2005FPW vs. 2405FPW - 2005FPW wins.

[Ackmed]

As always, its an opinion. Which is better is subjective. More people like the 2405FPW, versus the 2005FPW, though.

 

[housecat]

Not to continue the widescreen debate, but I'd rather use a widescreen in games that support it (most of the AAA titles) and in games that dont support it, if stretching is noticable from a 4:3 res (usually not).. I'll play with the black bars.

I'd rather do that than not have widescreen in widescreen supporting games. But I do stretching, I can't tell in most games personally.

I tested Kings Quest 1 on the 2005FPW, looks better stretched out on this 20inch widescreen than it ever did to me previously!

So not everyone is going to agree on this, but I think ppl have to at least use a widescreen in a variety of apps to really have a good opinion.

 

[Ackmed]

I dont see why people wouldnt want to play WS, if its a supported res of the game. And even if you have to edit a game file to get it. You get more of the game. How is that a bad thing.. ? Other than WS is more stressing, and you get lower frames.

Pic one:

http://home.comcast.net/~aquacomputer/2005FPW/FS-1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~aquacomputer/2005FPW/WS-1.jpg

Pic two:

http://home.comcast.net/~aquacomputer/2005FPW/FS-2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~aquacomputer/2005FPW/WS-2.jpg

Pick three;

http://home.comcast.net/~aquacomputer/2005FPW/FS-3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~aquacomputer/2005FPW/WS-3.jpg

Why would anyone want less of the game? I wouldnt...

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
I dont see why people wouldnt want to play WS, if its a supported res of the game. And even if you have to edit a game file to get it. You get more of the game. How is that a bad thing.. ? Other than WS is more stressing, and you get lower frames.

Why would anyone want less of the game? I wouldnt...

Theoretically, you're actually seeing less vertically than you were before (whereas with the 2405FPW, you'd be seeing the same amount vertically and more horizontally, since it still has 1200 vertical pixels). Going from a 2001FP to a 2005FPW is like zooming the image out slightly and then letterboxing off 75 pixels from the top and bottom.

Also, it's not like watching a widescreen movie in 4:3, where they have to cut some of it off to display it 'full-screen' on a 4:3 display. The game's content is generated dynamically in whatever AR and resolution you tell it to use. Whether or not you prefer a 4:3 or 16:9 AR for gaming is more of a personal decision. For an FPS game, I can see where the wider display would be useful (since it gives you more peripheral vision). For something like an RTS game, I would think I'd want whichever screen has more viewable space, which would make the 2001FP a better choice.

 

[housecat]

From looking at those screens, it appears to me the widescreen has the same vertical viewable, and much more horizontal.

If the vertical is cut, its a whole lot less than is added horizonally.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: housecat
From looking at those screens, it appears to me the widescreen has the same vertical viewable, and much more horizontal.

If the vertical is cut, its a whole lot less than is added horizonally.

They're definitely cut off slightly in the vertical. Compare them (at full res) in the corners, and you'll see that background objects are closer to the top/bottom edges of the screen in the widescreen shots. It's very obvious on the buildings in the background in the second set of screenshots.

With the wider FOV you're still probably seeing more *useful* stuff (at least in an FPS game), but overall there are fewer pixels on the 2005FPW than on the 2001FP.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
With the wider FOV you're still probably seeing more *useful* stuff (at least in an FPS game), but overall there are fewer pixels on the 2005FPW than on the 2001FP.

Thats fixed by any slightly bigger widescreen than the 2005fpw.
For instance, the 2405.. my future beauty.

Prob more than half the guys preferred the 2005 to the 2001 (this is not a scientific study), fewer pixels and all.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: Matthias99
With the wider FOV you're still probably seeing more *useful* stuff (at least in an FPS game), but overall there are fewer pixels on the 2005FPW than on the 2001FP.

Thats fixed by any slightly bigger widescreen than the 2005fpw.
For instance, the 2405.. my future beauty.

...which is what I said in my first post. On the 2405FPW, you still have 1200 vertical pixels, so your vertical view stays the same despite the wider AR/FOV.

