Finally upgraded the ole' 2005fpw

[swilli89]

So like many of you, i purchased a Dell 2005fpw in 2006. At the time it supposedly had some of the best colors, blacks, contrast level and viewing angle of any contemporary TFT LCD. It has served me so well these past 5 years..

but alas, about a month ago it started "clicking" on and off at startup about ever 2 restarts of my computer. it is now to the point where the only way it will not power cycle is i either have to A. leave my computer on all the time so it doesn't ever go idle or B. let it cool down a min ~4 hours for whatever reason before it will function normally.

research tells me it has some bad caps on either the logic or power board.. so until I feel like actually attempting that repair, i decided to treat my humble system to a rare upgrade.

a little more research and I decide on an Asus ML249H 24" 1080p monitor.

its a good size upgrade: 20" to 24"
great price: paid 229 shipped
plus i read that the Asus with its MVA panel was just as good as an S-IPS such as my out going 2005fpw.
I wasn't eager to go from 16:10 to 16:9 however..


So i get the panel home and eagerly set it up.

Here is the ML249H side by side with my 2005fpw. I just wasn't happy AT ALL!

When I first booted up and saw my familiar desktop and very familiar starcraft 2 shortcut.. my heart sank. Colors were washed out and over pumped to make up for good contrast and saturation; that was the most obvious thing that hit me right away. It was also dim and only barely bright enough with brightness turned up.. and with a monitor that size.. the off angle viewing was disgusting.

With my line of sight centered in the middle of the monitor, all 4 corners were a little washed out and if i moved to look at any corner head on, sure enough they looked slightly better. I did as much as a I could in the monitors own settings menu, my radeon control panel, and even windows color correction and no combo of settings yielded a good combination.

So monitor tech really hasn't trickled down that much I see.. I know the Dell was about $500 back then but still for a $250 monitor half a decade later I assumed that surely it would equal it.

So I turned to Ebay for something I knew I could trust performance and picture-wise for an equivalent amount of coin

^Dell 2407WFP

I scored this baby for 239 shipped on fleabay. And guys let me tell you, I wouldn't sit down for an hour to write a forum post about monitor if I wasn't that much in love with this thing. The picture is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

Starcraft 2 came back to life and its plenty fast for Bad company 2; web browsing no longer induces eye strain and headache from over pumped hyper blue whites. The whites are instead now a gentle neutral shade that is very natural looking while being luminous but not overly bright.

My first impression physically was that for the same size, 16:10 looks so much bigger than the Asus which is 16:9 1080p. The extra lines of resolution sure are nice too.

The color is warmer and much, much more accurate with true, non blue whites. I don't have any hardware calibration tools, but the Dell looks pretty damn close to my ISF calibrated Panny Plasma. Text is crisper and white and shadow detail is much improved along with black level. As well as off angle viewing; well there's just no comparison.

Bottom Line: ML249 was sent back to amazon and hopefully this Dell 2407WFP can serve me a good 5 years or more like its predecessor.

 

[MangoX]

I know how you feel. I know a lot of people who cheap on their displays but i don't put myself through that same scenario. I am on the computer for many hours per day and I like to treat my eyes well, I wear glasses after all. I can't stand using TN displays for more than a few minutes at a time or my eyes start hurting, seriously!

I am in love with my 3007 it's the best display I've ever purchased, besides my 2007FPs and I have a U2410 coming next week (bought it during Days of Dell deal for $429 shipped!).

Most people keep their monitors between upgrades, much like computer cases. So I say spend a little more on a quality display, you will thank yourself later for it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Thanks for the write-up and comparison pics. I wish more people who upgraded their monitors did this. It would give everyone a point of reference when upgrading their monitors.

2 Thumbs up!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Stoneburner]

2005fpw's are m-pva i thought, not ips

 

[swilli89]

2005fpw's are m-pva i thought, not ips

all 2005fpw's are IPS i believe. The 2007fpw i think actually used IPS and S-PVA depending on the revision. The 2407fpw is itself an S-PVA.

Thanks for the write-up and comparison pics. I wish more people who upgraded their monitors did this. It would give everyone a point of reference when upgrading their monitors.

