[ReasonablyLucid]

My dell 2405FPW came today

This thing is dead sexy.
Link:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...1&link_number=
If you can find the right coupon and haggle a little with the dell sales guy you can get this beast for $900 shipped like me

This replaced a 21" trinitron CRT in my 3 monitor setup.

The whole setup:

2405FPW vs the 2001FP (The LCD ive had for a while now):

Closeup

First thing I noticed was that this monitor is like 4x as bright as the 2001fp. The 2405 is set at 25 brightness, and my 2001fp is at 100. The 2405 is still brighter, lol. So far the only games that I have that support widescreen resolutions are doom3 and HL2, but they look awesome on it. I mainly got it for desktop use though.

A few odd quirks ive found about the monitor:

It takes a while for it to get to full brightness from being off. Today when I got up and turned it on (I had to set it to 0 brightness last night, was starting to hurt my eyes) I had to set it back to 25 but now im starting to turn it back down.
When the 2405fpw is at 0 brightness its still brighter than the 2001fp at 100, lol. The optimal setting ive found was 0 brightness on the monitor and .80 on the videocard gamma setting in the control pannel.

The monitor sags to the right a little bit (like 1/16th of an inch). You dont notice it after a while but you will when you first look at it.

In order to set the monitor to aspect (so if you have to run at a lower resolution it doesnt stretch the image, it will just display the pixels the resolution requires) it cant be in native resolution. You have to change it to somthing else to set the monitor settings in that regard. Although once you set it, it seems to stick that way which is good.

You cant run this monitor on nvidia cards

Im fixing someones computer (has a 6600 and I also tried a 4xxx card) and I hooked the DVI up to it so I can tinker with it while doing other things and for some reason it *WONT* run at native resolution on nvidias DVI out. I searched around a bit and it turns out Nvidias TMDS transmitter is complete garbage and it cant give a stable DVI signal at that high of a resolution. The monitor kept defaulting back to 1600x1200 or one lower (on the 6600).

This is the article I found on that:
http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.c...129/index.html

Also:
The viewing angle is substantlly less than the 2001fp. You can still see the monitor at an extreme angle but its all washed out where the 2001fp is still near perfect color.

Keep in mind this is just me being extremley picky... like a mac user would be

The monitor is still the hawtest thing you will ever see on a computer

I also want to add...
THERES NOT A SINGLE DEAD PIXEL!!!!1

 

[socrates63]

I forget who but some one has in his sig, "I'm cool, you drool."

Well, I'm drooling. Lucky dog you!!!!!!!!!

 

[yblocgerg]

Nice monitor. I just ordered t a 2005FPW for $397 with stackable coupons. Although its not native HD resolution or as big as your beast, I think I will enjoy it a lot as well

 

[YngwieJMalmsteen]

I just got my viewsonic vp191b last week. 8ms response time; least ghosting I've ever seen in an LCD monitor. I had to turn the gamma down with my video card though (ATI AIW 9800pro). I watched episode III on it last night with the sound up REAL loud. Here's the link. Also no dead pixels!

edit: Found this review the other day. Most reviews out there are of older generations of this monitor (pcworld, zdnet). Oh yeah, its a true 8-bit.

 

[radrd]

Actually, it will run on nVidia cards. It runs fine on my 6800GT. It might not run on Ti4xxxx cards.

Make sure you go into your display properties and turn on "Use reduced blanking interval"

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl.../ai_ziff110973

 

[Publius]

I've had a 2405FPW for about two months and have a lot to say about it. Basically I've been looking for a monitor like this for the last 3 years, so as soon as it was released, with the big discounts, I bit. I paid US$930 incl tax and shipping but you are unlikely to get it this cheap nowadays.

1. No problems with nvidia cards here. I started off with a Ti4200 and upgraded to a 6600GT and both cards worked like a champ.
2. The ghosting is noticable, but I'm not really sure if it's a big issue in games. Smooth pans WoW only occasionally produce a ghost effect; in Quake3 the effect turns into more of a blurring of texture detail rather than a recognizable ghost around sharp color transitions. Utterly impossible to see in movies.
3. The viewing angle SUCKS. It's so bad that when you're 2 feet away from it, the contrast around the edges of the monitor is visibly worse than at the center. Fortunately you can still see all the detail at extended viewing angles.. it just won't be at the sweet spot.
4. Contrary to what everybody else in the world believes, I suspect this is a 6- or 7-bit panel rather than a true 8-bit panel. There is a stippling effect that I can always see out of the corner of my eye that is consistent with a temporal dithering.
5. Yes, it's very bright. There are a lot of posts in various forums on how to get the gamma settings to some reasonable quality; the defaults are nowhere near sRGB. Once you tweak everything well the gamma clocks in somewhere around 2.05.
6. I have one stuck pixel on the upper right part of the center. Actually it might be a backlight defect, because it doesn't really look like any recognizable color. It's so small I usually mistake it for a fleck of dust, and it's utterly impossible to see most of the time.
7. There are major issues with component input - basically, anything with Macrovision may not work, and hasn't worked for me. This makes 99% of the DVD players out there next to impossible to use with this monitor. Some later firmware revs may take care of this.
8. There is a very noticable display lag with the monitor, around 2-3 frames, which is well above the stated 16ms latency. You may not want to buy this monitor if you're into FPS games. I keep a 17" CRT as a second monitor just in case the Dell doesn't cut the mustard.

