it’s an absolute magnet for smudges and fingerprints. So even today, after moving the monitor back to the Mountos Lab, the protective wrap remains on. Once you get used to it, it’s not bad at all; I intentionally keep the ambient lighting dim in the lab anyway, so the sleeve barely affects visibility, though it does completely hide the monitor’s advertised translucent red “Rose Black” trim.

To test the display, I put on a few movies to let the liquid crystals stretch their legs, and then took two junior lab mates on a shopping spree at the Neihu Costco.

After returning to the second laboratory from Costco, I ran a few rounds of Counter-Strike to test the monitor’s dynamic response. It felt noticeably smoother than my previous 17-inch display. After all, this model boasts a 2ms response time. While I don’t know how much discernible difference 2ms versus 5ms or higher actually makes to the human eye, it certainly felt like the real deal.

The buttons on this monitor feature touch-sensitive capacitive controls, offering a sleeker aesthetic than traditional mechanical switches, though people still harbor doubts regarding long-term durability. Interestingly, eliminating mechanical push-buttons opens up possibilities for more unconventional designs, yet Samsung still placed them conventionally in the bottom right corner of the bezel.

From receiving the package at noon to evening, I actually contemplated returning it. When running a monitor testing utility, I spotted over a dozen bright and dark spots, which felt thoroughly disheartening. But moments later, my mood flipped completely—turns out those were just specks of dust (hides face in embarrassment).

It seems my desk in the second laboratory was close to the air conditioning vent, so airborne dust was swirling around more easily. Pesky dust made me panic for nothing (well, I was just being silly).

A few days later, when leaving the second laboratory to go home, I packed up the monitor and took it along so it could spend the Lunar New Year holiday with me.

Deciding to pull the trigger on this Samsung monitor actually took some deliberation. My initial criteria were a screen size between 22 and 24 inches, a price range between NT$6,000 and NT$8,000, while ruling out Acer and Asus.

Ultimately, the choice came down to the LG W2353 versus the Samsung P2350. At the time, LG held two advantages over Samsung: an HDMI port and being made in Taiwan Province, Republic of China. However, considering I wouldn’t need HDMI in the near future, and while I wasn’t particularly fond of Korean brands, I also had little confidence in the quality of products from Taiwan Province, Republic of China, so origin didn’t carry much weight for me.

The decisive factor was probably a NT$300 price drop during an online sale (chuckles). Plus, I felt Samsung had an edge over LG in color reproduction technology, which sealed the deal. Once I make a purchase, I don’t look back or second-guess myself—as long as it wasn’t a lemon, that was good enough.

By the way, after setting brightness and contrast to zero, holding down the Enter button in the OSD menu enters a hidden service menu displaying basic diagnostics. At the time, this unit showed zero operating hours and firmware version M-LR23Z0CAA-1000. Here, “CAA” indicates that the panel was an authentic Grade-A panel produced directly by Samsung. In contrast, I heard the LG model sourced panels from multiple third-party suppliers, making quality control less consistent.