This week, I finally waved goodbye to my old, trusty 14 inch CRT screen, which I had hooked up to my Xbox 360 for over a year. Yes, one year of squinting at miniscule font, tolerating the average resolution and a braving a frequently failing Freeview box had taken its toll, and after long thought, I decided to enter the era of HDTV for the sake of both my eyes, and my Xbox games.

It was a decision that took a long time to come to fruition. And I mean, a very, very long time. I perused countless websites trying to come to the best compromise between size and quality, a bargain or a brand name, full HD or HD ready. Finally, the set that caught my eye was the Samsung Syncmaster 2333HD, which was a very reasonable £183 with built in Freeview tuner on Amazon. With Dooyoo voucher in tow, I took the plunge....and what a great choice it was.

The first thing that struck me when it arrived was its size. Well, the screen size in particular. This set has a 23 inch screen, acting as a halfway-house between a fully-fledged monitor and an average sized television, but due to the incredibly sleek bezel, measuring at no more than an inch thick, the screen appeared much larger than I expected. Luckily, this 'illusion' didn't take its toll on the device's actual size, with the dimensions of 55.8cm (W) x 41.5cm (H) x 7.4cm (D) fitting snugly on my table, alongside my cumbersome 360. The set is finished in smart, glossy black, and, as expected from Samsung, offers some very nice eye candy. Connections are aplenty here, too, with two HDMI ports (one on the side), one Scart, a DVI and an RGB connection for a laptop. Samsung also provide an RGB cable to have laptop users up and running in no time, as well as a cleaning cloth. The set can also be wall-mounted with a 100mm VESA fixing.

Setting up the device couldn't have been easier. To affix the stand, the base had to be swivelled onto the screen, a painless procedure over in under a minute. Likewise, upon removing the very sleek and well-made remote control and pressing the power button, a little jingle played as an unobtrusive but impressive blue glow emerged in the centre of the bezel's bottom, just above the Samsung logo. Upon first power-up, an easy-to-use menu appeared guiding through the scan process for Digital TV. Having plugged in my previous TV's aerial into the ANT-IN port (you have to have an aerial to properly operate this DTV) the 2333HD did the rest for me, finding channels and populating the TV guide with info. And it even tells you what HD choices you have. How nice.

Of course, the most important thing about any television is the screen itself. And my goodness me is this one good. I opted for this set for two key reasons: (1) Samsung are known for their excellent displays and (2) it was full HD. For those not in the know let me explain: this set runs at 1080p (with a resolution of 1920 x 1080), the very highest HD setting currently available where every line of pixels runs simultaneously to the next (hence the p = progressive display). This setting is the best for the smoothest pictures while playing games and watching fast-moving sports or movies. As it was for my 360, I took note of this.

What's more, an ideal response time for a TV is often said to be between 8 milliseconds and 4 milliseconds, the latter being the optimum. Fortunately, this set sports a 5ms response time, which means my games don't suffer from any motion blur even when playing fast-paced games like FIFA 10. Added into the mix is a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 (degree of variation between the lightest and darkest parts of an image) and although I have no idea whether this fares well compared to other sets, black looks black and contrasts very nicely with the brightest parts of an on-screen image. I have noticed no screen bleed as of yet, and the richness of colour and amazing depth when viewing games or videos in HD is truly sublime.

Samsung have also catered for technophiles out there, offering a host of little tweaking tools to optimise your experience. Click 'Tools' and you can choose between three different picture styles, Movie, Standard or Dynamic (the latter is by far the best); you can even bring up the 'Menu' and individually adjust brightness or contrast to suit your needs. You can also change screen sizes for programmes - if an SD broadcast is in 4:3 screen size you can stretch or zoom to make it widescreen or you can squash 16:9 broadcasts if you so wish. These small tweaking tools make the set more of a joy to use, and make for a more personal experience.
What about the sound I hear you cry? Well, if you pay for a monitor with a TV tuner, rather than a standalone TV, then don't expect miracles. Hundreds of user reviews moaned and groaned about the sound quality, and a combined output of 6W from the hidden speakers is indeed unsatisfactory, but as I had recently purchased some Labtec Spin 95 speakers (see other review, if you like :D) which plug into the headphone jack this wasn't a problem. If you buy this set, do buy additional speakers - they're only around £10 now anyway - as the speakers are very tinny and distort quite easily. This really isn't a deal-breaker, though, and is cheap and easy to fix, so it doesn't detract from the experience.

The built in DTV tuner is very capable too, and blows my previous set-top box out of the water. All the usual fare is here, including the ability to formulate favourite lists. Moreover, the TV guide was not only comprehensive but very easy to use - click 'Info' and a banner appears at the top of the screen telling you what resolution the programme's streaming at, as well as a show synopsis, whether it's subtitled and when it ends. Tap 'Guide' on the remote and you get to an in-depth guide to upcoming TV which performs as expected. Channel surfing is also good, with channels loading in just over a second - not instantaneous like the old Analogue signals, but still quick enough. Which reminds me, you can also add analogue channels to the TV if you so wish. *NOTE* For those wondering, although this is advertised as a monitor with a TV tuner, it can be used like a normal television; no PC is required.

Of course, this monitor can be used as...well...a monitor, and having hooked it up to my Toshiba NB200-10Z netbook (again, see review if you like :D) I was very impressed. By accessing 'Control Panel' on Windows XP I was able to use my Netbook in full HD on the screen, and it was the sharpest PC experience I've ever had. All I did was plug the RGB cable between netbook and TV and selected the RGB input from the remote's source button and hey presto, my screen was in glorious HD! Of course, it needed a test run...so I put on 4OD, fired up Peep Show and was pleased to see that when it was full screen it was just like I was using the in-built DTV tuner. For me, this was another key reason to buy a monitor-TV over a TV alone, and I can wholeheartedly recommend using this set with a laptop.

*Summary*

If it wasn't already apparent, I'll make it perfectly clear: I love this TV. I waited and waited, and then waited some more before splashing out, but this fulfils all my expectations. For gaming it is a total delight, with vibrant colours, deep contrast and great response times for event the fastest games. For digital TV, the streams are very impressive and the tuner has all the bells and whistles you'd expect. And all of this in a sleek, compact design which looks more expensive than it actually is. For £183 off Amazon at the moment, this set comes highly recommended for use in a medium sized living room, a study or even a bedroom.