Samsung, like most of the really big companies, make a wide range of stuff, ranging from the excellent to the distinctly ordinary.
I haven't played with their monitors for ages, at least not to speak of. For what you get, I think they are a little dear. Their low-end monitors are no better than our Deltas - probably not quite as good - though we use them to cover out of stocks now and then. And their excellent high end monitors are something I tend to ignore in favour of Mitsubushi ones.
I have yet to see a Samsung LCD that wasn't spot on, though I haven't looked at them lately.
Samsung hard drives: well, guess I don't have to say too much about these. Simply the best IDE drives money can buy: very cheap, fast enough, incredibly reliable.
Samsung optical drives, on the other hand, have traditionally been crap. Last time I tried Samsung CD readers they were (I think) 48 speed, though they may have been 52s. It was perhaps a year ago, or a little less. They were flimsy looking, the trays didn't slide nicely, they were terribly slow, and they had great difficulty in reading any disc that wasn't absolutely 100% perfect. With burnt discs they were dreadful. We ended up using the entire box of ten (I'm not sure if Kristi had to RMA some or not - I'll ask her) but not in front line systems. We saved them for people we didn't like.
Oddly enough, their DVD drives seem to work just fine. In fact we have sold quite a number of the Samsung 12X and now 16x DVD drives with perfect satisfaction. I trust them a good deal more than I trust those Pioneer things. Pioneer still seem to have trouble getting their electronics right. They are like Zip drives: always give you a back-of-the-mind worry that they won't be compatible with your other IDE devices.
Finally, keyboards. For ages we messed about looking for a good quality keyboard to replace our Honeywells when they became impossible to get. (Honeywell = rebadged Keytronics.) We went through a half dozen different brands, looking for something that had good feel and didn't cost a fortune. Eventually diiscovered the Samsungs: superb feel, equal to the AU$27 Honeywells, and they are about AU$15 a pop. (That's 10pcs ex-tax pricing.) We love them.
For opticals though, we are using 100% Mitsubushi drives - except for DVDs, which we sell very few of and are staying with the Samsungs because we don't sell enough of them to make it worth my while to chase around looking for an alternative.
Maybe Buck's Samsung CD drives are a new model - I doubt that he would like those crappy things we had. Or indeed any of the various crappy Samsung CD readers we have been seeing every now and then right back to 8-speed days.
), but for general tasks (software installs, burning etc) they're perfectly capable bits of kit, and none too pricy either. Only product I haven't had recent eperience with are their HDDs (I had a 4GB one a few years back that's still going strong in a friend's K6-266 based box though, so I can't grumble too much).
