Dell 2408 mini-review

Well it got here about 10 minutes ago so here are my some photos and initial impressions. Firstly the thing is huge, it is such a leap from 17" it's almost unbeleivable! I'm glad dell never changeds the design to be more similar to the 3008 because I really like this design.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5439/cimg0397fn6.jpg
Not much to say really.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1834/cimg0399bn7.jpg
The admittedly heavier than it looks stand, nothing flimsy about this!

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/9489/cimg0401tj2.jpg
You get a fair amount of connectors with it; DVI, VGA, Displayport, USB. As well as a frankly useless manual, a disc with a better manual, power cord and quick setup sheet.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/4764/cimg0403vn9.jpg
And there it is, the wonderful screen. It clicks onto the base with a re-assuring noise. All in all the thing weighs a tonne!

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5044/cimg0404aq7.jpg
Here it is in portrait mode, I can't see me ever using it but it moves round easily enough and still stands steadily.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1259/cimg0406ki0.jpg
Here we go, now the goodness starts. Windows recognised and loaded drivers for the media reader (on the side) and it showed up as 1920x1200 no problem.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4763/cimg0408pc3.jpg
My new desktop :D

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1403/cimg0410kw4.jpg

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/3056/cimg0411wi6.jpg
The viewing angles are incredible!

Image quality is incredible, I watched a short clip of a 1080p film I have and it looked fantastic, not quite as good as my 1080p TV but I haven't calibrated the screen yet and my TV did cost a hell of a lot more. There are no dead/bright pixels (that I've seen anyway) and practically no backlight bleed that I can see anyway. There does seem to be a bit of input lag but that could just be because the screen is bigger that the mouse feels slower 'off the mark' as it were. There also doesn't appear to be any ghosting, although I haven't tried any games with it yet.

The menu is easily accessible and seems potent enough with enough options over brightness etc. It also allows 1:1 mapping, fill, along with others and a number of presets for desktop, gaming etc that change the contrast, colour brightness...

All in all it is easily the best display I have ever used, so far I can't think of any faults bar the price (it's over twice as expensive as a 24" acer) although I think it's worth it.

Edit: never enough thought about putting this in reader reviews, sorry.

Quote:

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HEXUS forum reader, doddsy, today became the proud owner of Dell's 24-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor, the 2408WFP. Within a record breaking 10 minutes, he shares his first impressions with us all in his mini-review.

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Read more.

Thanks for the mini review doddsy, I think my credit card will be getting a bit of a work out soon! :)
As far as the input lag goes, do you have any further thoughts on that now you've had more time with the monitor?

I think it may just be me getting used to it. I'm used to a 17" running 1280x1024 and I haven't changed the mouse sensitivity so the cursor takes a lot longer to get accross the screen. I don't have a crt to hook up though to measure it properly though. Still getting used to the size of it!

question is...

who the hell cares about displayport? O_o

I own a Dell W2600 LCD TV/Monitor which is 26" and supports a maximum resolution of 1280x720 (720p HDTV) - It's truely a fantastic screen if it's being used as a telly/console/pc screen. I think Dell screens are among the best I've ever bought and I'd love to own a Dell 2408 or a 3008 (or both ideally!). Thanks for the review, it confirms what I expected of this screen and it'll definately now be on my list to santa. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doddsy

I think it may just be me getting used to it. I'm used to a 17" running 1280x1024 and I haven't changed the mouse sensitivity so the cursor takes a lot longer to get accross the screen. I don't have a crt to hook up though to measure it properly though. Still getting used to the size of it!

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Fair enough, it's a heck of a lot of screen real estate to get used to... :rockon2:
I wonder how long it would take to get used to it in comparison to my 17" crt :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doddsy

I think it may just be me getting used to it. I'm used to a 17" running 1280x1024 and I haven't changed the mouse sensitivity so the cursor takes a lot longer to get accross the screen. I don't have a crt to hook up though to measure it properly though. Still getting used to the size of it!

