The LCD Buyers Guide

[adamsleath]

nice to hear a comment on the dell 2407-hc; i've heard/read the HC version is good.

[aznsniper911]

I'm trying to upgrade my 22" Samsung 226BW to a 24" but I'm having a hard time deciding on a monitor. Which one would you guys take, the LG L246WP-BN or Samsung 245BW?

[MaxxxRacer]

nice to hear a comment on the dell 2407-hc; i've heard/read the HC version is good.

Kohan69 is going to bring his 2405 over and we will compare.

Mini-Review of the Dell 2407WFP-HC 24" Display


Black Level
The default brightness is too high for me, but when I turn down the brightness you loose alot of detail in blacks. For instance, at 10 brightness I wasnt able to see a difference between RGB 0,0,0 and RGB 15,15,15. It took until RGB 16,16,16 for me to see it. I turned the brightness back up to 50 and then I could see the difference between RGB 0,0,0 and RGB 3,3,3 which is quite good (only professional CRTs are able to give the difference between RGB 0,0,0 and 1,1,1, or with LCD at full brightness).

After that bit of testing I did the compromise of having the brigthness at 40 which allows me to see the change in blacks at RGB 6,6,6.

White Level
I havn't done a white level callibration yet, but I will try that tonight.

Backlight Bleeding
The backlight has very little bleeding, only a small amount in the upper right and lower corners. Even then its only noticeable on an entirely black screen. What I did notice though is that the bleeding in the lower right looked a little purple.

When watching a 2:3 movie, the backlight bleeding is NOT noticeable in the upper and lower letterboxes.



Color Temperature
By default the color temperature is too cold. Dell does not give exact values for what the color temperature is, just normal, warm, cold. Odly enough it has both a Mac and Windows color temperature. The MAC color temperature (which it was set to by default) is colder than the Windows settings.

After calibration of the display the colors are much warmer

Color Reproduction
As expected, the color reproduction on the 2407WFP-HC is great. I looked through some of my high res digital photographs and all of them looked superb. How accurate are the colors? Honestly I can't tell you because my coloromiter does not give the delta values of all the colors. I would have to spend another 350 dollars on a Lacie Blue Eye Pro 2 for that, which I would like to get, but since I dont make a living out of photography, wont be happening anytime soon.

Viewing Angles
The viewing angles on the 2407WFP-HC are very good, but not as good as on my Viewsonic VP930B. I noticed the colors wash out a little when looking at the display from the right side. That said, the overal color and gamma distortion at wide viewing angles is minimal and will only be an issue if you do photo editing at 170 degree viewing angles. And if you do that, someone should smack you upside the head.


OSD
The OSD on the dell is great. Its MUCH better than the ghetto OSD that Viewsonic used on the VP930B. It gives you just about every option you could think of and if you go into the maintinence menu (power down display, hold down "menu" and "+" while powering on and then press "-") you have even more options. I will take a picture of the maintinence menu in the next few days.

Picture In Picture
PIP and PBP works well, but is kinda confusing to get working right the first time. Alas it seems that VGA/DVI PIP is still not working which is a real shame. No surfing the net while playing Xbox 360 for me. I havnt had time to test the image quality of the PIP inputs, but I can say that PBP does not look very good due to the squishing (I had the resolution at 1920x1200 and it squished it down to a normal aspect ratio).

Ghosting
Ghosting is not noticeable at all in anything i viewed. I played some Halo, Gears of War, and watched some movies; Both HD-DVD and regular dvd. At no time did I notice any ghosting. I am not as sensitive to it as some people are, but I did not notice anything.

Input LAG
While I did not measure the input lag, there was no percievable input lag with the 2407WFP-HC

The Stand
The stand is very sturdy, but there is some play in the mouting mechanism between the stand and the panel. This is due to the quick release feature of the LCD. Personally, I would prefer to have the LCD hard mounted to the base, but its not up to me. While shaking my desk the display wobbled a little but settled down quickly.

The height adjustment works great, allowing the display to get less than 1 inch off the surface of the desk and up to 5.5 inches (bottom edge of monitor). Lifting the display up is completely effortless unless you lower the display to the bottom where it locks in place. To be honest, even my 6'4" friend found the 5.5 inches to be stupidly high and is only useful for rotating the dispaly into portrait mode.

The swivel works great and is very smooth, but sadly it lacks a lock point in the center to tell you where the display should be rotated for dead center. I would love it if it had this feature, but its not the end of the world.

Rotating the screen into portrait mode is a little tricky, but can be done relatively quickly one you get the hang if it. The problem is that the display does not raise up high enough to be able to roate it the whole 90 dgrees. It makes it about 80 degrees before corner hits the desk. The solution is to tilt the display backwards a bit (it has a front back pivot feauture) while rotating it. While in portrait mode the LCD looks 9 feet tall and is kinda rediculous. A side note: It appears that dell does not include software to auto-rotate the display into portrait mode. Personally, I dont care, but some may be upset about this.

