Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" Widescreen LCD

Reviews: Multimedia

Author:
Editor:
Sponsor:
Published:

Anthony Fiti
Kurtis
Dell
Oct. 16, 2006

<< Previous

Next >>

Testing - Display

I calibrated the display using some software that would display solid colors and I would match them to the appropriate color tone. No fancy (read: expensive) tools to analyze colors to make sure they're absolutely perfect. Most people don't have access to that equipment, nor do they want to spend hundreds of dollars to have an ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) certified calibrator come to their home or office.

Out of the box one of the first things I noticed was a streaking effect when I scroll down web pages quickly using Firefox and Internet Explorer, and it seems to have the largest impact on the color green. I checked my drivers (I have Nvidia series 8 drivers, I tried to install series 9 but that almost hosed my computer so I'm stuck with the series 8) but that didn't seem to be the problem. The issue was nearly imperceptible using a VGA connection, however using DVI it seemed more pronounced. I did A/B tests alternating back and forth between VGA and DVI and I could tell that it was much worse under DVI. I hooked up a 20" Dell 2005FPW via DVI and it did not exhibit this issue.

I watched a series of DVDs next to see how well it would perform in terms of color and response times. I watched The Fifth Element (again), Final Fantasy: Advent Children, and finally some Futurama (which I used for comparison in my PiP and PbP tests later).

One of the features that Dell touts is HDCP compliance. Unfortunately I don't have a device that will output a HDCP protected video stream. So while Dell is free to tout this device's compatibility, I'm left without a means to test it.

The image quality for The Fifth Element was very good. I was pleased with the color reproduction and the lack of issues when it comes to the dark scenes. Again, typical of LCD monitors, the black level was quite high (when compared to a CRT display), and it was more noticeable in a dark room.

Final Fantasy: Advent Children also looked good. One of the scenes in particular is a dark night with bright white trees and moonlit clouds (The Forgotten City). In this scene, the monitor did seem to have difficulty rendering the soft gradient cleanly - I could see the different shades. But this was one of the few areas I noticed in the movie that didn't seem up to snuff when compared to my 61" DLP HDTV.

As I have mentioned in previous reviews of large (20"+) LCD monitors, you need to have an awesome video card to drive this beast of a display. Trying to drive over two million pixels is tough, even for the newest video cards. Compared to the 24" display, the Dell 20" LCD has 30% fewer pixels - 1.7M compared with 2.3M pixels.

For my games, I tried to run Doom III on this display and it didn't go so well. To get a reasonable resolution (1600x1200 so it was only scaling one direction), I had to turn all of my settings to the lowest, and even then I'd still have problems in certain areas where there would be more than two or three enemies trying to kill me. I should note that my system uses a P4 3GHz with 1GB of DDR2 and an NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT. Not exactly bleeding edge, which is why I bring it up. You need reasonably high-end equipment with a display like this if you want to really enjoy it.

The image quality was good, given that Doom 3 is a darker game. I didn't notice much in the way of image problems and the panel did an admirable job at distinguishing between black levels (which a game like Doom 3 is suited well for testing). I did notice a few instances where it didn't seem quite right but they were few and far between, and if you were actually playing the game as opposed to studying the image quality you might not even notice it.

The next game I played was Warcraft III. I played this game at the full resolution of 1920x1200 and it looked good. I didn't notice any problems with the display - no ghosting, streaking or banding.

Finally, I played some Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. While I eagerly await the arrival of FS:X in October (though I could do without the $199 I'm going to have to shell out on a copy of Windows XP since it won't run on Windows 2000), FS:2004 will have to do for now. The game looked good at the native resolution, without any artifacts, and looking out the side of the aircraft at night and onto city lights looked good, given the fact that they're really only raster images scaled up to such a high resolution.

<< Previous

Page 5 of 7

Next >>

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

Subscribe to Computer Display [more info]

Add Comment

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?

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.