2 Thumbs up!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thanks man!

I really had this grandiose plan to take pictures with an ACTUAL camera at different angles to better show the differences and not my iphone 4 which doesn't do low light/bright monitor captures for crap,

but due to few hours away from school, work, and the gf I have precious few hours to devout to my shogun 2 campaign

 

[MichaelD]

He beat me to it. My post was going to say exactly that! Congratulations on a super monitor! So many people cheap out on the monitor, when in fact it is THE component you interact with the most. All the FPS and GFLOPS don't mean a thing if your sreen is blurry/washed out/dim/too bright/wavy! I have a Dell 2407WFP that I've had for abou 4 years now. The power button broke about two years ago. Fortunately it broke in the pressed-in position. So I just put my computer to sleep at night and the monitor stays in standby. The color is just as vibrant and the whites as balanced as when it was new; and was expensive back then!

I firmly believe that if you're going bigger than a 20" monitor you need to invest in a good one. I see so many 21"-22" monitors advertised for under $200. I just know they are total crap and would burn your eyes out in a minute.

Thanks again for taking the time to write up such a detailed review. It makes me smile to read how someone else is just elated with their new computer-related purchase. I can relate b/c I understand exactly how you feel! Now, go make a drink, shut the door and settle in for 8 or so hours of gaming goodness! :thumbsup:

Thanks for the write-up and comparison pics. I wish more people who upgraded their monitors did this. It would give everyone a point of reference when upgrading their monitors.

2 Thumbs up!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[kmmatney]

I absolutely love my Soyo 24" MVA display (pretty close to your Dell in terms of display quality) - it's now going on 4 years, and still running fine. It's hard to find good monitors nowadays, especially 1920 x 1200 monitors, which I think is the perfect resolution. I'd say you got a great deal, and hopefully it will last a long time. Good to know you can still get these on Ebay for a great price.

 

[kamikazekyle]

I'm in a sorta similar boat, except having gone from an HP 24" 2475w to an Asus VG236H 23" 120hz monitor. The 120Hz refresh rate is awesome at the desktop, and in games as well assuming you can push them decently past 60 FPS. However, the colors -- while vibrant -- were only of TN quality. The HP could display colors and gradients that the Asus simply couldn't. I also didn't quite care for the slight drop in resolution or screen size, but the higher pixel pitch kinda made up for it. The monitor also had some bad backlight bleed.

I'm still bouncing back and forth between the two. Giving up 120Hz is almost as hard as giving up an calibrated IPS panel. And I'm thinking about going to a Dell U27 or U30 series -- I've had a triple U30 setup before and it was almost overwhelming, though oh so great in real estate. There's a U2711 here at work, but is custom calibrated to a very funky white point and color balance for special work, so I can't really give it a fair comparison.

I still wish NEC made a newer version of the 20WMGX2-BK, just bigger. I have THREE of them they're so good -- they match my calibrated CRT and plasma in comparison to color reproduction, image clarity, and contrast. However, they're only 20 inches at 1680x1050. On my current monitor arm, that'd be pretty far away as 23" in a 16:9 is really pushing it on prefered viewing distance. Though I am now tossing around the idea of running an Eyefinity setup with them...

Anywho, good choice on the Dell. I've used them before, and they're pretty nice panels.

 

[swilli89]

I know how you feel. I know a lot of people who cheap on their displays but i don't put myself through that same scenario. I am on the computer for many hours per day and I like to treat my eyes well, I wear glasses after all. I can't stand using TN displays for more than a few minutes at a time or my eyes start hurting, seriously!

I am in love with my 3007 it's the best display I've ever purchased, besides my 2007FPs and I have a U2410 coming next week (bought it during Days of Dell deal for $429 shipped!).

Most people keep their monitors between upgrades, much like computer cases. So I say spend a little more on a quality display, you will thank yourself later for it.

holy.. thats a sweet setup, rUmX! Maybe one day..

 

[MangoX]

holy.. thats a sweet setup, rUmX! Maybe one day..

Thanks! My U2410 arrived yesterday and I'm still getting used to it. Going from 30" -> 24" has been pretty massive.

One thing I really miss is that I always run two browser windows side by with and at 2560x(XXXX) I was able to have both windows size at 1280 pixels wide which was perfect for browsing most websites as sites are designed around this resolution.

Now at 1920x(XXXX) the width is now 960 pixels and on most sites I have to drop the text size down one or two notches. I can live with it.

I mainly bought the U2410 for it's plethora of inputs (the 3007 only has 1x DL-DVI). The 3007 is now going to be posted on the local classifieds...

 

[pcunite]

Cool, the Dell 2005FPW was my first IPS display as well ... today I run a NEC 2490WUXi2 and love it. 24", 16:10, 1920x1200 is really the sweet spot.

 

[RussianSensation]

I mainly bought the U2410 for it's plethora of inputs (the 3007 only has 1x DL-DVI). The 3007 is now going to be posted on the local classifieds...