Prob more than half the guys preferred the 2005 to the 2001 (this is not a scientific study), fewer pixels and all.

Also like I said, it's a personal preference. Obviously the 2405FPW would be better than the 2001FP, but then again, it costs about 50% more. With the 2005FPW you're trading some overall resolution for the widescreen AR. If you like the widescreen look to your games, this is an advantage. If you don't, it's not.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
...which is what I said in my first post.

Also like I said, it's a personal preference.

LOL, ya i know the feeling. That kind of stuff happens to me all the time.
Little frustrating isnt it?
I didnt read the thread in detail, just skimmed. At least we agree.

I think unless someone already has a 2001, its better to go with the 2005 for multiple reasons. But Longhorn is being designed for WS, if that means anything.. well I guess it shows the way things are going at least.

 

[tcrex2000]

I just got my 2005fpw a few days ago, and I have a red sheen, too. It doesn't bother me at all, though. I'm surprised that more people don't have it, too. When I head over to my buddies house this weekend I'll have to check out his 2005 and see if he has the red sheen, too.

 

[anandemide]

This has been my upgrade path of late: 2001FP -> 2005FPW -> 2405FPW

The 2001FP I had for almost a year, and was very happy with it. I decided to upgrade to the 2005FPW to get a brighter screen that would also allow me to experience gaming in widescreen. I was very happy with my 2005 for the most part - like my 2001FP it had zero dead pixels coupled with excellent colour reproduction - but was decidely let down by a nasty, non-uniform backlight as well as excessive screendoor. What with the extra 4 inches and added component support, I scraped together the cash to upgrade to a 2405FPW and took the plunge.

The 2405FPW doesn't suffer from any of the problems my '05 did. Those extra four inches really benefit game playing too: after going from the 2001FP, I sorely missed the extra vertical space whilst welcoming with open arms the additional width. With regards to sharpness, the 2405FPW is very sharp, falling about on par with the 2005FPW, though perhaps a little less so. However, the 2405 has the ability to become much, MUCH brighter than the other Dell screens. Its colour reproduction in general isn't quite as vivid either - couple this with the excess brightness and the result is a slightly washed out picture. I had to fiddle with my display drivers gamma settings to get the right level of saturation on my 2405. Referring to RGB settings, I tend to leave my screens on their recommended sRGB settings. On the 2005FPW, the result was a warm, slightly "reddish" display (6500K mark) whereas the 2405 produces a less warm picture, with a more green bias (??K mark ). I definitely prefered the sRGB on the 2005, but the screendoor and backlight problems were too big to ignore.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: anandemide

The 2405FPW doesn't suffer from any of the problems my '05 did. Those extra four inches really benefit game playing too: after going from the 2001FP, I sorely missed the extra vertical space whilst welcoming with open arms the additional width.

serious question - if both the 2001 and 2405 have height resolution of 1200, how do you "sorely [miss] the extra vertical space"? or were you referring to the move from 2001->2005?

I'm just curious if it's due to subjective perception or if height in 1920x1200 is actually different to height in 1600x1200.

 

[anandemide]

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: anandemide

The 2405FPW doesn't suffer from any of the problems my '05 did. Those extra four inches really benefit game playing too: after going from the 2001FP, I sorely missed the extra vertical space whilst welcoming with open arms the additional width.

serious question - if both the 2001 and 2405 have height resolution of 1200, how do you "sorely [miss] the extra vertical space"? or were you referring to the move from 2001->2005?

I'm just curious if it's due to subjective perception or if height in 1920x1200 is actually different to height in 1600x1200.

Yeah I was referring to my move from the 2001 to 2005. I'm glad the thread starter is going to get a replacement, as re-reading his description of the sharpness makes me cast serious doubt on the quality of his particular screen that he was using. Like I said, the only real annoyance I've encountered with the 2405 is the colour reproduction. Just to emphasise, it's not bad at all, just not as brash as the 2005FPW.

 

[anandemide]

Also, for those looking at both screens... The 2405 absolutely DWARFS the 2005. When it comes to impressiveness, there's no doubt is is the daddy. Not only that, but the component input makes it extremely attractive, as does the 1080i/p support.

