2405 Dell Vs VP201b.....

[Mullet]

Guys

Just landed myself a new job and now want to treat myself to a screen which can take advantage of my setup. I have come down to 2 screens:

2405 Dell and the Viewsonic VP201b.

I currently have a VX912 and have been impressed with the quality of both image and hardware...no complaints whatsoever...

Which one of the above would you go for and why...

Thanks

[loki]

24" no contest. If they are roughly equal money wise then go for the larger screen estate plus that dell is actually a very fine monitor.

[kempez]

I have the 2405 and have to say its the finest screen I've ever seen for a PC....awesome

[8bit]

^^^ What he said...

I just got my Dell 2405 a couple of weeks ago, awesome monitor and no mistake. Masses of desktop space, games look fantastic in full 1920x1200, colour, contrast and brightness all spot on, not a dead pixel in sight (great considering theres over 2.3 milion of them!) and not only has it got 4 powered USB 2 ports it also has a multiformat card reader as well.

At my parents place over Christmas and New Year just now, using their PC with 17" TFT, it looks absolutely tiny compared to the Dell. A well worthwhile purchase in my opinion.

[Chemical_Ali]

dell 2405fpw anyday, btw which GPU u got? are u a gamer?

[clubsport]

Wait and go for the Dell 3007 or even the 2407 with hdcp

[Syd]

What GFX card are you using 8 bit, and do you play FPS's or WOW. I am teetering on the edge of buying one of these bad boys but am concerned about stressing my card which is at present a 6800GT. Your help would be kindly accepted.

[Ady168uk]

6800GT will be fine Syd , cant wait till upgrade, finally do my screen justice

[Syd]

Thanks Ady I think I might just take the plunge, but one more question, what is your opinion on the ghosting, I read on one post that a chap playing warcraft was struggling to see moving text as anything but a blur (player name in WOW when moving past on horseback)

[kempez]

Well I play loads of FPS and of course the XBox 360 and I've never noticed ghosting at all on it....and I'm a right picky SOB

[8bit]

What GFX card are you using 8 bit, and do you play FPS's or WOW. I am teetering on the edge of buying one of these bad boys but am concerned about stressing my card which is at present a 6800GT. Your help would be kindly accepted.

Hi sorry about slow reply but broadband was borked for a bit so no net access til today.

I use a Radeon X800XL AGP which I gather is *slightly* quicker than a 6800GT but then you'll know yourself that some games do run better on each company's GPUs than the others. You're probably looking at similar framerates as I get for the most part tho.

I tend not to bother measuring framerates, if the game isn't jerky enough to p*ss me off then it's fine as far as I'm concerned I can play most things in 1920x1200 with a little AA and sometimes AF. However, the Dell 2405 has about the best scaling I've seen on any TFT so I've recently started playing X3: The Reunion in 1680x1050 and set the monitor to scale up to full screen size. This boosted smoothness a good bit and even allowed me to run the game with 6xAA and 16xAF and stayed nice and smooth.

The Dells have 3 modes of dealing with non-native resolutions:

1:1 - This just centers the display on the screen keeping pixels the normal size, so you get black borders appearing around the image.

Fill - This one just stretches the image regardless of resolution and aspect ratio. If you do this on a 16:10 ratio resolution like 1680x1050 then it will appear fine, but do it on a 4:3 resolution like 1600x1200 and it looks "stretched" horizontally.

Aspect - This will scale the image up until it fills either the horizontal or vertical limit of the screen but keep it in it it's native aspect ratio. Do this on a 16:10 res like 1680x1050 and it will fill the screen, do it on a 4:3 res like 1280x1024 then it will fill the screen vertically but there will be black borders down either side. The image will not appear "stretched" however.

These are all selectable from the OSD on the monitor itself.

Personally I don't notice any ghosting or similar. The Dell is a 16ms panel so my suspicion is that some of the "everything-must-be-the-fastest-possible" brigade heard this and are writing the panel off on that basis alone. To my eyes the Dell produces bright, vibrant colours, deep blacks and dark shades and is capable of almost silly levels of brightness. I like Dell stuff at work, we use Precision and Optiplex desktops, Latitude notebooks and PowerEdge servers but I'd always been skeptical about their suitability for performance or gaming enthusiasts. I would never have thought Dell would make a monitor as desireable as this one, it's got pride of place on my desktop and I wouldn't be parted with it for anything else. Except maybe the 30" 3007fpw of course

What with all that desktop space as well, it really is a luxury item. If you haven't guessed by now I really can't say enough good things about the Dell 2405 And like kempez815, I don't just buy any old crap either, I've been known to return perfectly good hardware just because I didn't like the smell of it (OK, slight exaggeration but you get my point). Plus, 4 extra USB2.0 ports you don't have to fumble around behind the PC for!

You know you want it...

[kempez]

Can I just give you a quick idea of what I think of the Dell 2405??

From my perspective: click here

[shaithis]

Thanks Ady I think I might just take the plunge, but one more question, what is your opinion on the ghosting, I read on one post that a chap playing warcraft was struggling to see moving text as anything but a blur (player name in WOW when moving past on horseback)

Very odd. Never seen any ghosting with the 2405. Not in WoW, Q4, FEAR or Tactical Ops.

Its responce time is well above what my eyes can detect and i've seen the ghosting effect on a number of screens.

[8bit]

Can I just give you a quick idea of what I think of the Dell 2405??

From my perspective: click here

Linky broken, returns a 404 not found. But given that you have that screen listed in your sig image I guess you think highly of it

[Syd]

Thanks 8 Bit that was a great response and gives me a lot of confidence, the only other question I think that is nagging at me (aside from having to mortgage the cat) is :
Does it get to the point where you have to scan accross the screen due to its sheer size, i.e playing WOW for instance will I miss combat at one edge of the screen if im concentrating on the other, I know it sounds silly but I only sit about 1/2 metre from my screen.

[shaithis]

You can get into scanning, depending on how you sit.

I found myself inches away from the screen a LOT when I first got it. Now I've had it a week-or-so, I find that I sit further back and take the whole screen in.

When you first set it up and turn it on, you will have a "Oh my! How BIG is that!?" moment