When people are talking about the black level on screen. Are you referring to the richness of the black colour itself or its ability to reproduce a shade of grey? Hope that makes sense!
im talking about the ability to reproduce black rather than grey. im used to a crt, which doesnt give off any light when displaying a black screen, so i can't tell whether its better/worse/the same than other lcd's.
It's basically the ability to distinguish between the darkest shades. With a poor black level, the darkest shades are indestinguishable from each other. Check out this test (should be done in a darkened room):
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php#blacktest.png
At default brightness the first square I can distinuish is number 5.
Unfortunately black levels are the main weakness of IPS panels. Based on specs, the HZ30W is one of the best IPS panels around, and better than a few TN panels. That said, I doubt it can compare to a CRT.
Take that as a yes then!
I can't seem to get the dell 3007 driver to install. Both right-clicking on the inf file and clicking install doesnt seem to do it, and when i try to update the driver in device manager, it says that there is no driver found in that folder.
Ok well say I go for the 30" im guessing that all the colour adjustments etc all need to be done through the video drivers right?
I dont have anything to calibrate this screen with, is it really worth getting some form of calibrating device, if so which one?
I will be using Vista64, is there going to be any combatibility problems?
Running heavy games like COD4, 5 etc at 1920x1200 (using gfx card driver) is the game going to look ok?
Colour adjustments are made through the video card drivers. I didn't calibrate the monitor, and it looks great to me. I've never been the most sentitive to colour accuracy though. No compatability problems with vista64 (that's what I'm using). The only problems I had were in windows XP.
As for running at 1920*1200 - yes, it looks okay. But as with all TFT monitors, running at less than native resolution introduces a slight smearing effect. When you do upgrade your video card, though, you will have another level of resolution and clarity to go up to.
Using the Dell .inf worked a treat for me to get 2560x1600 in games - cheers Duff-Man (although not that my 8800GTS can take it ).
Pretty unlikely that the panel would die imo, the backlight could go, they'll have spares. It has an external PSU so if that goes they'd probably just replace it
There really isn't much to go wrong (touch wood!).
No free upgrade for you