 

[Washoe]

This has been a really informative thread - thanks to the OP and everyone's comments! I have a bit of an OT question here: Can anyone confirm or deny that my eVGA 128MB 6800 card will support the 2005FPW and/(or) 2405FPW? I checked Dell's list of supported cards, and although the 256mb 6800GT and Ultra cards are listed, the 128mb 6800 is not in either list. However, when I check the resolution possibilities from this computer, I see that 1920x1200 is available to use (and I could add 1680x1050 to custom resolution settings) ... so I'm just a bit confused about this.

I'm also worried that the 128mb 6800 card will not be able to handle the latest games (EQ2, Doom3, HL2) at these resolutions ... (although I'm playing 1600x1200 now on a 21" CRT with no complaints)

 

[anandemide]

As I haven't ever used that card, I can't swear it will. But common sense dictates that it will have no problem running at 1920x1200. I'm sure there's plenty of cards that will also work with the 2405FPW that Dell aren't even aware of. As the eVGA card you're refering to is one of the latest Nvidia 68xx series, I can't see you having any problems at all. The only cause for concern is that that card will probably not be powerful enough to play games at the monitor's native resolution of 1920x1200, but if you're happy with playing at a lower res and using interpolation (which works VERY well on this screen), then you won't have any issues!

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: anandemide
Also, for those looking at both screens... The 2405 absolutely DWARFS the 2005. When it comes to impressiveness, there's no doubt is is the daddy. Not only that, but the component input makes it extremely attractive, as does the 1080i/p support.

indeed. thats why im getting one, HDTV digital cable.. and also thru the PIP while gaming.

 

[anandemide]

Koitsu, I've got another suggestion for ya... Something I just remembered.

These screens are indeed very different beasts (one being a PVA and the other an S-IPS) and thus need configuring in different ways. You should use the sRGB values on both screens as an indicator for the optimum colour/sharpness settings on them. The sRGB settings on my 2405FPW are much lower (36, 44, 40) than those were on my 2005FPW (could have been all around 50 or all at about 100 - I can't remember, as I'm getting them confused with the 2001FP I used to own) - you can't really fairly compare the two at the same values. Anyways, if I increase the values of my 2405 up to 50, 50, 50 - like you suggest is a good result - I end up with an over-saturated image: the contrast becomes slightly too great and the image is very harsh on the eyes. This kinda correlates with what you were saying about the picture looking blurred, as well as tallies with your refresh rate analogy. Here's something you should try. Next time, set your colours on the 2405FPW to the sRGB default, and then instead of altering them, increase the brightness of your screen instead. I found increasing my screen's brightness would indirectly effect the overall sharpness/contrast of the screen at the same time; a brightness of 60 or above in a well lit room would result in a very vivid image. In contrast, the 2005's brightness seemed only to effect just that: the brightness of the picture. Not only does upping the brightness of the 2405 heighten the contrast, it really brings out the screen's colours too.

 

[Hadsus]

Originally posted by: anandemide

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: anandemide

The 2405FPW doesn't suffer from any of the problems my '05 did. Those extra four inches really benefit game playing too: after going from the 2001FP, I sorely missed the extra vertical space whilst welcoming with open arms the additional width.

serious question - if both the 2001 and 2405 have height resolution of 1200, how do you "sorely [miss] the extra vertical space"? or were you referring to the move from 2001->2005?

I'm just curious if it's due to subjective perception or if height in 1920x1200 is actually different to height in 1600x1200.

Yeah I was referring to my move from the 2001 to 2005. I'm glad the thread starter is going to get a replacement, as re-reading his description of the sharpness makes me cast serious doubt on the quality of his particular screen that he was using. Like I said, the only real annoyance I've encountered with the 2405 is the colour reproduction. Just to emphasise, it's not bad at all, just not as brash as the 2005FPW.

You lose about 1.5 inches vertically going from the 2001 to the 2005. But you gain an inch horizontally. A bit more screen area for the 2001 compared to the 2005.

