Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" Widescreen LCD

Reviews: Multimedia

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Anthony Fiti
Kurtis
Dell
Oct. 16, 2006

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Setup

Setup is easy, as you might expect; I faced the LCD down on a soft surface (like a bed or the carpet) and then inserted the stand and set the monitor upright. Then you plug in the power cable and the input method of choice (in my case, DVI). I would hope that if you're going to spend almost $800 on an LCD monitor, you would make sure you have a video card that supports DVI.

Once I installed the drivers from the included CD, I went in and turned the brightness down, although not nearly as much as I had to on the Dell 2005FPW. I was impressed right off the bat with the display's contrast ratio and the excellent viewing angle. The last few non-Dell monitors I have seen didn't have very good performance with viewing angles, as they would start to change colors quickly as you moved away from center.

The on screen display (OSD) looks nicer compared to the last generation of Dell monitors. When you switch inputs, you get an indicator in the upper left about what input you're viewing. Next, the menu is along the bottom of the screen and semi-transparent (which is good, because you want to see what your screen looks like while you adjust the settings). There are seven items to choose from: brightness, input source, color settings, image modes, display settings, menu settings and PIP settings. I'll cover each of these options below.

Brightness is rather obvious - it adjusts the brightness of the display.

Input choice moves you through the various inputs available. One neat thing is the "Scan for Sources" option. This would be useful once you setup your display and have your devices connected, though it isn't smart enough to knock out inputs that don't have anything connected. So when you push the input select button you'll have to cycle through inputs with nothing connected. My TV is smart enough to skip inputs with nothing connected, so why cant my monitor?

The Color settings menu is not the typical color settings menu. First off is PC mode or Mac mode. Since my MacBook was in the shop at the time of this writing, I can't truly test the Mac Mode. But it did seem to make the display a bit brighter in this mode. There are three presets, standard, red and blue, a custom color mode, and finally a reset.

Image modes provide three presets: desktop mode, multimedia mode and gaming mode. I went to try and find out what these different modes did, if they were just color settings, or if they had figured out some way to alter the monitor's behavior for the different applications. But Dell's literature on the topic was nonexistent.

The display menu was equally bad. I changed my display to 1600x1200, yet the Wide Mode didn't become available to tell the monitor to display the black bars on either side and keep the correct aspect ratio.

The Menu Settings option moves the OSD around the screen.

Finally the PIP settings allow you to select the input for the PIP or PBP (picture by picture), and adjust the picture settings like hue, contrast, etc.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks
Page 3: Taking a Closer Look
Page 4: Setup
Page 5: Testing - Display
Page 6: Testing - Features
Page 7: Conclusion

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5 User Comments

1 - Posted by sacremon on October 16, 2006 - 8:14 am

I've had a 2407WFP for about a month now. I found that the graphics card you are using to drive the monitor can make a big difference, even on something as simple as banding on a static gradient. I was using a 6800GT (AGP), but found that I was getting stuttering in games when I was running both the LCD and a 17" CRT as secondary. I upgraded to essentially the best I could for AGP, a 7800GS, and there is a marked difference. Banding that I saw in gradient tests was gone. Motion in games is very smooth now. I get that upgrading your video card will eliminate most of the display issues that you are encountering.

2 - Posted by Kurtis on October 16, 2006 - 12:16 pm

Interesting. Thanks for posting, sacremon. Welcome to the forums, by the way.

3 - Posted by Max Slowik on May 27, 2007 - 8:21 am

"after spending about 20 minutes messing with the display I couldn’t get the display to show the black bars on the sides of the display when I had my resolution set to 1600x1200."

You have to set the video card's option to not force scaling to get it to say at a fixed resolution. NVIDIA cards have a real problem with this; even when the driver-level scaling is disabled, it resets to default when you run a full-screen application.

4 - Posted by DARAB MOSTOUFI on October 29, 2008 - 5:30 pm

I Always Liked My 24" Dell Ultrasharp Wide Screen Lcd. Until Couple Days Ago I Noticed Power Button Has Become Louse, And I Cannot Turn Off Or Turn On My Monitor.
I Finally Realized If Iturn The Knob So The Line Will Be Straight Then I Can Turn It On Or Off. I Called Dell And Unfortunattly My Waranty Was Over, And Their Suggestion Was To Live With It, Because The Do Not Recomend To Open It. So I Put An Scotch Over The Knob So It Would Not Move And Stay Straight So I Can Turn On And Off My Monitor.
I Am Not Sure Why This Happened, Is It Because It Is Made In Mexico, Or Maybe I Should Have Paid More Than $650.00

5 - Posted by Kurtis on October 29, 2008 - 6:34 pm

That's weird - never heard of that happening. Without the tape there, does it just easily rotate around?

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