Man of Honour
Sorry, the thread is a bit late, I've been occupied with this thing..and also missing £302 from my wallet :O
The moment you pick up the stand you know it's got quality - heavy, sturdy...and my dad standing by the doorway oogling (I later saw him adjusting the colour on his Samsung 940BW hehe).
Anyway, I'll keep this brief but detailed, I think the pics do the rest of the talking
- Any questions or requests just ask 
Addition*
The panel Dell sent me is an S-IPS Rev A02
Build Quality
I have to say this is superb, compared to my 2 previous TFT screens and the Samsung 940BW downstairs as well as the Sony TFT in the playroom this is very nicely built, my dads old Dell PC has a 15" Dell TFT which had similar build qualities too - Dell wins here.
OSD
The OSD is nice, I got to grips with it very quickly, it provides a fair amount of control from colour to PiP sources and whatnot. Lots to sift through. It's also movable and transparent so looks nice and does not distract.
Default Brightness / Colour
This is where I was most surprised, the default brightness is at 50, there is no contrast setting when using DVI and the colour mode (once reset) was at "PC Normal" - I found these settings to be instantly usable and photos were immediately more "real" compared to the other screens I have seen the same photos on. The screen is bright yet not too bright, details are clear and using windows in general is neutral and easy on the eyes - it reminds me allot of my friends NEC 20WGX2 except minus the opticlear coating.
I used only the desktop profile mode in the OSD as I am not a fan of "special" modes.
Performance
I briefly fired up some trailers and the BBC HD-Showreel was just ...wow... I also played the new Casino Royale trailer windowed and full screen - again no bad things here.
Viewing angles were also very good, if you look at it form a above diagonal angle there is some colour shift, well not like TN panels but hard to describe, can I call it the "IPS effect" ? hehe. I doubt anyone watches movies diagonally anyway so it's a non issue this
One thing during video playback to note though, the IPS panel "twinkling" is noticeable if you look for it, otherwise you are too busy enjoying what you are watching.
I also played some HL2 and was equally impressed, blacks were black and dark areas were very dark (Ravenholm for example) just how they should be but not so dark that you can't see anything!
Pixel Mapping / Aspect ratios
This worked perfectly, you do have to set it each time you load a low res game though but I don't play anything below native res so it's not an issue.
Picture in Picture
I hooked up my DV camcorder to the Composite in socket to see what the quality was like and to test out PiP - Composite is ass quality compared to svideo but it showed PiP works well and just as you'd expect.
Backlight Bleed
There is no visible backlight bleeding, the screen seems to be uniform throughout, perhaps the lower right area is a "little" darker than the rest of the screen space but you won't notice it unless you look for it.
Finally
PICS!
The moment you pick up the stand you know it's got quality - heavy, sturdy...and my dad standing by the doorway oogling (I later saw him adjusting the colour on his Samsung 940BW hehe).
Anyway, I'll keep this brief but detailed, I think the pics do the rest of the talking
- Any questions or requests just ask Addition*
The panel Dell sent me is an S-IPS Rev A02
Build Quality
I have to say this is superb, compared to my 2 previous TFT screens and the Samsung 940BW downstairs as well as the Sony TFT in the playroom this is very nicely built, my dads old Dell PC has a 15" Dell TFT which had similar build qualities too - Dell wins here.
OSD
The OSD is nice, I got to grips with it very quickly, it provides a fair amount of control from colour to PiP sources and whatnot. Lots to sift through. It's also movable and transparent so looks nice and does not distract.
Default Brightness / Colour
This is where I was most surprised, the default brightness is at 50, there is no contrast setting when using DVI and the colour mode (once reset) was at "PC Normal" - I found these settings to be instantly usable and photos were immediately more "real" compared to the other screens I have seen the same photos on. The screen is bright yet not too bright, details are clear and using windows in general is neutral and easy on the eyes - it reminds me allot of my friends NEC 20WGX2 except minus the opticlear coating.
I used only the desktop profile mode in the OSD as I am not a fan of "special" modes.
Performance
I briefly fired up some trailers and the BBC HD-Showreel was just ...wow... I also played the new Casino Royale trailer windowed and full screen - again no bad things here.
Viewing angles were also very good, if you look at it form a above diagonal angle there is some colour shift, well not like TN panels but hard to describe, can I call it the "IPS effect" ? hehe. I doubt anyone watches movies diagonally anyway so it's a non issue this
One thing during video playback to note though, the IPS panel "twinkling" is noticeable if you look for it, otherwise you are too busy enjoying what you are watching.
I also played some HL2 and was equally impressed, blacks were black and dark areas were very dark (Ravenholm for example) just how they should be but not so dark that you can't see anything!
Pixel Mapping / Aspect ratios
This worked perfectly, you do have to set it each time you load a low res game though but I don't play anything below native res so it's not an issue.
Picture in Picture
I hooked up my DV camcorder to the Composite in socket to see what the quality was like and to test out PiP - Composite is ass quality compared to svideo but it showed PiP works well and just as you'd expect.
Backlight Bleed
There is no visible backlight bleeding, the screen seems to be uniform throughout, perhaps the lower right area is a "little" darker than the rest of the screen space but you won't notice it unless you look for it.
Finally
PICS!
