I ordered the 2005fpw monitor from Dell last week. The display is a 20" widescreen. This afternoon I got the order (almost a full week before the expected shipping date!) and am very pleased with it so far. I only payed $599 CAD shipped for the monitor with two one day coupons so the monitor cost me about half of what the Apple 20" does.
The box was fairly big: it came with the stand, the monitor, the DVI and VGA cables and a USB cable. I set up the monitor fairly quickly, snapping the panel onto the stand and plugging it in. Hooking up my USB devices like my keyboards to the back however took some time, mostly due to a poor design on Dells part. The USB plugs are obscured amongst plastic and are hard to make out. Anyways after a lot of frustration getting everything together I booted up.
The size of the display was startling compared to my old Flat Screen 17" Apple Studio Display CRT. The wide aspect ratio is amazing and is going to be very helpful in just about every program, along with looking beatiful. I messed around a little bit by hooking up an xBox through the S-video connectors and playing a little bit of racing. One nice feature of the monitor is a fairly well done picture in picture: I was able to play the game while maintaining a very small window in the corner just large enough to have my iTunes so I could control my music while I played.
I've done a quick color calibration of the monitor and contrast and brightness are quite nice, if even a bit too bright. There were no dead/stuck pixels on the display. The color saturation of blues is off right now so I need to spend some more time with the settings.
The stand is supposed to be quite adjustable but in action it works quite poorly. Possibly due to some defect, I have a lot of trouble raising and tilting the display. This is especially annoying as the design is supposed to permit for you to rotate the display into portrait mode to plug in cables (as is shown on the manual that came with the display) but this is nigh impossible. On the back neck of the display is a little rubber "doohickey" that acts to gather up all loose cables. This makes the monitor look very nice and uncluttered, but the strain that the cords imput onto the display makes it hard to turn.
Overall, I would find it hard not to recommend this monitor: the value speaks for itself. For Apple diehards and style fanatics Dell is, of course, not even an option, but for those who are willing to suffer, the Dell is an amazing option. It is still quite sleek even if it's color scheme looks a bit dated. The image quality is excellent and the ability to input through Svideo and composite (along with the picture in picture) make it a far better all around monitor than the Apple.
The box was fairly big: it came with the stand, the monitor, the DVI and VGA cables and a USB cable. I set up the monitor fairly quickly, snapping the panel onto the stand and plugging it in. Hooking up my USB devices like my keyboards to the back however took some time, mostly due to a poor design on Dells part. The USB plugs are obscured amongst plastic and are hard to make out. Anyways after a lot of frustration getting everything together I booted up.
The size of the display was startling compared to my old Flat Screen 17" Apple Studio Display CRT. The wide aspect ratio is amazing and is going to be very helpful in just about every program, along with looking beatiful. I messed around a little bit by hooking up an xBox through the S-video connectors and playing a little bit of racing. One nice feature of the monitor is a fairly well done picture in picture: I was able to play the game while maintaining a very small window in the corner just large enough to have my iTunes so I could control my music while I played.
I've done a quick color calibration of the monitor and contrast and brightness are quite nice, if even a bit too bright. There were no dead/stuck pixels on the display. The color saturation of blues is off right now so I need to spend some more time with the settings.
The stand is supposed to be quite adjustable but in action it works quite poorly. Possibly due to some defect, I have a lot of trouble raising and tilting the display. This is especially annoying as the design is supposed to permit for you to rotate the display into portrait mode to plug in cables (as is shown on the manual that came with the display) but this is nigh impossible. On the back neck of the display is a little rubber "doohickey" that acts to gather up all loose cables. This makes the monitor look very nice and uncluttered, but the strain that the cords imput onto the display makes it hard to turn.
Overall, I would find it hard not to recommend this monitor: the value speaks for itself. For Apple diehards and style fanatics Dell is, of course, not even an option, but for those who are willing to suffer, the Dell is an amazing option. It is still quite sleek even if it's color scheme looks a bit dated. The image quality is excellent and the ability to input through Svideo and composite (along with the picture in picture) make it a far better all around monitor than the Apple.