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You're pretty much dead on there. It took me a while to get used to how much you have to move the mouse. If you haven't already, I recommend getting a mouse with a high dpi, you'll need it to save you're sanity.

I have a logitech mx518 so I can adjust the dpi 'on the fly'. I've tried it on the highest setting but ot just doesn't feel right. I might setup something in between, for the sake of my sanity!

Oh and I was just playing portal, looks incredible at the screen's native res! I think I'll definitely need a gfx card with a bigger memory buffer though for things like CoD4 and Crysis.

Good review mate. I'll sell you my dell 24 inch and you can have matching. I'll just need to go for twin 30s next!

Hey congratulations on your acquisition, I bought the 2407WFP in late 06 and i still love it. Back then the revision number was a very important information as they had fixed banding with revision A03 (the one I got) and it was important to make sure that you didn't buy A01 or A02. What revision is your monitor?

It looks lovely!

I've been uming and ahing about a 24 inch widescreen LCD recently myself, and have been struggling to decide which to get. I liked the sound of the 2407WFP-HC, but conflicting reports of ghosting count against it. I've also been considering the BenQ FP241W which has attracted some great reviews since it's launch, but is perhaps showing it's age, especially in colour reproduction, versus the 2407-HC (even with ghosting concerns) and now the even more impressive 2408.

I almost ordered an LG L245WP (which uses the same P-MVA panel as the benq) since it's had some cracking reviews, especially CNet in which the picture quality and colour vibrancy were heavily praised. But then i came across a group test on XBit which critised its performance in those very areas, suggesting that the brightness either caused similar dark or light shades to become indistuinguishable depending on whether the brightness was set high or low. In the ensuing article-discussion, a few people suggested that it might have been an earlier revision model, manufactured pre-july '07, but there wasn't a satisfactory resolution as the author hasn't yet replied with the date printed on the back of the test model.

Finally the Hyndai W240D-PVA seems a steal at around ~ £390, since it features the same panel as the 2407-HC apparently without the same ghosting problems, and i've read comments from plenty of satisfied owners, but the lack of expert reviews makes it hard to judge whether it's decent value or not.

I'm sure you're equally familiar with each of these models, and i reckon you've probably plumped for the pick of the bunch ;) At this stage, i think the 2408 seems like the best deal.

I have a couple of questions though:

1. Do you know if it will display 1080p over component? I know the LG and the original 2407WFP don't, which is a bit of an iritation as i'd like to use the screen for my 360 ocasionally.

2. On the same subject, have you tried it yet over VGA? (i have an old 360, so no HDMI) And if so, what's it like? My brother has the 2407WFP-HC and he recently told me the VGA image was pretty unstable.

Cheers in advance for the help :)

I'm pleased the ghosting issue seems absent too, and am eager to hear your impressions in that regard after you've had chance to get a proper feel for the monitor.

Most importantly a link to the Elisha Cuthbert wallpaper please :)

Well most important thing first: Elisha Cuthbert ;)

@rooophy; as it's only just been released I'd guess if anything it's an A01, can't remember seeing anything about revision number anywhere.

@funk3h; I've not tried my xbox on it yet, I'll set it up tonight and report for you. I don't have a vga cable for it though, I can test it over component and hdmi. I'm sure 1080i or even 720p would still look great on it though. I have to admit I was sort of in the same position you are, I'd researched every 24" around and everyone of them just seemed to have one minor annoyance that I hated. When I saw this for pre-order, and based on it's specs, I just went for it. I'm glad I did.

Looks good, but its a bit risky buying this at the moment... there probably a 50% chance it will need rmaing for banding/ghosting/other new problems it might have...

Displayport... its one thing that it has over my 2407hc :p
What else is different other than the displayport?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doddsy

@funk3h; I've not tried my xbox on it yet, I'll set it up tonight and report for you. I don't have a vga cable for it though, I can test it over component and hdmi. I'm sure 1080i or even 720p would still look great on it though. I have to admit I was sort of in the same position you are, I'd researched every 24" around and everyone of them just seemed to have one minor annoyance that I hated. When I saw this for pre-order, and based on it's specs, I just went for it. I'm glad I did.

