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by Brad Wilson.
Original Post: Thoughts on the Dell FP2001
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The Dell 2001FP arrived yesterday, so I've had about 8 hours of stick time with it now. Here's my initial thoughts.
Highlights:
Four inputs: VGA, DVI-D, S-video and composite; when in VGA or DVI-D mode, you can PIP with either the S-video or composite output. Picture quality is all around excellent with all the inputs, although you see the expected video scaling issues with the video inputs (interlaced television signals just don't quite look right without massaging, but this is equal in quality to the Viewsonic external video processor).
Extremely flexible height and viewing angle adjustments. You can sit the monitor up quite tall, and you can spin it 90 degrees for portrait use (although that ruins your sub-pixel text smoothing, since the sub-pixels will be vertical now instead of horizontal).
AS500 SoundBar on sale for $35 (mounts directly under the monitor). Given that I'll be dragging this beast out for Xbox parties, I should've realized the lack of speakers and bought the SoundBar at the same time.
Built-in powered 4-port USB hub (500mA per device). They did it very well... 2 ports on the back for permanently connected items like your web cam and mouse, and 2 ports on the side for occasionally connected items like digital cameras. This really lets you sideline your PC if you want, without taking up additional desk space for a USB hub.
The case design is aesthetically pleasing. The monitor edging is kept to a decent minimum, about half the size of my ViewSonic VX700 (in fact, the overall horizontal footprint of the monitor is nearly identical, owing to the giant side-strips on my VX700). The buttons are well sized and well spaced, and easy to use with lots of feedback (I'm tired of the touch sensitive squares that aren't really buttons, like I have on the VX700).
Outstanding edge to edge picture quality. The lighting is even, and there are no dead pixels. The screen refresh is quick, with no ghosting on fast moving images.
It's not a back breaker, or a power sucker. Those 21" CRTs are super heavy and gobble up power like madmen. My UPS barely knows this thing is on, and it can be lifted with one hand (although it's quite a bit heaver than my 17").
Quirks:
The video card I have outputs analog signals to the DVI port during bootup. Since this is a DVI-D display (not DVI-I), I'm stuck without any feedback at all during bootup on the monitor. I'm trying to consolidate down to one display, so this is doubly annoying. Apparently, though, it's my particular video card, and I'm not alone.
The color settings labels are somewhat misleading. There are three presets: Blue Preset, Normal Preset, and Red Preset. I don't have a color measuring device, but my untrained eyes tell me that these things probably correspond to 9300° K, 6500° K, and 5000° K respectively. If you're used to the overly bluish-white of most PC CRT monitors, then you'll probably want to pick the Blue Preset. However, watching movies, you'll definitely want to use the Normal Preset, as NTSC standard television demands a 6500° K color balance.
The brightness and contrast controls are semi-hidden, and the contrast doesn't work at all in DVI-D mode. You have to hit the "minus" button to bring up the brightness and contrast menu, as these settings are not on the normal menu. The brightness has decent range, but nothing to get excited about. The lack of contrast in DVI-D mode is pretty odd, too.
Final judgment:
AWESOME. This is an unbelievable value for $799. I didn't expect the video inputs to have PIP, so that was a great surprise. My video card issue is one I'm eventually going to have to resolve, but is livable for the moment. I can always pull out the VGA cable (or a second monitor) in the event I need to make BIOS-level changes or do a re-install.
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