|
Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW 20.1" Widescreen LCD
Testing - Display
Now it's time to start testing the display. If you noticed above, I didn't use any fancy tools or expensive gizmos to calibrate the display, just my two eyes and some simple test patterns that are available online. As such, my experience is going to be very similar to what you might experience, instead of what the rare user with expensive calibration equipment will see. One of the first things I did was pop in a DVD to see how well it performed in various situations: low light (contrast), fast motion (response time) and outdoors (color). The movie I used was Star Wars Episode III. I picked it because it contained all the type of scenes I need to examine, plus it gave me a good excuse to watch Star Wars (even if it isn't the best of the bunch). That the dark space scenes are when you can really tell that the "black" generated by the LCD screen isn't truly black. I was watching the movie in a dark room, and the brightness from the backlight was apparent in the bars on the top and the bottom, as well as in the emptiness of space - they appeared a dark shade of gray as opposed to a solid black as you would see on a CRT-based display. Of course, the lack of true black is a common problem with LCD monitors and is not specific to this one. Once the movie gets going you will soon forget about the slight backlight bleeding, however. The colors seemed vibrant, though I did notice some noise in the color. This noise was a little less pronounced on a CRT display. Of course, I had to get rather close to really start to pick out the noise, about 6" from the display. You're probably going to be sitting further back than 6", and if you don't, you should - that's bad for your eyes. The 12ms response time presented no problems for me - I only noticed ghosting if I really looked for it. One of the few things I noticed was that along the left side of the display was some vertical scrolling. In attempting to fix this, I moved my speakers and other devices away from the sides of my monitor. This did nothing to fix the problem. The vertical scrolling lines only seem to be distinguishable with solid colors in the background, and not white or black. Grays, like the background of a Microsoft Word document, or a solid color like a desktop background seem to emphasize these lines. I have the display hooked up through a DVI-D Cable so I'm inclined to think it might be a problem inside the device. My gaming experience is somewhat limited, in that I play games that don't involve a lot of fast motion. For flight simulation games the extra width of the screen makes the game much more enjoyable since you can see around your position more than a standard aspect ratio monitor. While it isn't a substitute for dual or triple screens, it gets the most out of a single display. Just for kicks I downloaded the Doom III demo and loaded it up to check for ghosting. I did see some minor ghosting when playing intense scenes, however for the most part I didn't notice it - I had to take my mind off the game and focus on image quality before it stood out enough to bother me.
Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Taking a Closer Look Page 3: Setup Page 4: Testing - Display Page 5: Testing - Features Page 6: Dell Tech Support Experience Page 7: Conclusion 
Related Reviews Add Comment
0 User Comments Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
Recent Articles Editorials August 27, 2009
Editorials August 18, 2009
Editorials March 3, 2009
Editorials February 12, 2009
Recent News VICE Nov. 20, 2009 - 7:17 pm
Wired Nov. 20, 2009 - 7:07 pm
Engadget Nov. 20, 2009 - 6:58 pm
Telegraph.co.uk Nov. 20, 2009 - 6:48 pm
BBC Nov. 20, 2009 - 6:38 pm
Destructoid Nov. 18, 2009 - 11:55 pm
Wired Nov. 16, 2009 - 11:56 pm
Ultimate Typing Championship Nov. 16, 2009 - 11:42 pm
|
|||||||||||||||