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Cheers dude :)

Yeah, that's exactly how i feel about it. To be honest, i was in this same position when i bought my last LCD, the viewsonic VP191S. There doesn't seem to be a "perfect" screen in any category, unless you can afford to shell out for one with LED backlighting. Samsung do a nice 24inch LED backlit screen, although it's over a grand - well out of my price range!

Anyway, i'm getting pretty close to taking the plunge and ordering the 2408 myself. Irrespective of the ghosting controversy, the 2407-hc was widely considered one of the best 24inch lcds available, and i'm not that much of a heavy gamer these days in any event.

*goes to procrastinate on the pcbuyit website again* ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiM

Looks good, but its a bit risky buying this at the moment... there probably a 50% chance it will need rmaing for banding/ghosting/other new problems it might have...

Displayport... its one thing that it has over my 2407hc :p
What else is different other than the displayport?

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Higher contrast ratio - 1300:1 (claimed)
Can display 102% of the [ntsc?] colour gamut as compared with the HC's 92% - both are very high though, and well above average

Does it use a different panel than the HC? They haven't got the model number up on TFT central yet, and i can't find the info anywhere else. I'm not sure whether the spec difference can be produced by the electronics which drive the panel, or whether it would need an entirely different panel altogether - i'm afraid i'm not that knowledgable regarding LCD technology - which is why i'm asking the question :) If it IS the same panel, then many of those problems are already solved.

NOTE TO THOSE INTERESTED IN THE 2408WFP

I have been participating in a 2408WFP thread for some time over at:

(w)(w)(w).hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1264046

I must warn those who are interested in buying that after several tests by various uers that this LCD panel has an average input lag time of 60+ ms. This panel (so far) shows more lag than the Sammy 245T and is among the worse in the industry in prespect to this measurment. If this is not an issue for you, then the rest of the reviews are good. No ghosting, great viewing angles and colors, and nice options. For what it's worth.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funk3h

Cheers dude :)

Yeah, that's exactly how i feel about it. To be honest, i was in this same position when i bought my last LCD, the viewsonic VP191S. There doesn't seem to be a "perfect" screen in any category, unless you can afford to shell out for one with LED backlighting. Samsung do a nice 24inch LED backlit screen, although it's over a grand - well out of my price range!

Anyway, i'm getting pretty close to taking the plunge and ordering the 2408 myself. Irrespective of the ghosting controversy, the 2407-hc was widely considered one of the best 24inch lcds available, and i'm not that much of a heavy gamer these days in any event.

*goes to procrastinate on the pcbuyit website again* ;)

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Well I set up my 360 with it; over component I could set it at 1080p and it looked good. Colours were a little over saturated and it was a little bright but they're easily fixable. Over HDMI it looks great, the colours all look fine.

@overspeed; I thought there might be some input lag on it but I can certainly live with it, I played halo 3 for a while (xbox), as well as portal and c&c 3 and all looked great and reacted perfectly. Input lag may be a big thing for some people but no screen is perfect and it's something I'd imagine most people could live with due to the fact that there are no other problems.

Edit: I just done a lag test using my 17" samsung which has very little lag and results varied from 30-60ms, I'd say average was approx 40.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doddsy

Well I set up my 360 with it; over component I could set it at 1080p and it looked good. Colours were a little over saturated and it was a little bright but they're easily fixable. Over HDMI it looks great, the colours all look fine.

@overspeed; I thought there might be some input lag on it but I can certainly live with it, I played halo 3 for a while (xbox), as well as portal and c&c 3 and all looked great and reacted perfectly. Input lag may be a big thing for some people but no screen is perfect and it's something I'd imagine most people could live with due to the fact that there are no other problems.

Edit: I just done a lag test using my 17" samsung which has very little lag and results varied from 30-60ms, I'd say average was approx 40.

