DELL 2407 Arrives at OcUK!!

Shocky-FM · 12 Jun 2006 at 15:05

Jagstang said:
As written previously you cannot set 1:1 on the 2407 unless the vertical res is les than 1200, although it has been stated that this is possible with nVidia drivers. It's however unavailable with ATi radeon drivers.

Although there are various grad tests around, I actually noticed when visiting the following forum http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ . Can you see horizontal lines in the grad graffic at the top of the forum?

Paul.

Thx, nope can't see any lines ontop of that forum in desktop mode...Only in gaming and multimedia.. Shame we can't use 1:1 and also weird how it needs driver support.. How does the montior know if the driver supports it ? :confused:

Layzan · 12 Jun 2006 at 17:22

In a matter of days I’m thinking about picking one of these up and for the money I don’t expect to see problems with poor construction let alone this banding issue which is really off-putting.

If anyone that actually has this monitor could be so nice as to tell me if their new Dell is slanted in anyway and more importantly the repercussions of this banding problem if any?

I read this thread, I still don't really understand how this banding issue will affect such things as gaming on the monitor, will I have to expect bleeding?

I don’t even know if it has been fixed or not with all this A01, A02, Rev and 1.1 stuff…

PhilNUK · 12 Jun 2006 at 19:34

Hi guys, I have a 2407 and its an A01 rev... it has got the banding issue, and its pretty bad sometimes.
The monitor definitely doesn't slant to one side which is a bonus!

Has anyone got a sound bar for theirs? I have plugged my 360 into the monitor and realised I aint gonna get sound without the sound bar... can anyone confirm if they have been released yet or any other way of getting sound out of the 360 without paying for a sound bar!

Mud · 12 Jun 2006 at 20:04

The sound bar obviously isn't the only way of getting sound from your 360, I use the optical link with Logitech Z5500's for a nice 5.1. The soundbar quality is a bit pap, and stereo only.

PhilNUK · 12 Jun 2006 at 20:09

Mud said:
The sound bar obviously isn't the only way of getting sound from your 360, I use the optical link with Logitech Z5500's for a nice 5.1. The soundbar quality is a bit pap, and stereo only.

cheers Mud,
but excuse my dumbness but where is the optical connected to the 360? is it a seperate accessory? I have JBL creature speakers as PC speakers and I guess those cannot be used?

Mud · 12 Jun 2006 at 20:13

Its on the AV lead itself, not the 360. If the JBLs use a 3.5mm stereo jack then you'll want a stereo(2x) phono to 3.5mm convertor (bundled with the official VGA, or cheap in any good electrical shop), and a gender changer (female-female since the convertor and your speakers are male). This is still only stereo (provided my assumptions about your speakers are correct).

edit: looked, the JBLs are 2.1 through a 3.5mm jack.

OSB · 12 Jun 2006 at 21:16

Sorry to post the same question which has been posted in this thread umpteen times but. If i buy this screen am i going to be upset with this deamon know as banding? The concise answer?

PhilNUK · 12 Jun 2006 at 21:37

OSB said:
Sorry to post the same question which has been posted in this thread umpteen times but. If i buy this screen am i going to be upset with this deamon know as banding? The concise answer?

It depends really.. for gaming its not a big issue really, though you get gradient colours all the time in shading, lighting and particles... so it will be apparent, but you don't focus on it if you are playing a game.

OSB · 12 Jun 2006 at 21:52

this will be mainly used for desktop work, photos and powerpoint presentations, will it be a problem here?

PhilNUK · 12 Jun 2006 at 22:27

thats where the problem may lie...
I do graphics stuff, but not tried any till I got the monitor, I do a lot of 2d artwork in photoshop with plenty of colouring, I have a feeling I may find it frustrating to work with to be honest..... just putting off doign any as I do love the monitor.

OSB · 12 Jun 2006 at 22:30

yeah this wont be so much editing in photoshop, but the use of photos and lots of heavy rich colour powerpoint presentations. What do you think? By the sounds of it as long as i keep it in Desktop mode it should be ok, no?

Yaka · 12 Jun 2006 at 23:17

Mud said:
Its on the AV lead itself, not the 360. If the JBLs use a 3.5mm stereo jack then you'll want a stereo(2x) phono to 3.5mm convertor (bundled with the official VGA, or cheap in any good electrical shop), and a gender changer (female-female since the convertor and your speakers are male). This is still only stereo (provided my assumptions about your speakers are correct).

edit: looked, the JBLs are 2.1 through a 3.5mm jack.

sound bars 3.5mm as well

PhilNUK · 12 Jun 2006 at 23:26

OSB said:
yeah this wont be so much editing in photoshop, but the use of photos and lots of heavy rich colour powerpoint presentations. What do you think? By the sounds of it as long as i keep it in Desktop mode it should be ok, no?