 

[koitsu]

News for those following this thread, and my comments:

My replacement arrived today (I still have to figure out how to get the old one back to Dell, supposedly there was an airbill shipped with it, or something along those lines, for the return -- no such thing found anywhere. Doh!), and I took the liberty of disconnecting my 2005FPW and therefore putting two 2405FPWs side-by-side for comparison.

Since my video card doesn't do dual DVI (just DVI + VGA d-sub), I stuck one on each port. In this case, the replacement on the VGA, and the one I had problems with on the DVI. I also reset the monitors to Factory Defaults, and additionally (on the VGA display only) chose "Auto Adjust" in the Image Settings menu (needed to detect better phase).

Sadly, I found that both monitors looked exactly the same in quality; same issues: white looking creme-coloured, sharpness looking like that of a CRT (I don't care what people say, CRTs always have some weird-looking pixel phase problems which make fonts look blurry), and so on. In fact, the replacement had a lit pixel to boot. Doh!

I started thinking about what everyone here said, re: their 2405FPWs being absolutely gorgeous, fantastic sharpness, etc.. I myself have really bad eyes (nearsighted), so I knew it wasn't just a personal preference, since chances are people with better eyes than mine are the ones who're telling me "there's something wrong with your setup because ours here looks great". Chances were, something WAS wrong with my setup, especially with two monitors doing the same thing. I decided to run through the procedure again, re-connecting cables and all that.

The only thing I found was that for DVI, I was using the DVI cable that came with my 2005FPW -- NOT the DVI cable that came with the 2405FPWs. I assumed they were identical.

I swapped the 2005FPW DVI cable for one of the cables which came with the 2405FPWs.

SURPRISE! Everything now looks *AMAZINGLY* crisp (as someone mentioned, literally on par with the 2005FPW), and the "yellow white" has decreased in intensive severely (my guess is that I can get rid of it entirely adjusting the colour settings in the OSD (which I had to do on my 2005FPW too, but on that because everything was too bright, haha).

I moved the DVI cable over to the other 2405FPW (the first one I received), and voila, just as sharp + beautiful.

Prognosis: the DVI cable that comes with the 2005FPW might not be able to handle the higher frequency/bandwidth of a 1920x1200 monitor. I thought it might be noise or shielding related, but here's the kicker: the DVI cable for my 2005FPW is almost 2x as thick as the one for my 2405FPW, implying more shielding for the 2005FPW. I'm not sure what to think of that, but hey, whatever.

The replacement I received from Dell will be going back to them (rather than sending them back the original unit they sent me; I'll have to talk to support about this, since they asked for and check serial numbers, which obviously won't match), since it has a lit pixel. No sense in keeping the one with a lit pixel defect when the other one is perfect, heh.

Moral of the story: user error (as it usually is). I take full responsibility for my claims being false, but somewhat justified under the circumstances.

Consider it educational for future users: if you're using DVI and "upgrading" to a 2405FPW, be sure to swap your DVI cable out for the one that comes with your new monitor. It DOES matter!

Thanks everyone for putting up with me. ;-)

 

[Ronin]

Having just picked up 3 2405's, I was interested to see what you had to say and your results.

Thanks for taking the time to come back and update everyone.

 

[HN]

Good job, Koitsu :thumbsup:
Nice to see you kept an open mind and stuck with it. And this has turned out to be rather useful b/c i like to think that dvi cables would be similar but lo and behold...

 

[Hadsus]

.....or as Rosanne Rosannadana would say, 'never mind.'

 

[racolvin]

ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one old enough to remember Rosanne Rosannadana

I ended up with a DVI cable from CompUSA cause I needed it to be longer than the one that shipped with my 2405. It didn't seem to have a negative effect tho, since the picture is still friggin gorgeous

R

 

[gustep]

Hey, about the color problem... I had that, too, I couldn't get the greys to look neutral in both the midtones and the highlights at the same time. But I corrected that by fiddeling with the secret menu, where you have the equivalent of gamma curve adjustment. I suggest:

- Take a photo or write down your original settings so you can restore them
- Give these settings a try and see if your colors look more neutral:

Factory Menu Settings for 2405fpw with improved color Reproduction