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Thanks for the feedback :)

I ordered the LG in the end as i managed to find it for £390 inc vat - i decided i could put up with 1080i over component for the 360 for the sake of saving 50 quid (or 40 over the benq), and truth be told, i don't really have any need for the wide colour gamut. That and i'm one of those people who's unreasonably sensitive to input lag, and the LG has been reported as having the lowest lag of all the 24inc VA lcds.

Enjoy the Dell, it looks like a fantastic bit of kit! :)

feed ya wires through the hole in the stand ya messy bleeder.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Curfish

feed ya wires through the hole in the stand ya messy bleeder.

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Lol, done!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doddsy

Well most important thing first: Elisha Cuthbert ;)

[snip]

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Amen! hehe

Good stuff dude, glad you like it. And thanks for the info about it. Just going back to you finding a minor annoyance that you hate when looking at the other 24" monitors, it happens with everything for me!

Thanks for the nice review and the very lovely pictures. It was a pleasure to find this info on hexus.


I want to replace my 3:4 Compaq FP1706 with a widescreen 24 inch one and it has narrowed down now to either the Dell 2408 WFP ... or ... Samsung 2493HM.

Can dead pixels still be a problem these days ?
It would be a nightmare for me if a few of those distract my eyes all the time.

I doubt very much that I'd have ever any use for the card reader on the left hand side, wished Dell would have hidden the slots more or left them away.

And yeah, I believe that the panel is heavy, hehe ... but just imagine now a 24 inch CRT monitor ... pfffffff

One of the online stores has this model for £ 452.30 incl shipping on a short-time-only offer ...

what to do ? what to do ?


(By the way, I found the desktop picture of the city by night much better than Elisha Cuthbert's one)

PcBuyIt

Comes to about £440 with delivery, and they have a zero dead pixel guarantee. If you have any dead pixels they'll swap the monitor for free. So you need not worry about them.

And I change my wallpaper every couple of hours, just now it's a lake covered in ice.

hello all i am stuck with a decision here, i just build my own pc specs below
intel core 2 quad
750gig hdd
evga 8800 ultra ko overclocked
evga 780i tri sli motherboard
4 gig ocz sli ram

now i was wanting to get the dell 2408 monitor to use for my pc playing games sutch as crysis and cod 4 as well as playing my xbox through it but i am worried about the input lag people have specified, will it affect gaming? and mouse movement? also how bad is it
lastly has anyone used the picture in picture feature yet? i am interested as i was thinking about putting my laptop and my thought the monitor one on linux one on windows, and using p in p
thanks for reading and i hope you can answer my questions

:surprised: OMG !! ... I didn't know this kind of offer was existing at all !!

Well, ... thank you very much for this tip doddsy ... the search for my perfect monitor is over, and I really do appreciate that this company recognizes the worries about dead pixels. :rolleyes:

On the other side, this clearly shows some good confidence of Dell & PcBuyIt in this product.

I had emailed the CS dpt of two main online stores in UK, a while ago, in regards to this problem. Here is what they replied:

As for the dead pixels we operate within the standard ISO standards for this product.

... and the other one said:
ALL TFT display adhere to the ISO specification which allows a certain limitation regarding stuck and dead TFT pixels and this can be viewed on the website.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cew27

hello all i am stuck with a decision here, i just build my own pc specs below
intel core 2 quad
750gig hdd
evga 8800 ultra ko overclocked
evga 780i tri sli motherboard
4 gig ocz sli ram

now i was wanting to get the dell 2408 monitor to use for my pc playing games sutch as crysis and cod 4 as well as playing my xbox through it but i am worried about the input lag people have specified, will it affect gaming? and mouse movement? also how bad is it
lastly has anyone used the picture in picture feature yet? i am interested as i was thinking about putting my laptop and my thought the monitor one on linux one on windows, and using p in p
thanks for reading and i hope you can answer my questions

---

anyone?