Despite all these problems I abolutely love this monitor

 

[AuroraProject]

Oh, it'll run just fine on Nvidia cards. I run mine at max resolution all day long off my 6800 Ultra SLI rig (I didn't have to enable reduced blanking). Enjoy it!
(Ignore the cable salad, it's since been fixed)

 

[Elec]

You guys are making me jealous! I've only got a 2005fpw. I bought it in January for $500 + shipping, makes me slightly ill that people are getting them for <$400 delivered to your door now.

One thing that's cool about the 2405 is that it's basically a 1080p display, so IN THEORY one could use it for future HD applications, connection issues notwithstanding. I have to assume the price on them will only keep falling, and that makes me somewhat tempted to pick one up in a few months. I've only got two real concerns with it. One is that it seems to be close to the size where it's just "too big" to comfortably use as a computer monitor. You need a sufficiently large desk such that you can put it far enough away from you to see the whole thing and not have viewing angle issues (the closer you sit, the more extreme the angles are from your eyes to the edges/corners of the screen). The 2005 itself is fairly large, and I'd have to sit in front of a 2405 a while before I knew if it'd be ok. Obviously for watching movies on it, the bigger the better. The second issue is that high resolution. If you plan to play new games on one, you'll have to always keep a pretty beefy and current video card in your box to push that many pixels. Or run out of native res, which isn't the kiss of death most people claim, but better if you can avoid it.

 

[psychogentoo]

I recently got the 2405 as well. Running it with a 6800GT. World of Warcraft....so beautiful...

Gratz on the purchase!!!

 

[Aman]

Congratulations on the purchase!
I have a 21inch CRT monitor from Hitachi (really high-quality tube, what Sun Microsystems used to use) and have been thinking about selling it off and getting an LCD. I can easily get 400 dollars off of it.

 

[Quad]

Nice set up. With those three you should be able to spread out rather nicely!

I love my Samsung 240T. I would like to see the Dell side by side to see how they compare. Have you seen the Samsung? If so, are they similar?
My wife was going to get the Dell but since you can run the Apple 30 inch on the 6800 ultra it may be upgrade time for the samsung. One of my wife's colleagues has a pair of the Apples in a dual monitor set up for that wide open look.

 

[yblocgerg]

Nice rig Aura

I might be getting something similar this summer, but prolly just 6800GT's. I think I'm gonna wait for the X2's at the end of this month.

Elec how did your 2005 turn out, there have been lots of returns, I'm really hoping I don't get a lemon on my first try.

 

[Elec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yblocgerg Elec how did your 2005 turn out, there have been lots of returns, I'm really hoping I don't get a lemon on my first try.

I've been really happy with it, though honestly somebody else getting it probably would have returned it. I have somewhat noticeable backlight bleeding in the top right corner depending on how hot the monitor is (it shows up more when it's hot and barely at all when cold). I used to have some in the bottom left as well but it's evened out over time. I don't have any dead pixels but I do have possibly as many as a dozen stuck subpixels (red, blue, or green only) on a black background. The most noticeable one is red and rather dim, it's also about an inch from the bottom at the middle of the monitor. I normally sit about 3 feet away and can barely see it if I'm really looking for it (and never see it in normal use). The other 11 are teeny tiny specks I can only see with my nose against the screen - and they must be brushed at first to make sure they aren't dust.

Honestly, the backlighting problem was about a 3/10 on the annoying scale for me. Compare that with the people who made a half dozen exchanges with Dell, had to fight with service reps in India and wait on hold for hours, got refurbed monitors sent out as replacements, and had billing problems where they were charged for the replacements or had problems getting the original (heavily discounted) prices paid to stick after playing musical monitors. I'm glad I kept mine. Could have returned it, MIGHT have gotten a better one, but it wasn't worth the hassle. Think mine is a January build, so I have to assume the screens rolling off the line now are even better.

The screen itself is great. I came from a 17" CRT, so it feels massive, both from the bigger size and greater resolution. It's nice for desktop work, great for DVDs, and fantastic for games that support widescreen. It's bright, crisp, and has great colors. Now that I'm used to it, "normal" 4:3 monitors feel kinda goofy.

 

[Jeff Guidry]

Maybe this would be an appropriate thread for this question...

I'm going to buy a computer soon, mainly for web browsing, music and movies. I'd rather have an all-in-one monitor solution for all applications, with an emphasis on the best view for movies. Do you think this monitor would be appropriate for those requirements? If not, what do you suggest?

P.S. I'm leaning towards a Mac Mini.

Thanks.

 

[Paxonator]

I'm running 2 Dell 21inchers just like your old one. how does the dell compare to it?