Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" Widescreen LCD

Reviews: Multimedia

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Anthony Fiti
Kurtis
Dell
Oct. 16, 2006

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Testing - Features

The Dell 2407WFP monitor features several inputs aside from the standard VGA and DVI, including S-Video, composite and component. Unfortunately, I don't have anything with component output to test that would output HD resolutions (1080i), only SD resolutions at a 4:3 aspect ratio.

I tested my TiVo with the S-Video and composite cables. Again, as picky as I am, I was unable to figure out a way to not have the monitor stretch the input from 4:3 to 16:10 (the aspect ratio of the display). I'm a stickler for proper aspect ratios, so I'm not at all pleased with this.

The image quality from the video inputs was pretty good, as long as you can manage to sit back at least 3 or 4 feet. If you sit any closer (or have 20/15 eyesight) and watch TV full screen you'll notice that it's adding pixels to the image to display it at 1920x1200. The PiP input is pretty good too, and since it's not scaling up the picture much, you can sit at a regular monitor viewing distance and still have good image quality.

The PbP setting was somewhat disappointing. On the left side of the monitor was the computer input (from DVI) and on the right was S-Video, however the actual area in which the input took up was smaller than the computer input. This was disappointing because it leaves a lot of empty black space around the video input, in addition to the already large wasted area at the top and bottom. If the monitor were to squeeze the inputs to a narrow aspect ratio (4:3, especially given that most people are watching 4:3 content with the auxiliary inputs) it could keep the proper aspect ratio for the video input and use more of the wasted space.

The display also sports four USB ports for your devices to connect up to. I tested the USB ports with the first and second generations of Apple's iPod nano. The iPods synced up perfectly, and could both be recharged simultaneously in Apple's specified time, demonstrating that the USB hub inside the display is powered (supplying up to 500mA). I also tested the 9-in-2 media card reader. I used a brand new 2GB SD card to copy some file on and off, and it worked well. I transferred 500MB in about two minutes (which is about 4MB/second, not too bad).

Finally, we have portrait mode. As I mentioned previously, the display is definitely functional in portrait mode, in comparison to a 20" widescreen, where the 1050 pixels didn't offer enough screen width to really be useful. I loved using the monitor in this fashion when writing reports and viewing web pages. I had to rotate it back for games, which was a hassle, but that's about it. The monitor will sort of "gently snap into place' when rotating into portrait or standard orientation, assuring that it is level.

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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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3 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.

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