The input lag really isn't that bad, I've played CoD4 and a couple of other games with it and it didn't affect me at all. Of course if you're abnormally sensitive to it then you'll notice. What kind of screen are you coming from?

The PiP only works through s-video, composite, and component so if you're gonna be using one of those it should be fine.

how gay!
i was planning to use dvi for my pc and hdmi/maybe component for xbox
and im coming from a laptop screen and a laptop hooked up to a 20" phillips hd tv

Found this little review from 29 February 2008 at ... Dell : DELL Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor - TCO03 : Monitors : HOME


Pros

Amazingly bright, sharp and precise colours. This is much better quality and detail than the 19" monitor. The desktop at 1900 X 1200 becomes massive, so removes need for a 32 screen ( for eaxmple )

Has every connector type you can think of, and has 2 DVI ports.
Also has card slots for about 5 differnt card types, including CF

Mounting and Height adjustment is really really easy, and horizontal range is excellent. Also can be rotated vertically to get a Portrait view

Cons

Will take up alot of width on you desk , compared to say a 19" screen
Response times at 6ms are not the fastest available, as 2ms monitors are on the market. However, the excellent picture quality, screen size and resolution more than make up for it. Certainly have not noticed any issues arising from a 6ms refresh time

Additional Thoughts

The number of ports is amazing , and you can plug HDMI direclty to the screen. Comes with HDMI cable, VGA and one DVI cable . The available desktop area on screen will amaze you . Huge difference from 1680 resolution

Hey Doddsy that monitor looks great, I like the wallpapers too. Where did you get those wallpapers?? Could you tell me where download them? please, Thanks

Yeah of course, I generally use 2 places for wallpapers:

SexyDesktop - The Worlds Sexiest Wallpapers for your desktop

and

InterfaceLIFT

Well I was so impressed by the specs and other people's opinions that I decided to buy one as my first LCD. I've been a CRT die hard until now.

In many ways it is quite impressive, but, after setting up the screen as well as possible with the nvidia display optimisation wizzard I tested the screen with Passmark's Monitor test V3. I was very dissapointed to find what I would class as serious banding issues.

Blue gradient showing banding at the dark end
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2217/...4a4380_b_d.jpg

Red gradient showing banding at the dark end
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2181/...d8f174_b_d.jpg

Green gradient showing banding at the dark end
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3037/...3423f8_b_d.jpg

Gray gradient showing banding at the dark end
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3068/...8a5be5_b_d.jpg

Closeup of gray gradient showing banding at the dark end
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2388/...c4a123_b_d.jpg

Am I being over critical? Are all LCDs this bad?

That looks worse than it does on my 2005FPW

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/3...319azm6.th.jpg

Have you spoken with your retailer yet ... would that be accepted as a fault at all ?

I'm not familiar with "banding issues" ... in what way is the day-to-day use affected ?

I haven't spoken to the retailer yet. I wanted to thoroughly test the screen and see what other people thought before taking that route. I don't know whether the banding will be considered a defect or just normal for LCDs.

It's hardly ideal for displaying colours accurately and editing photos, especially since the high colour gamut is one of the biggest selling points! I've already noticed a slightly posterised effect in solid colours in photos.

Can anyone explain what is happening in the closeup? Their are hundreds of thin bands (256 levels?), but these are then grouped in to more obvious bands which at the left contain 3 thin bands, then moving right 4 bands then 5 then more, with the groups getting ever wider as you look further right. Anyone have a technical explanation of this?

