Thinking about a Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW? Think again.

[iamskew]

I own 2 2005FPWs. My previous CRT was a Viewsonic 19" E90fp (which is not a very good CRT). My 2005FPWs are flawless as far as dead pixels or bad backlight goes. However, I tried to play Day of Defeat on my 2005s...and it was terrible...I'm usually like a 1.5:1 kill ratio, when i use the 2005 I'm like 1:3. It just doesn't play the same. Now, granted the only newer game that I've played on it is Doom 3, but it still wasn't very good. I don't know if I can attribute either completely to the 2005 though. As it turns out, I have a flawed dvi-out on my BFG 6800GT OC and need to RMA it. Both games might be better when I am I'm able to RMA the card. (BFG makes you send your card in first...thus making you have a useless PC for 1 week minimum....)

skew

 

[Scarpad]

My 2005 came yesterday, manufacture date Feb 2005, Rev A01. No Dead Pixels and no light leakage I can detect. I'm pretty impressed for what I paid. My Mac Mini in DVI and My PC in VGA both look stunning and I can run both at 1600x1050. I quicky tried UT2004 that runs also at the same res and looks great (But I need a new Video card). I can't wait to get my Vidigi Box so I can hook my Xbox into it!

 

[iamskew]

The xbox will already connect through the composite input. The only issue is where to connect the sound.

 

[Megatomic]

wolfman579, thanks for making those comparisons for us. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words... I had been dreaming of getting an LCD as my desk space is severely limited and the monitor I have is very heavy (my desktop is tempered glass :Q ). Now what am I going to do?

I can't even get my new Samsung 997DF to calibrate as well as your monitor. Tips?

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

/hugs 6-year old MAG XJ700T CRT :heart:

 

[Scarpad]

I don't expect the Xbox would look very good in composite

 

[iamskew]

All I can attest to is when i ran it in composite through my MyHD-120 tuner card...but I did that because it makes the sound part easy...it definitely doesn't look as good as it would if you directly connected it to your television...but it's tolerable

 

[imported_Stu]

You said "Radeon," so I'm choosing you for my question. I hope you can help. I like my 2005FPW, but 'm having a subtle problem--horizontally, everything displays just a bit too wide. If the answer is really simple, I won't be embarrassed, just gratified. Anyway, here are the details I sent to ATI, without getting a clear answer.

"My ATI Radeon X800 XT came preinstalled in a Dell Dimension using Windows XP Media Center. The monitor is a Dell 2005FPW. The problem is that everything is too big horizontally--that is, everthing appears a bit wider than it should be. I noticed in Control Panel that my display is set at 1024x768 pixels. Is that correct for a wide-screen flat panel monitor? Or is it likely that something else is the problem?"

 

[imported_Stu]

I didn't get a good answer from Dell or ATI yet, but in case anyone else is as low-tech as me, the answer was just to change the resolution to 1280x768. I wish Contorl Panel did made it clearer that varying aspect ratios are available.

 

[andypress]

I have a first revision panel-although it's has a slight backlight problem, there are no dead pixels, and it's barely noticeable whil playing a full screen movie. It is miles ahead of my old crt.

 

[rd2]

Reasons I got rid of CRTs.

1. Radiation. Not healthy at all.
2. Screen is never perfectly flat.
3. Fast Black to white changes made my screen zoom and jump.
4. The focus is never perfect.
5. My speakers interfered with the screen on a good distance.
6. Took all my deskspace and produced a lot of heat.
7. Consumed a lot of power. (Expensive throughout the year being ON 24/7)
8. The switch to the standby mode was very loud.
9. Geometrical distortions.
10. Heavy as hell. No way to take it anywhere.

My 2005FPW has no dead pixels and very very light bleeding.
So the light bleeding is the only little problem I can think of.
There is no way I'm going back to CRT.

 

[doublejbass]

Originally posted by: rd2
There is no way I'm not going back to CRT.

That isn't a non-double-negative.

 

[Spacecomber]

This thread has been an interesting discussion of the merits of the LCD versus a CRT. Just a couple of comments about the methodology of running the two side by side off of the same video card. As others have noted, such as Batmanuel, because the two monitors end up having different contrast, brightness and gamma, the pictures don't really show both monitors at their best at the same time. I think that you'd have to use something like Quick Gamma to try to set each monitor at the same perceived gamma level and take your pictures of first one monitor with this setting and then the other with this setting. Perhaps then you could do a side by side comparison of the pictures.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the subjective perceptions that you've made of the monitor, which I find helpful, none the less.

The other thing that I wondered about is what panel is being used with this LCD monitor. I wonder if this might be a IPS panel instead of a TN. X-Bit Labs has an excellent article on different LCD panel technologies, and one thing that they mention as being characteristic of ISP panels is how the blacks show a violet hue when viewed from the side. (The article mentions TN panels are characterized by a darkening of the screen when you view them from an angle below dead center; this can be so bad that even when looked at dead on, the top of the screen will appear to be a darker shade. Whites will appear yellow tinged when seen from the side on a TN panel, also according to this article.)

Just my two cents. I appreciate everyone's efforts who have contributed to this thread.

Space

 

[ROcHE]

My 5 years old Dell P1110 (Sony G500 21") > most LCDs when gaming.

True story.

 

[imported_russian]

I ordered this monitor yesterday (Tuesday) and got a reply from Dell that it was shipped, so it should be at my place by Friday Saturday.

I have read few reviews that were available plus many forum posts and still cannot clearly see if this monitor is good for gaming or not. I saw only 2 posts which mentioned that it wasn?t good for serious gaming, other than these two, everyone was saying it was great. My primary computer use is gaming. I regularly play QUAKE III Threewave CTFS (waiting for Quake 4) and a little bit of Warcraft3 for fun. I am going to see myself in a few days if it is good or not but just wondering how good this monitor for constant fps gaming?

 

[Bigg]

I've had my 2005FWP since December and I love it. I have no dead pixels and no backlight issues. Yes, a CRT is slightly better for gaming, especially in displaying blacks. However, that really only applies when playing dark games such as Doom 3. If you play FPS like Battlefield 1942 or Joint Operations, the image is phenomenal with NO EYE STRAIN even after many hours straight of playing. I also play Age of Empires and the game looks awesome. I plan on getting Battlefield 2 at launch.


I play lots of games on my PC and I don't regret buying this monitor one bit. It was also failed to mention some of the nice inputs this monitior has, along with pitcure-in-picture capabilities.,

 

[NiKeFiDO]

your tests are all standard "problems" associated with LCDs.
no new information here that i see....

 

[agent2099]

There are quite a few issues I have with these tests.


You can't compare the black levels when the 2005is showing more dynamic range than the CRT. On the CRT some areas are black when compared to the 2005, but on the 2005 those areas actually have objects and geometry. They are not just grey blotches. Now if the 2005 cannot get ANY darker via the OSD, then indeed that is a limitation of the LCD.

Another thing is, the fact that DOOM3 is stretched (not native) on the 2005, will only pronounce some of its "faults" that are listed here.