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Dell Selling 30" Flat Panels
bling..bling writes "Apple is not the only company selling 30" flat panel monitors. Dell is now offering a 30" flat panel display that has a native resolution of 2560x1600 and sells for $2,199. Just like the apple 30" display you do need a dual link DVI video card to drive this massive beast. This monitor also sports four USB ports and a media card reader.
I've been waiting for Dell or someone else to release a 30" display and hopefully bring the prices down. I'm tired of the dual monitor thing, I want one display device on my desk, just make it a very large device.
See the details on Dell's web site on the new Dell 3007WFP 30-inch widescreen digital flat panel monitor."
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
From Dell. That'd only cost you about $1600, and you could spend the other $600 on a good video card. You'd get a resolution of 2400x1920.
Why is it that except for the very large 20"+ LCD monitors it's impossible to get 1600x1200 res or better? I bought a laptop 6 years ago that had UXGA+ 1600x1200 res but I can't find an LCD monitor anywhere on the planet under 20" with that res or better. Anyone know of one? Or, anyone know how to disassemble old UXGA+ laptop screens and reframe them with new adapaters so they can plug into a vid card? I just can't seem to understand the companies that sell these things, I know that 1280x1024 is the size they seem to sell but you take one look around the office of any company and you'll see 90% of the office has resized their screens to 800x600 or 1024x768. It seems silly of them to stop at 1280x1024.
DELL 700:1 Contract Ratio
The difference is that Dell is claiming figures based on smoking crack, and Apple's is actually somewhat reasonable. The first thing I did when I got my 20" from Dell, was calibrate it.
According to the calibration device (Eye-one Display2), none of the specs were even close. I think the "true" contrast ratio turned out to be more like 1:250, and when I did brightness testing- brightness on the panel actually went DOWN with time at any setting over "75"; Dell's design pretty clearly overdrives the backlight(probably damaging it), and it is probably to be able to brag an extra 30-40cd over "the competition". Which is hilarious, since the thing is so damn bright, I have to keep it on the lowest brightness setting.
Maybe I'll re-run the calibration right now and get actual numbers and post them as a follow-up, so you can see how lousy true specs are compared to what is claimed on paper.
Please help metamoderate.
I have a 30" cinema display at home and two 23" cinema displays at work. I do an equal amount of programming from each. I like the dual-display setup better for programming. For programming it seems to be easier to arrange the windows (IDE,firefox,terminals,etc) in the most efficient way. When using programs like autocad and photoshop though, the 30" is much better.
This monitor also sports four USB ports and a media card reader.
Be careful, there is a problem with that!
I have a Dell 2405FPW and it has the same ports and readers. When the monitor is switched off, the power supply to this subsystem is cut as well (and apparently it is not powered from the PC USB bus).
I leave my PC switched on all the time, and switch off the monitor when I am not using it. The PC continues to perform server functions.
The result is that every switch off and on of the display it will go through the USB hardware discovery cycle, find all the cardreaders, and try to read all card types. This results in a massive amount of log messages and a very slow PC for 5-10 seconds.
The manual tells about this, but I think many users would not think about it when reading the feature list.
Fortunately, the monitor has multiple inputs (VGA, DVI, S-Video, Composite, Component) and when switching to one of the TV inputs it goes to standby mode when no signal is present. So as a workaround, I switch it off by setting S-Video input and back on by selecting DVI again. Not as convenient, as it needs multiple button clicks to do so.
You can get this monitor for $1800 or less if you claim you are a small business (they don't check) and speak to one of the reps in the small business department of Dell. More importantly, If you wait a bit, some great deal will show up. Wait until a $1500 or less deal and grab it then. I got my 2001FP for 860 when it used to cost $1200 and my 2405FPW for $915 when it used to cost $1500 so I'm familiar with Dell deals.
This price is ridiculous for a Dell, you can get the apple 30" for $100 more with student discount. And we all know the kinds of margins Apple has.
Done. Here are the results for my 2 month old Dell 2005FPW, which has been on for about 2 hours before calibration.
Max brightness: 250 cd/m^2 at 100, but dropped 1 cd/m^2 EVERY SECOND I left it at that setting(and oddly enough, when I brought the setting back to 0, luminance climbed slightly over 5-10 seconds, then dropped back to 178-179). 0 is anywhere from 178.2-180.
Guess what? 250cd/m^2, or 250 lumens, is run of the mill. Dell claims an additional 50 lumens. To put that in perspective, that's as if the display had a brightness setting of around "200"(well, a little less, but you get the idea.)
Dell also claims a 600:1 contrast ratio. Except the calibration device measured a minimum luminance of .4 cd/m^2. 180 divided by .4 = 450:1 contrast ratio.
Apple claims a contrast ratio of 400:1 and a max luminance of 250cd/m2 on the Cinema 20", which is supposedly the same exact screen (but different front "glass" and backlight, I believe). How 'bout that.
Please help metamoderate.
http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/products/productde tails.aspx/monitor_3007wfp?c=ca&cs=CABSDT1&l=en&s= bsd