Read this new review of Hyundai W241D, suspect it has the same panel

bit-tech.net | Hyundai W241D 24'' widescreen monitor - Hyundai W241D 24" widescreen monitor

I've just taken some photos of my 2408 to compare with but I don't see any major problems with banding until you very closely (see the left of the image below and you'll see ever so slight banding). The last time I looked into it LCDs still cannot do a full 32bit colour depth a CRT is capable of, that said this is the best LCD I've ever used.

http://warseer.com/nick/images/IMG_1295.JPG

Some more pictures in case its useful... compared to a Viewsonic VP201s
http://warseer.com/nick/images/IMG_1294.JPG
http://warseer.com/nick/images/IMG_1296.JPG
http://warseer.com/nick/images/IMG_1297.JPG
http://warseer.com/nick/images/IMG_1298.JPG

As this was the thread which convinced me to buy one I think its also worth mentioning that this is my second screen as the first one arrived slightly damaged and dell agreed to replace it (Picked up the old one at 11:00 on Friday and brought the replacement at 17:20. Well worth the 30 minute phone call to sort it :)

Nick

Ooooohh!

I didn't expect that!

I've just updated the Nvidia drivers to the latest and it has made a huge difference to the banding issues I was seeing. I can still see some fine bands, but the problem is so much better now.

I've got an Nvidia 6800GS by the way, with the display connected via DVI, and set to 1920x1200 at 32bit colour. I was using forceware 93.71 (yeah about 2 years old, I know!) and have just updated to 169.21.

This is what my gradients look like now, showing just the left half of the screen as the bands are more obvious at the dark end. I've deliberately got the Dell logo in the picture so you can see exactly how much of the screen you are looking at.

Red
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/...10bbd2_b_d.jpg

Green
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3272/...d792b1_b_d.jpg

Blue
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2029/...8b4a72_b_d.jpg

Grey
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2143/...6a56bd_b_d.jpg

Grey close up. You are seeing about 80mm of actual display width here (sorry about the map measuring ruler). The slight light and dark splodge in the middle is just a reflection.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2077/...34b323_b_d.jpg


So how do these images compare with people's expectations of colour gradients on LCD displays? Although I can still clearly see bands in the gradient, about 2mm wide, I think I might be able to live with these, unless anyone knows of another similar sized display which shows no banding at all?

TBH I didn't know what banding in regards to display problems means ... until I found a few interesting examples.

As far as I understand, a banding problem is when the shifting between two shades of a colour (between brighter & darker) at any point is rougher and more visible to the eye. The ideal condition would be an as smooth as possible shift instead of visible steps in blocks, is that right ?
Or is banding just an appearance of a vertical / horizontal dark line ?

Found a few interesting articles:

Scroll down the addeneum bit: Test of Dell 2407

Test samples for LCD screens

DELL 2407wfp-hc problem

Nice little showing off of the monitor:
Introduction de l'écran LCD Dell 2407WFP

Interesting info regarding LCD monitors:

TFT Central

LCD 24/7

2mm banding is the best you're going to get on a 24" monitor, if what I think holds true. Bear with me here:

It's an 8-bit panel, therefore can display a total of 2^8 shades of pure red/blue/green/grey. That means that it will show 256 different colours across the width of the screen in this particular test.

With a horizontal resolution of 1920, that's going to be bands every ~7.5 pixels.

From the specs, it has a dot pitch of 0.27mm. 7.5 x 0.27 = 2.025mm bands

Of course, you can't get a band 7.5 pixels wide, so it will probably be alternating bands of 8px and 7px wide.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cov

On the other side, this clearly shows some good confidence of Dell & PcBuyIt in this product.

I had emailed the CS dpt of two main online stores in UK, a while ago, in regards to this problem. Here is what they replied:

As for the dead pixels we operate within the standard ISO standards for this product.

... and the other one said:
ALL TFT display adhere to the ISO specification which allows a certain limitation regarding stuck and dead TFT pixels and this can be viewed on the website.

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I bought my Dell 2407 from PcBuyIt for this reason alone:

** DEAD PIXEL GUARANTEE - EXCLUSIVE TO PCBUYIT CUSTOMERS **
In the event your monitor has one or more dead / stuck pixels we will arrange to have the unit replaced next business day (call's must be made before 3pm to meet the next day deadline)

Had it since last year and still zero dead pixels. Unfortunately I was careless while cleaning it one day and scratched the screen! Time for a 2408 and the wife can have the 2407 reject...:angst:.