Dell 2408: Just received it today... looks quite... odd. (re: wide gamut)

[sofakng]

A few days ago I received a Dell ST2410 which is a TN panel with standard gamut.

Today I received a Dell 2408 (rev. A02) and it looks really, really... odd. I can't put my finger on it put it seems like the screen has a yellowish tint or something. However, I don't think the monitor is defective because I've tried different color presets and they change the screen quite a bit.

I can't quite place my finger on it but it's just so much different than the standard-gamut Dell ST2410.

I'm really only going to use this monitor for gaming (absolutely zero photograph work, etc) with both the PC and consoles (HDMI).

Should I rent/buy a Spyder 3 Elite calibrator and calibrate the screen? I don't want a Windows Color Profile because that won't help me. I'm thinking I can just calibrate the monitor's RGB values and brightness/contrast.

...or maybe I just need a few days with it?

 

[Schmide]

On the LCD Color Temperature 9300k or User mess with the values. If it still looks crappy, try a new cable or return it.

 

[Absolution75]

Yeah, I'd mess around with the tempreture settings. I have a Dell 2007WFP and the panel had a very distinct green tint to it -- I mess around in the menu and found that 'mac' mode made the colors absolutely perfect.

 

[sofakng]

I've been really comparing this monitor to my $150 Dell ST2410 and I actually prefer the ST2410.

I also have a Dell 2405 and I also prefer that to the 2408.

I don't think I'm ready for these "wide gamut" monitors. It just doesn't look as nice (to me) as these "normal" (72% NTSC) gamut monitors.

Anybody interested in the Dell 2408 for $325 + $30 shipping? The monitor is "brand new refurbished" meaning the seller I just bought it from just received it back from Dell and it hasn't been used for more than five hours...

 

[Winterpool]

Welcome to wide-gamut hell. My condolences...

Why can't LCD manufacturers leave well enough alone and continue to provide sRGB monitors? I understand that professional graphics designers and editors can use wide gamut, but even that's mostly for print production. I suspect that the majority of users who buy the sub-$1000 IPS and PVA displays are geeks, cinephiles, etc obsessed with image quality and colour accuracy in video (by which I mean computer content, Web, discs, etc)... in almost all cases we'd be better served by sRGB, at least until the rest of the technology catches up with wide gamut.

Still, your case sounds a little odd. Wide gamut mismatch often results in artificially saturated reds, etc. Yellow tinting sometimes means a questionable panel.

I presume you're using HDMI right now? What sort of content are you viewing? Does the yellow tint appear when you view a mostly white or grey screen? Does it vary across the screen, or is the tincture uniform?

 

[Minas]

I think I know what you're referring to, sofakng. I also have a 2408, and I have found that if I let windows update (win7 or Vista) grab the specific driver for it, it changes the colour profiles, and I have no idea how to reset them (that part of windows is a mess). The tint is especially noticeable when looking at photos in windows photo viewer.

When I roll back the driver to Generic PnP Monitor, everything is fine. See http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8287/2408bv.jpg

 

[BernardP]

I have a DEll 2407-HC, which was the first Dell monitor with wide gamut, and experienced something similar to you. After much reading on Dell Forums, what did it for me was not using the monitor drivers (leave it as standard Window Plug and Play) and dialing back color level to 85% for all 3 primary colors in the monitor OSD menu.