Dell S2309W 23" Widescreen Monitor

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Cameron Baker
Brian
Dell
Jan. 22, 2009

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Introduction

I have a friend who works as a hedge fund analyst in Chicago. Yes, he still has a job, in spite of the disastrous economic climate we've been through over the last six months. And, you know, I think his staying power might have something to do with his desk setup. Three 20 inch monitors, rotated vertically, arranged in a truncated triangular pattern. After all, if you're gonna make any sense of something that can't possibly be made sense of, more information is better.

Social / political commentary? Check. Loosely related reference to subject matter? Check. Intros rule. Let's talk about a monitor now. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some, like the one that sits on Kurtis' desk, have every bell and whistle available, and sport more pixels than a sane man would know what to do with. There are others that cover the basics and little else. In the old days, this meant a fifteen inch, thirty-five pound CRT clad in a beige shell. So black is the new beige, and thin is in. It's all the same at the bottom.

Or maybe it's not. Dell's got a couple of new budget offerings coming down the pipe for the holiday season, and they look hot on paper. This one in particular is known properly as the S2309W. It's 23 inches, running at 1920x1080 resolution, and ready to walk out the door of your favorite shipping carrier, labeled for delivery, for under 300 bones.

First Impressions

Once the brown cardboard box pops open, you have very few items to sort through. The monitor itself rests on top of a somewhat clunky circular foot. This monitor probably won't play nice with those using a shallow desk and dual monitors — I couldn't find a good spot where my mouse wouldn't run into the base of the Dell. If you're wall mounting, you don't need to worry about this as this guy is ready to VESA mount.

The monitor has three orifices that provide some kind of connectivity — one each of DVI and VGA ports and a power jack. There's a cable for each in the box. The last non-packing related bit in the box is a packet of standard documentation (and a driver cd?).

Once you pop the foot onto the monitor and tighten a single set screw, you've completed the assembly. The first characteristic that sets this monitor apart a bit from my experience with Dell hardware in the past is the design — the corners are rounded, the front bezel is finished in glossy piano black, and, minus its club foot, the entire package looks minimalistically sharp.

When you plug in and power up, the power button lights up amber for standby and white for active. All of the controls reside in the lower right hand corner of the display. In addition to the power button, you have four other controls on the side, listed top to bottom here: Menu, Up (which also gives you quick access to brightness and contrast), Down (which, when not running from a digital source, will run auto-setup), and Confirm. These controls are slightly smaller than I would have preferred for adjusting menus without looking at the buttons.

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

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4 User Comments

1 - Posted by de gustibus non est... on January 26, 2009 - 3:15 pm

nice review, but I don't understand your dislike for the size of the monitor's pedestal. Judging by the pictures, I think it looks rather small - definitely smaller than my monitor's (Belinea 2485). Besides, I believe it is a good thing if the pedestal is big enough to provide a safe stand, so that any chance of the monitor tipping over (when moving/tilting it) is completely ruled out.

On another note, most modern monitors are far too bright. Higher brightness used to be important in the early days of TFTs, and manufacturers still try to trump each other on that point, but anything above a certain level is just uncomfortable for the eyes, especially when looking at black text on a white background. I have my monitor at just 8% brightness and that setting is just fine. So when you complain that your iMac is fairly bright, but not quite as easy on the eyes as you'd like it, maybe you just need to turn the brightness down a bit ;-)

If you are interested in doing some more testing: some figures about the monitor's power consumption (when in standby or at min/half/max brightness) would be nice.

2 - Posted by ddrake on June 1, 2009 - 5:20 am

Today Dell US is selling the S2309W at 169$ (= 119 EUR).
Dell Italy is selling same S2309W at 206 EUR.
While I understand companies have different marketing policies according to their area a price which is almost double is quite frustrating.

3 - Posted by Rafay on December 8, 2009 - 7:07 am

How can i wall mount this monitor. Is everything needed for wall mount available in the box??

4 - Posted by mike moore on December 13, 2009 - 3:16 pm

Rafay no you must buy a wall mount. Monitors never come with that kind of hardware. Here is a link to some Wall Mounts

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