I think that about sums up my mini-review.


If anyone is interested in the calibration profile for the 2407WFP-HC, just hit me up on PM and I will email it to you.

[MaxxxRacer]

Soulburner, do you think high-performance P-MVA or IPS based widescreen 20"+ widescreen LCDs will become more common in the near future, or should I expect TN domination with advances in TN tech? That Acer AL2051W P-MVA panel for under $200 makes me wonder if there are any other upcoming 20-23" non-TN panels in the $200-350 pricerange. I'd pick it up in a second if it was a 6ms MVA or IPS panel.

I doubt TN will ever dominate the high end. No mater what you do to them they are still 6bit panels with horrid viewing angles. Until there is some new technology, S-IPS will be the ultra high end.

On a side note, 99% of laptop displays are TN. Only the 20 inchers are VA based.

[Soulburner]

Nice quick-review Maxx, but one question:

Input LAG
While I did not measure the input lag, there was no percievable input lag with the 2407WFP-HC

Which mouse are you using? That makes all the difference.

I would agree on most of the things being similar on the BenQ FP241W with the exception that it has a more solid stand, probably the most solid of any LCD I have seen. It doesn't look like it in the pictures but...it weighs a ton for its size. It's density and shape ensure your monitor is staying put. Plus the adjustability is just awesome.

Other than that, no ghosting that I can see, great colors, brightness and contrast after calibration, though I had to turn the brightness down a few notches because it is just too bright. Viewing angle is good but some slight color/gamma shifting is noticeable from size to side about 45 degrees out.

[MaxxxRacer]

Nice quick-review Maxx, but one question:

Which mouse are you using? That makes all the difference.

I use an old logitech dual sensor optical mouse. Its a usb mouse but on I have it on the PS2 port as I dont like to have my input devices on the USB bus.


One thing I did notice is that when the screen moves real fast (playing CS:S) there is some tearing (from refresh rate). When I get home I will turn up the refresh rate and see what happens. Hopefully it goes away. I never had this issue with my VP930B. It MIGHT also be a framerate issue as my FPS in CS:S was around 50 or lower at 1920x1200.

Oh, I do have one huge complaint with the monitor. The included USB uplink cable is WAY WAY WAY too short. I have my computer off to the side and the USB cable doesnt reach. The DVI cable was also too short, but I just used the monster DVI cable that Viewsonic included with the VP930B.

[rodman]

MaxxxRacer, do you notice any image blurring during fast paced games like FEAR or Need for Speed carbon ect..

If you notice image tearing enable Vsync, thats what it's there for

[Soulburner]

I assume he is already using VSync, its a requirement on these monitors.

[qgshadow]

Hi guys, i am currently looking for a good lcd monitor 20-22 inch widescreen , Around 600$CND tax in or maybe more(it depends if theres a big gap of quality for little money:P) . currently i use a sony g520 excellent crt monitor but i think i need a change now, some nice widescreen would be great :P

thanks for all your help.

Congrats for that thread!!

[Soulburner]

For 20" go for the NEC MultiSync 20WMGX2. Supposedly the only 20" with an AS-IPS panel.

For 22" you will have to settle for a TN panel but you want the LG Flatron L226WTQ/L226WTY in that case.

[undefeatedone]

Hey guys,

how's this DoubleSight DS-240WB look?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824185004

It has an s-pca panel, any good? Says its 6MS response time - how do you think it fares against the NEC 20WMGX2? I can get it for about $480.

[adamsleath]

never heard of s-pca
s-pva...
or double sight
the 20gx2 sh1ts all over most other panels - it just does very well in all the 'tests' - something to do with the AS-IPS type tech and NEC quality build.
if u want a cheap 24" then take a punt at yr own risk.

[Soulburner]

I'd like to mention something for potential FP241W buyers.

This monitor is nearly perfect - and I mean it really. No ghosting that I can see, excellent input response from my Deathadder, great color after calibration, the best input and scaling options of any LCD on the market today and one of the most solid, adjustable stands you can get.

Now for my only real gripe with the monitor - the coating on the screen itself. It has an anti-glare coating which is both good and bad. If you have experience with these you will know how they can make the screen look "hazy" if there is no light coming through, for example in dark scenes. This can make blacks look not so black, even though they are from the panel. The coating on the screen gives off an odd look to the monitor. This isn't a problem normally and isn't noticeable the vast majority of the time you are at the monitor. It's when I creep around in Doom 3 or enter a dark dungeon in Titan Quest that the anti-glare coating shows itself.

