Made a little purchase this morning...

Saurian

Saurian

Member
I finally jumped in and did it! I bought THIS. I've been needing a new monitor for a while, as I'm actually using a friend of mines. I let a friend of mine set up my computer at his place over the summer since his laptop wasn't working right, and so I was using a buddies monitor over there and am still. He hasn't minded, but I have wanted to get my own, and I wanted to get one to keep for a while.

Good brightness and contrast, nice big resolution, and I'll be able to save so much space with this! :) And with the price having come down from 289 to 246, can't beat that. ~255 after tax on it. It's not got the same panel as the 2007 model, this one doesn't have the same color quality, but this one is much better for gaming and such (response time, since it is a TN panel).

Anyways, I just had to share. I'll make sure to post up about my impressions with it after I receive it. Should get it next week, depending on how fast they want to ship it out to me.
 
OK, don't know if my buyers remorse is justified or not...

This looks like an excellent monitor at a great price. I bought a ViewSonic
VX2035wm this weekend at $292 after $50 rebate. Compared to this Dell monitor, it has the same resolution (1680 x 1050) and pixel size (.258mm). The ViewSonic does have speakers, but they are the basic lousy 1.5 watt
but I am not a gamer and this doesn't really matter much to me. I am mainly interested in the video quality.

I am not sure if the ViewSonic is TN technology... Can anyone help me out here? Should I stick with my VX2035wm purchase or opt for the Dell that Saurian picked up?
 
Unless you can return it for free, there is no point in switching. Viewsonic is a great LCD company as well as Dell.
 
I don't know the panel type of the Viewsonic. It's really what you are using it for. I do web browsing most of the time, with gaming and such as well - what a TN panel is perfect for. It trades high response time for less color accuracy (6-bit, sometimes with 8-bit dithered vs true 8-bit color on other panels). There are other differences, of course. If you are an image/photo editor/video editor then something like the E2007 monitor, or others would be better due to the better image and picture. Life is full of tradeoffs, and those have higher response times so they have a habit of ghosting and such. For ~255 dollars shipped I have a monitor that will do respectable for DVD viewing, great for gaming, perfect for web browsing. However, if I were a photo editor or video editor, I certainly would have opted for a monitor with different technology. So, if your Viewsonic matches you, then stick with it. Certainly anything from Viewsonic for more then 250 dollars isn't going to let you down, anyways.

As for what monitor I am coming from, I had a Gateway 15" CRT for YEARS till it broke about a year ago in college. I've been using my friend's Mitsubishi 17" flat screen CRT for several months now, and it does ok, but it's time to "indulge" a bit. :)1280x1024 to 1680x1050 here I come!

Now I just need a new graphics card to drive games at 1680x1050...and then a new motherboard and ram to go with the PCIe graphics card...and then maybe a dual core processor to go with that. Nah, as I have mentioneed before, I will be waiting till my tax returns to use them to buy a R600/G80 varient along with a legit copy of Windows Vista - I'm getting ready for Crysis baby! So I just need to pony up for all the other components over the next 2 months or so. I wish I knew when Bear Lake was coming out...I might go 650i for my next chipset. :)

Anyways, thanks for the good words! If you look it up, Cnet actually is NOT impressed with this monitor. So, I'm anxious to get it, be able to review it a bit myself, and give my impression. It certainly has the stats and price, it could certainly prove to be valuable. Also, no color banding issues have been posted with it, like the 2407 has been afflicted with before.
 
Suarian:

You're right about the trade-offs and this is a LOT of monitor for $255. I don't pay many of the reviews much attention because they are far more demanding than I am. If video quality fits your needs (pixel size is excellent in this range of monitor), who cares what CNET thinks... I like the add-on sound bar Dell offers (10W/channel + headphone port for $29) compared to the wimpy speakers built into my ViewSonic.

You did well...
 
Thanks mate! :)

I do agree that alot of reviews are more critical then I will be, and no matter what going from CRT to this LCD I'll be blown away - but I will be upset if I'm not completely satisfied. And if I'm not satisfied, Dell won't hear the end of it until I've shouted enough to get a decent coupon out of them. :)

Meh, any speaker isn't worth it on a monitor, sound bar or integrated. Is your Viewsonic HDCP? That's another reason I moved on this - I'd hate to drop 200 on a monitor (all the other monitors I was looking at were ~200-220), and then when I want to watch HD content not be able to because of the monitor. Kinda future proofs it, if you will.

I haven't gotten any email or anything from Dell, which kinda bugs me. I want confirmation and such...they've charged me though, gotta believe they would'nt let the money hang for a minute!
 
Dell has been known to oversell their inventory on occasion. If you didn't get a tracking number yet, it hasn't shipped. I bought my ViewSonic @ J&R Saturday and it's already enroute with free shipping. (UPS Ground)
 
Nah, got into teh Dell Account and it says that its already ready to ship. Though, my college closes tomorrow, so I won't get it till next week.probably Monday. :)
 
So, I got it this morning. It shipped Monday around noon, and was ready for delivery Wednesday morning but my college was closed since Tuesday of last week. But, its here now! I caught the UPS guy as he was pulling in and hounded him.

Anyways, It was nestled quite safely inside its box, no damage..and even if the box had been bumped or knocked around - it would have been fine. She was in there GOOD. Came with VGA and DVI detachable cables. Integrated power supply, just plug in standard power cord (included) and good to go. Came with booklet, and driver cd whcih doesn't work with Vista 32-bit RC1. Snapped 20.1" monitor onto the base with ease, set on desk. Very stable, the base is nice and firm. Tilts up and down several degrees, but that is it. All I needed, really. I had to download Forceware 96.xx drivers from nVidia to get my graphics display up to 1680x1050, but that was to be expected.

Bright. All I can say is bright. It displays blacks very good, my Halo 2 widespec wallpaper shows very crisply darks, lights, etc. I haven't got any DVD's here to play to look for any ghosting, but with the TN panel and ~5ms response time, I don't expect any. There is a SLIGHT bit of backlight bleeding in the very center at the very top and very bottom. Roughly 4mm from the bottom and from the top has a SLIGHT bleed to it. However, this is normal for most LCD's. I saw far worse walking through Best Buy on Saturday looking at monitors. The Samsung 17 and 19 inch monitors I looked at weren't displaying dark images so i couldn't see them, but the Westinghouse, LG, and a couple of others that I was looking at had some noticable bleeding on them, so I'm happy. I don't think it will be noticable, even playing a "dark" movie like The Punisher, Doom, Saw 2 or something similar.

I played some C&C:Generals for a bit, and got rocked by China hardcore. I really will need new graphics soon....c'mon tax time. As mentioned before, I'll be holding off on graphics (unless a great deal creeps up on me) until I get tax money and buy a DX10 graphics card (R600, G80, or G81). Still, it was quite sexy looking at it. Even browsing on the forum here, I won't have any problem with people putting up images now and causing me to have to arrow back and forth - it'll all fit easily now!

Anyways, I'll update again later when I have more information on the monitor. Does anybody have any websites you use to test your monitor? Like, the site displays a series fo images for you to look for ghosting, or contrast issues, color banding/blending, etc? I wouldn't mind demoing this monitor a bit if needed.
 
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