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."

Comments

Two heads are better than one!

[ericspinder]

I'm tired of the dual monitor thing, I want one display device on my desk, just make it a very large device.

OTOH, the first thing that crossed my mind was: "How much for for two of them", because I'm that much of a dual-monitor 'convert'. If I had to choose between one 30" or my two 19" monitors, I'd choose the pair, rather than just one. Right now, I've got a 21" at work, and I find myself resizing windows, just to find the perfect balance of window size, far more than my dual monitor set up at home. Also, it's great to leave some 'desktop hogs' such as chat windows, the Google desktop, the task bar, and other items which would grab the entire vertical or horizontal axis, in the 'secondary window'.

lies and damned specifications

[SuperBanana]

Apple 400:1 Contrast Ratio
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.

USB on a display

[pe1chl]

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.