I wouldn't let it stop you from buying though - Instead of writing a long review of all the pros of this monitor I'll simply write about its one possible flaw. It's really the only thing I can find that I don't like, and that is excellent considering I almost always find the flaws in a piece of hardware. Consider all the things the other 24 inchers do wrong and you really can't complain.

If they had gone with a glossy finish instead though, there is the glare issue, though you can get more contrast out of the screen. There are tradeoffs either way. Personally I think the coating on my Sceptre 22" x22-wg Gamer was the best. I am not sure what it was but it wasn't glossy or anti-glare, so it didn't look hazy nor did it glare.

[generalpetres]

need help choosing i currently have a 2407fpw dell monitor and do cad work but am going to be upgrading to a new comp soon and would like a larger monitor. I was thinking of either getting another 2407 or two or a lcd tv monitor and running it at 1920*1080p.

[Soulburner]

Larger size or resolution?

Consider the Dell 3007.

[voltaire2030]

I just bought my Dell 2407WFP-HC today

Will post some comments when I get my hands on it !

How long, did you wait to received it ?

[generalpetres]

see for the price of the 30 inch dell i can get two 2407 monitors and have 3 total for hell of a lot more realistate then the 30 and yes i was considering the 30 but for the money 2 24 just seem more worth it. My 2407 doesnt have any problems that i know of as far as lag or screen issues in css other than the fragmentation that is due to my gpu needing to be rmaed hehe. as for the stand on the dell the monitor wont tip over unless your really trying to make it good solid stand imo. thing i really like about my 24 vs the 30 is i can do pip or pnp with video sources like tv etc and the 30 cannot cause it doesnt have the inputs cause if it did it would be a competitor with the 30 in lcd tvs on the market.

[Gorod]

Are there any reviews about Dell 3007WFP-HC guys ? Is this a newer model ? Finaly decided and ordered one 10 min ago

Cant wait to see Crysis on that thing

Edit : nvm , found one :

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/...t_30_Inch_LCD/

[shimmishim]

@gorod - very nice!

i'm still on a 20 inch 2001fp

i've been thinking about upgrading to a 24 inch.

anyone know much about this one?
it's on sale this week at bestbuy and was posted by that bestbuy empoyee

it's a westinghouse 24 inch

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1170290375980

thanks!

if not a good one, can someone recommend a decent one in the 400-500 range?

[generalpetres]

dont bother with the westinghouse 24 if you want a good monitor go with the dell 24 or the samsung both are great monitors and i woulndt trade my dell for any other monitor except a larger 30. i mean the fact i can work on my comp and watch tv in pip is more than worth the price. i get no ghosting or lag of any kinda colors are great and has a very nice on screen menu system. you wont be sorry you bought the dell 24 and it comes with 3 year warrenty and can get 5 year for extra 50 you cant go wrong their.

[Gorod]

@gorod - very nice!

My 30" Dell just arrived
ET:QW feel a litle bit laggy now @ 2560x1600 with no AA and 8800GTX SLI and C2D @ 3.8GHz That thing needs so much GPU power its not even funny I guess i'l have to sell GTX's and get Ultra's now
Movies and 2D look great , especialy High Def. 1080P trailers

Thats my first LCD screen btw and i must say i miss my old Sony G520 21" CRT already . Maybe one day LCD will come close to CRT but for now it still too far from the quality a good CRT can offer
Especialy games like Doom3 and ET:QW , STALKER and others with lost of dark areas and shadows ... Oh well , still a very nice screen just feels weird after CRT maybe i'l get used to it eventualy

[xlink]

My 30" Dell just arrived
ET:QW feel a litle bit laggy now @ 2560x1600 with no AA and 8800GTX SLI and C2D @ 3.8GHz That thing needs so much GPU power its not even funny I guess i'l have to sell GTX's and get Ultra's now
Movies and 2D look great , especialy High Def. 1080P trailers

Thats my first LCD screen btw and i must say i miss my old Sony G520 21" CRT already . Maybe one day LCD will come close to CRT but for now it still too far from the quality a good CRT can offer
Especialy games like Doom3 and ET:QW , STALKER and others with lost of dark areas and shadows ... Oh well , still a very nice screen just feels weird after CRT maybe i'l get used to it eventualy

you're not going to be getting much more out of the ultra's than the GTXes.

I'd just wait it out for the next gen of video cards.

[Gorod]

xlink i guess you right about that , +10-15% probably wont make whole lot of a difference

[xlink]

xlink i guess you right about that , +10-15% probably wont make whole lot of a difference

it would be closer to 5% if even that.
http://hwbot.org/quickSearch.do?hardwareId=GPU_1183

[generalpetres]

any one know where to find a lcd stand for 3 24 dell monitors. i would use just the stands they came with but i would rather a all in one stand helps clean up teh look and clutter on teh desk. o and if i do find one i might sell my monitor stands.