Problem with external Dell monitor

[Martyimac]

I am running a Dell S2209W on my 13" Macbook uBody, a pro without FW if you will.
Anyway, not sure exactly what is bothering me but after a while, my eyes feel strained. I have calibrated it using the SL built in calibrator and while it is better than out of the box, I still feel eye strain. Anyone else using this monitor and are you happy? Any tricks to calibration levels? Or is this an issue with SL color levels, gamut, etc.?
I am seriously considering going to the U2410 for height and tilt capability if nothing else.

 

[Martyimac]

I guess I made this too specific. So thanks to those that looked. And if anybody wants to add ANY info, it would be welcome.

 

[Fishrrman]

2410 would probably be much easier on the eyes.

What is bothering you?

Is the overall display "too bright", too intense?

Is there too much glare?

What?

I have a Dell UltraSharp 1905FP (several years old). When I first got it, I found it too bright, almost "overpowering". My solution was to go into the "colors" menu (on the monitor), and lower the color intensity settings from 100% down to just over 80%. After that I calibrated the display using System Preferences. The resulting image is better than ANY image I've ever seen on ANY Apple display I've looked at.

One note: with this particular Dell display (perhaps it's true for ALL of them), I could not adjust the monitor's color saturation while connected through a dvi input. Just couldn't access those controls, like they didn't exist. The only way I could "get to" them was to hook up the display with a VGA connecting cable, then it worked. Some will reply that "VGA is inferior to dvi", but to that I respond: nonsense. Again, I've never seen another display that equals this one.

 

[Martyimac]

2410 would probably be much easier on the eyes.

What is bothering you?

Is the overall display "too bright", too intense?

Is there too much glare?

What?

I have a Dell UltraSharp 1905FP (several years old). When I first got it, I found it too bright, almost "overpowering". My solution was to go into the "colors" menu (on the monitor), and lower the color intensity settings from 100% down to just over 80%. After that I calibrated the display using System Preferences. The resulting image is better than ANY image I've ever seen on ANY Apple display I've looked at.

One note: with this particular Dell display (perhaps it's true for ALL of them), I could not adjust the monitor's color saturation while connected through a dvi input. Just couldn't access those controls, like they didn't exist. The only way I could "get to" them was to hook up the display with a VGA connecting cable, then it worked. Some will reply that "VGA is inferior to dvi", but to that I respond: nonsense. Again, I've never seen another display that equals this one.

I knew someone would ask me so I have been thinking on this. On the one hand, it is too bright, when I drop the brightness, the contrast gets worse, when I adjust the contrast it's like, I don't know, the display just doesn't look good. I can put that monitor on my Windows 7 machine and it looks just fine. I just cant seem to get a decent look on SL. Now one thing I have done is put my older Dell 2005FPW on the Macbook and things look a lot better. I did loose the ability to change the brightness and contrast but I can use "Shades" to drop the brightness levels and the contrast still looks okay. I calibrated the older Dell and all seems okay.
The other thing I notice on the newer dell is that fonts seem a little off. Like they don't have even color over the entire font, almost like they are mottled. Again, on the windows machine, I don't notice it. And lastly, all I can tell you about the newer dell is that over a long period, my eyes were getting tired. Since I don't use the newer Dell on the windows machine that much, I don't know if long term usage on the windows machine would produce the same feeling. But the new cheaper Dell doesn't have height adjustment either and I do miss that. Using books to raise the height just seems so archaic.

I don't know if all that helps or not.