Sorry, maybe I missed it, but why did you go from a 3007 to a U2410? Do the viewing angles, response rate, black levels/colors offset the loss of resolution/screen size?

Also, why you rocking an X1900GT?

 

[Ayah]

I'm still running a dual Dell 2005fpw setup from 2005. The monitors run perfectly.. But the connectors on the DVI cables are flaking out, interestingly enough.

 

[pitz]

My first LCD was the 2005fpw. I replaced it with a Dell 2408WFP S-PVA (the successor to the 2407!), and hated it (a significant reduction in the quality of text). Finally got rid of the 2408WFP a few weeks ago and replaced with a new Dell U2410.

Still have the 2005FPW on another machine. Its just as good as the new displays shipping. Going to the S-PVA was a bad idea. Yes, the colours are great, and its bright -- but text quality, particularly small white text on black background in PuTTY is 100% better on the IPS screens.

Only complaint about the U2410 is the blacks aren't as black as they were on the 2408WFP. But I can live with that. The touch controls on the U2410 are much nicer than the hard-to-use buttons on the 2408WFP.

 

[gramboh]

Still loving my 2407 Rev A04, had it for about 4 years now and I still appreciate it every time I sit down to use it. Haven't been following monitor technology lately (other than admiring the Apple 27inch and the Dell 30's in person a few times). Would be nice to see an IPS 24/30" that can do 120hz, but apparently that is not possible? Don't think I can give up the colour accuracy of my PVA even though I am a gamer (and lots of online FPS).

 

[DirkGently1]

Still loving my 2407 Rev A04, had it for about 4 years now and I still appreciate it every time I sit down to use it. Haven't been following monitor technology lately (other than admiring the Apple 27inch and the Dell 30's in person a few times). Would be nice to see an IPS 24/30" that can do 120hz, but apparently that is not possible? Don't think I can give up the colour accuracy of my PVA even though I am a gamer (and lots of online FPS).

Had mine 4 years too and i'd be gutted if it died on me. They just don't make PVA monitors of this quality any more.

 

[Bateluer]

I bought my 2005FPW in 2005, donated it to my youngest brother in 2007, when I bought my 2407. The 2407's power button is shot, but I just let it go into standby.

I'd love to upgrade, but the 2407 serves well.

 

[Fayd]

my display is now a 32" TV.

i like it. the size is perfect, the resolution is perfect.

 

[pugh]

I'm in a sorta similar boat, except having gone from an HP 24" 2475w to an Asus VG236H 23" 120hz monitor. The 120Hz refresh rate is awesome at the desktop, and in games as well assuming you can push them decently past 60 FPS. However, the colors -- while vibrant -- were only of TN quality. The HP could display colors and gradients that the Asus simply couldn't. I also didn't quite care for the slight drop in resolution or screen size, but the higher pixel pitch kinda made up for it. The monitor also had some bad backlight bleed.

I'm still bouncing back and forth between the two. Giving up 120Hz is almost as hard as giving up an calibrated IPS panel. And I'm thinking about going to a Dell U27 or U30 series -- I've had a triple U30 setup before and it was almost overwhelming, though oh so great in real estate. There's a U2711 here at work, but is custom calibrated to a very funky white point and color balance for special work, so I can't really give it a fair comparison.

I still wish NEC made a newer version of the 20WMGX2-BK, just bigger. I have THREE of them they're so good -- they match my calibrated CRT and plasma in comparison to color reproduction, image clarity, and contrast. However, they're only 20 inches at 1680x1050. On my current monitor arm, that'd be pretty far away as 23" in a 16:9 is really pushing it on prefered viewing distance. Though I am now tossing around the idea of running an Eyefinity setup with them...

Anywho, good choice on the Dell. I've used them before, and they're pretty nice panels.

I'm glad you posted this. I still run a Dell 2405fpw purchased in 2005 It has been rock solid. People were always amazed at it when they would see it sitting on my desk.

I was ready to purchase that Asus you mentioned till I saw your post. I really want to experience 120mhz gaming also as you do already.

Some very hard decisions to make.

 

[gramboh]

I bought my 2005FPW in 2005, donated it to my youngest brother in 2007, when I bought my 2407. The 2407's power button is shot, but I just let it go into standby.

I'd love to upgrade, but the 2407 serves well.

Heh, my power button broke within a few months of owning it, but it was otherwise perfect so I didn't bother with an RMA. Seems to be a common issue.