Anyone like the Dell Ultrasharp 24"s?

I hear nothing but good things about these monitor series, they are extremely expensive for me and they look top of the line. Well get this, someone is offering me a brand new 24" Ultrasharp 2407WFP-HC w/ 1 year of warranty for only $330!!! That's about half the price everywhere else, and about $100 less than eBay sellers. It's revision A00, I dont mind extending the warranty at all.

What do you guys think? Steal or no deal?

 

1 year of warranty? they come with 3. Is it not new?

 

It's brand new unopened, I figure he kept it stored for 2 years, which is weird since I'm guessing this monitor came out 2007? That makes it impossible. Since if he had it for 2 years it would have had to release 2006?

What do you think?

 

The 2407WFP was a good monitor, but the 2407WFP-HC was total garbage that brought back all the problems in the earlier revisions of the 2407WFP. Check out www.hardforum.com and their display thread on the 2407WFP-HC.

I should say take this with a grain of salt because I'm a monitor NUT. But I've read the complaints.

 

Well what if I get it, and complain about the problems for a replacement (if there are any problems, which I'm not sure I'll notice since I feel my laptop LCD is more than enough). Since Dell has none in stock is it possible they will give me a 2408WFP?

 

The 2408WFP is a bit better, but it isn't perfect either. HOWEVER, you might find the 2407 is okay. I'd ask him/her to show it to you and let you check it out.

 

Okay he is coming over tomorrow to spend the day so we'll see how the monitor turns out. Any tests I should run? I'm not TRYING to find problems, I just need a decent monitor for gaming and school. I read this one is a S-PVA panel with 450 candelas of brightness...sounds pretty awesome to me...

 

It seems like a decent deal if the source is legit. We bought a large number of the 2407WFP-HC's at work as our standard low-cost monitors, and I have a few lying around at home in preference to the remaining 23-inch Apple Cinema Displays I have. I disagree with the 'total garbage' assessment, and I think I'm in a better position than most to judge what makes a usable monitor. A lot of the 'no experience, all google' talk on the web on the forums seems to hinge on the 'IPS is better' argument - and I can't agree with it all the time from practical experience.

Despite reports of the 'panel lottery' with Dell, at work I've found them far more consistent in terms of the calibrated image we can get for multimonitor setups than the supposedly better-panelled Apples, comparable in terms of representation of colour across a reasonable viewing range, as well as being more reliable in use.

Not a gaming monitor by all accounts, with many reports of pixel ghosting due to the relatively slow pixel switching speed... something I can't shed light on as I use 27" and 30" monitors at home on my gaming machines and have no real problems (and these monitors may for all I know have the same problems as the 2407WFP), and for visualisation in multimonitor (typically 2 x 2 of them) setups at work. In terms of that and general office automation + image related work, they seem fine. If you want a gaming monitor, you should probably be looking at a cheaper, faster-rated TN screen.

The default calibration is almost always considerably off, but if you start by adjusting the RGB values to start with then work on the brightness/contrast, it's not a difficult monitor to set up colours properly.

However the warranty situation seems a little fishy. I would get confirmation of the warranty condition directly from Dell if possible before handing over your cash.

 

Hmm, thank you for your insight. I will take all of it into consideration.

About the gaming thing, I am not looking for a die-hard "gaming monitor" per se, what I meant was I need a 24" to just play my favorite first-person shooters on. I feel my 15.4" Dell laptop screen was great and had no issues noticeable to me, so shouldnt the 2407WFP-HC automatically be enough for me?

 

The issue isn't with the image quality: You'll notice an improvement in that respect. It's due to the slower pixel switching time of the S-PVA panel than a TN panel (which your laptop is as well), and fast-moving games results in some cases in a very noticeable 'ghosting' effect. This can be compounded by what people call 'input lag', which is the time it takes for the image to be formed on the monitor which can be slower on some LCD monitors. For some involved gamers, the combination of the two is enough to cause physical discomfort.

Professional and semi-pro monitors such as the 2407WFP aren't generally built for ultimate response time. Ironically to some maybe, much cheaper monitors manage that a lot better. What you're paying for is the more consistent (across the screen) image quality, as well as better connectivity / ergonomics in the specific case of Dell.

 

I would do some reasearch on this first. The revision makes a difference. Their were large lag problems with many of the 24" and 27" dell ultrasharp panels. The revision A00 is supposed to be the worst of them.
I believe revision A03 and newer are the screens which do not have any of the lag issues.
I read it over on hardforum, but I cant seem to find the thread.
You may want to google the product number and see if you can find any reviews of it.

K-TRON

 

Yeah Im a little worried about the revision as well...I guess I have to test it out with some games tomorrow. I'm guessing lag issues arent covered by warranty? Should I just tell him I dont want the monitor then?

Also, the Samsung 245BW looks nice, 5ms response time but its a TN panel. Would that be any better for me?

 

who is this guy?
If he lives close by, why dont you make some kind of selling terms, like you buy it if you are happy with it.
If you go in person and test it in front of the guy and it lags like crazy obviously do not buy it, but if it doesnt by all means its a great price for a 24" s-ips monitor.

K-TRON

 

The problem with a large TN monitor is most readily seen in pink-hued whites at the edges of the screen when you you sit directly in front of the monitor. It's the limitation in viewing angle kicking in. If that doesn't bother you, a TN panel might be a better gaming asset than a 2407WFP or similar. The 2407 is a good monitor, but you should consider the use you will put it to on a daily basis.

 

For this budget, seems like anything I buy will be problematic then. Just how slow is the 2407 over the 245BW which is 5ms response time?

@K-tron: Yeah hes a friend who lives close by so he'll bring it over tomorrow. And I believe it's S-PVA?