Dell W3207C 32" LCD HDTV

Reviews: Multimedia

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Mark Korff
Kurtis
Dell
Feb. 26, 2007

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Testing

My first viewing experience with the W3207C was when I connected it to my PC via the VGA connector and used it as a monitor for a full week. I want to make it clear that the W3207C is an HDTV first and foremost, but its size makes it possible to use as a monitor as well, albeit a very large monitor. For the most part the W3207C can pass as a PC monitor, but its primary drawback in this role is the native resolution of 1366x768. For an HDTV supporting 1080i and 720p resolutions, that is just fine, but Dell's own 30" 3007WFP monitor supports a 2560x1600 native resolution with nearly 4 times as many pixels for a reason. For everyday use with desktop applications, the W3207C is passable. Text is large and readable, but even though the screen size is large, the space I had to work with felt no better than my 19" LCD because the actual resolution (1280x1024) was very close in terms of actual pixels.

Gaming with the W3207C was an enjoyable experience, especially with games that support the wide screen aspect ratio. Again I wasn't completely blown away due to the resolution issue, especially in games with complex UIs such as World of Warcraft where in order to maintain readable text, the scale of the UI needed to be increased which meant that more of the image was obstructed by combat logs and chat boxes than would be necessary with more pixel real estate. In terms of actual performance however, I was quite pleased with the response time and didn't notice any blurring during fast paced action sequences. Brightness and color reproduction were very impressive.

After spending a week with the W3207C as my PC monitor, I moved it down to my living room and integrated it with my home theater setup. Needless to say, the W3207C was much more impressive when in its "natural environment" displaying HDTV signals with ease. Like many of the newer HDTVs available today, the W3207C needed very little fine tuning in order to display images to my liking. Considering that some settings are open to a certain degree of subjectivity, the default image settings would probably suit you just fine if you didn't feel like messing with them at all.

Watching native HD content on the W3207C was a truly pleasurable experience. The panel is very bright and colors seem very crisp and clear. There were times when I wished the blacks were blacker in very dark scenes, but if I wasn't actively trying to critique the image, I wouldn't have been bothered at all. Of course standard definition content won't look any better on the W3207C or any HDTV that I've seen for that matter, so to get the most out of it you'll want to be feeding it HDTV content as much as possible.

The W3207C's integrated speakers wouldn't be utilized in my own home theater setup, but for testing purposes I did some listening with them and to Dell's credit, they weren't half bad. I've heard many tinny sounding integrated speakers in the past but these at least had a hint of bass, and their surround sound emulation was mildly satisfying as well. Of course they aren't going to be a true substitute for any decent speaker system, but if you're on a budget, or just don't have the room for whatever reason, it's nice to know that your ears won't be bleeding after the first 10 minutes of listening to them either.

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Page 1: Introduction & First Impressions
Page 2: Testing
Page 3: Conclusion

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