Irvine (CA) - If you are looking for more than just a 22” LCD, but aren’t ready to jump to a $1500+ 30” monster, then a monitor such as the Samsung’s new Syncmaster 245T could be worth to look at.

At a suggested retail price of $800, the new LCD costs more than twice than budget 22-inchers, but it is about 50% cheaper than the 30” class of displays while offering a feature set that should be sufficient for most of today’s productivity and entertainment applications.

Compared to the 22” class, which typically provides a maximum resolution of 1680x1050 pixels, the 245T jumps to a 1920x1200 format and allows movies to run at 1080p via an HDMI interface. According to Samsung, the display also has a 1500:1 contrast ratio and can display 97% of the NTSC color space, which is still rather unusual for a monitor in this segment. The response time is rated at 6 ms.

Other features include a USB 2.0 hub (one up, four down) as well as a power management technology that puts the LCD into a sub 2-watt mode when in standby.

Samsung also offers the 245BW, which has a 3000:1 contrast ratio and also provides a 1920x1200 pixel resolution, but does not include an HDMI interface. The 245BW currently retails for prices between $450 and $500, according to Pricegrabber.com. 26" and 28" desktop LCDs are currently from about $600.