I have viewed plenty of hi res photos from my slr and not found any problems with gradient, but I guess it dfepends on the subject. But as you have seen from the banding example in a previous post, that is what you can expect to get with images with that kind of gradient in it. But how often that occurs in day to day imagery is another matter ,again it depends on the subject matter I guess.

Shocky-FM · 12 Jun 2006 at 23:28

Well, im fairly satisfied with mine, it does ghost a little more then my VX922 but once you stop looking for it you just forget about it and start noticing how rish the colours look and how black the blacks look... Its a sweet display.. Also, you don't have to play games at 1900*1200 either... They look just as nice at 1680*1050 which I really wasnt expecting..

If anyone wants me to take any pictures just say..

FrankJH · 13 Jun 2006 at 00:15

Look maybe I am being stupid but here is what I think of this banding issue..............

I am using a 2005fpw and the above post looks to be pretty even on each individual (grey) colour thru each vertical bar - I am guessing banding would be noticable on each seperate vertical band event hough the colour should be even top to bottom

I realise its only on a mobile ( so the banding would be less visible than from a high quality pic - no disrespect to poster above) but with my eyes I cant see any problems at all - maybe 1st hand it would be more obvious

£800 is a huge amount ( no disrespect to OCUK) and Dell have it their own way near enough as there isnt that much competition for a 24" w/s hi res TFT - and the gutting thing is even I need to spend another fortune to game at this res (another £400+) !!

igors · 13 Jun 2006 at 00:31

Jagstang said:
It's a 300x300 grey - grey grad and you can see the banding quite well...

If this is the almost exact representation of the gradient screen photo, it doesn't look good imho. Especially, if this is "native" 2407 mode (desktop) without the additional special effects of Faroudja engine ?!

igors · 13 Jun 2006 at 00:35

FrankJH said:
£800 is a huge amount ( no disrespect to OCUK) and Dell have it their own way near enough as there isnt that much competition for a 24" w/s hi res TFT - and the gutting thing is even I need to spend another fortune to game at this res (another £400+) !!

We will see more and more competition in the 24" sector. Quality and price wise. This is actually good wake up call for the sleeping giant ... Dell. Just to wise up. At the end, healthy competition is always a good thing for us, consumers.

Shocky-FM · 13 Jun 2006 at 00:41

Could somebody tell how to actually test for the banding, im pretty sure its not present in desktop mode but allot of the above comments are concerning me a little.

Neithermind, I found the test image.... umm, the banding is quite noticable in the other two modes but less so on desktop mode... I can see a little but to be honest its nothing that would bother me...

Sorry for the poor quality but this looks ok to me.. Using Desktop mode...

igors · 13 Jun 2006 at 01:21

Shocky-FM said:
Could somebody tell how to actually test for the banding, im pretty sure its not present in desktop mode but allot of the above comments are concerning me a little.

Look. If you don't see it, it doesn't necessary mean that it's not there. However, maybe more important question is "how much banding exposure we have in the tests and if this is really affecting your monitor usage (desktop/video/gaming)" ? especially when we consider the fact that 90% of us are not in the colour critical work. OK .. I guess that colour critical work people will probably look for other "purpose built" models for this type of the job.

Back to the test. I already mentioned that I have my reservations about the gradient picture from the above, as it was taken by mobile phone and quite possibly some colour record is lost from the original source.

Couple of quick programs for the colour gradients testing and they should give you pretty much confident information about the panel capabilities (they are developed by xtnight from Anandtech forums):

http://xtknight.atothosting.com/tools/gradlin-v0.2-fs.exe
http://xtknight.atothosting.com/lcdtest/purplegreen2.png

On the first test, every second row should display nice & smooth gradients. On the second picture, you should have smooth circle transitions from inside out. For the both tests, gradients should be uniform without any particular distortion or banding of colours between each other and without any other colour in the specific colour gradient gamut, not belonging there. If you see tiny (very subtle) colour separation lines (forming the colour block), on the darkest shades of the gradient gamut and they are evenly stepped, or purely even (depending on the gradient row), visible relatively (only) from close proximity (3" or so), there are no other colours present in the scale or there is no "banding" of the colour between each other (separation lines are there, but subtle changes of the colour tone are not pronounced) ... your are OK.

Also, very good colour gradients test:

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/color_gradients.html

Shocky-FM · 13 Jun 2006 at 01:27

Thanks, I can see it a bit clearer in the examples you posted but still not 100% sure what i'm looking for even after reading your post.. I'll stick to games I think...