Gizmodo
Dell has gone monitor-crazy lately, and adding to yesterday's rollout of its gorgeous Dell Crystal monitor, now the company's updated its 30-inch display line, and this one's called the Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP-HC. We've had one in-house here for the past month, beholding its huge expanse and basking in its 2560x1600 resolution. The main events with this display are its clean new design that looks rather plain from the front but shiny and especially luxurious from the back, and its ability to connect up to DisplayPort, the new standard for computer monitors that will make things a lot easier for such high-resolution displays.
Check out the gallery and you'll see the 3008WFP's brushed aluminum housing. The base is piano black, shiny glass that supports the cantilever arm. That's a nice architectural touch, but you lose the ability to raise and lower the height of the monitor.
When we first hooked up and plugged in this display, we were shocked at how bright it was, using a conventional fluorescent backlight (we had hoped for LEDs, but no) to pump out a quoted 3000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and brightness that was so brilliant, we had to back it off a bit. Dell has also built in its TrueColor technology, pumping out a 117% color gamut that makes the other monitors we had sitting next to it look like they were nearly black and white. Yes, these colors are almost infinitely adjustable, too, so artists and even the keenest eyes won't be disappointed.
Like other Dell monitors, there are plenty of places to plug in whatever suits your fancy, including four USB ports, and slots for nine different types of flash memory cards. That works especially well for those of us who keep our workstations in separate locations from our workspace.
That brings up the DisplayPort connectivity, which we weren't able to test because there aren't any shipping DisplayPort graphics cards yet, but when there are, one of the advantages of that new spec will be the ability to daisy chain monitors. That means that one cable coming from your computer (that might be setting off on a server closet somewhere) can hook up to one of these displays, and then connect to another one beside it, giving you dual displays with just one cable leading back to the mother ship. Nice.
Besides that up-to-date connectivity, you can also plug just about anything else that generates video into the bottom side of this display. That means you can plug in HDMI with HDCP support, VGA, two DVI ports (but you'll need dual-link DVI for that magnificent 2560x1600 resolution), audio outputs from the HDMI, S-Video, composite, component, but it's not easy to plug these things in because all those ports are hard to reach. Sure, they're hidden away, out of sight, and you only need to plug in things occasionally, but it would've been nice to have this huge patch bay a bit more accessible.
Running our suite of DisplayMate obstacle course graphics through this monitor revealed spectacular resolution, worthy of the name UltraSharp. We found it to be an expansive, yet expensive display, but still a great value for its $1999 price. It's the best display we've seen. [Dell]
Comments
I picked two of these up a few weeks ago from Dell and I'm loving them. Wish Apple would update their line, but these work lovely on my Mac.
Nice monitor porn.
Assholes at Dell Small Business sold me the old one when I asked if there was a new one two weeks ago.
This is why people hate Dell sales weasels. There must have been an extra 2 bucks commission on the old one.
Guess who is getting a 30 inch back tomorrow?
"Sure, they're hidden away, out of sight, and you only need to plug in things occasionally, but it would've been nice to have this huge patch bay a bit more accessible."
How?
They're right where they should be. Changing the position of the bay necessarily means changing the flow of any cables connected to it.
I definitely going to end up with one of these to replace my 2407WFP, but it's never easy to part with 2Gs.
Pretty sure only a small group of people know release dates, and no the commission structure. Doesn't work like you have proposed either. And you realized you bought a 30-07<-------- 2007 model?
@jonnyobrien:
They probably didn't know it was coming out. Believe it or not, big companies don't tell their sales reps when the next thing is launching, they just spring it on them.
It's been available on their business website for a month or so.
"[...] but shiny and especially luxurious from the back [...]"?
Do they understand the negative chi aspects of that?!? Run for the Feng Shui hills my friends.
Well, at least the wall will have something nice to look at....
@jonnyobrien: Dell?
shiny as in smudges all over the place?
Im waiting for Apple to drop the new Cinema Displays.
@ImTheKing: I'm doing likewise. Dell makes some great displays, but I like the design and firewire hub capability of the Apple CD's.
Did you test the 360 or PS3 on this beautiful display? If so, how's the response time? One of the things about my old school 2405FPW is that some games don't feel quite right due to slight video lag. It's not too bad when I hook up the 360 through VGA, but quite noticeable (to me) with component cables.
Since this one has HDMI in, I'm wondering if it helps.
The daisy chaining is really interesting, but I only see one display port input, do I need a special cable with 2 outputs (like an IDE cable)?
How's it compare to the Gateway XHD3000?
I like how, in the top-down view, the stand creates the universal on/off symbol. That's what sold me! ;-)
Holy crap, these things cost $2300!!! Who spends that much on a monitor?!?
I have unconditional love for this monitor but what's the logic behind a stand that has no height adjustment?
This is a really nice monitor. It's got the expanded color gamut, a dynamic contrast more than 4x greater than a CD and a published response time 43% faster than the published response time of the CD. From a graphics designer POV, these numbers are all coming up good. Given I don't have a bunch of firewire (!) peripherals ... I can use the two I have on my computer, if necessary. SATA's how I deal with my external drives and I only have the one HV20, so it's no big deal.
Looks like Dell is finding ways to jack up their monitor prices.
First that "Crystal" display, which basically takes a $300 22" monitor, adds speakers and some glass, and raises the price to $1200.
Now this 30" display takes us back to the price that Dell's 30" monitors debuted at 2 years ago? Sure, this one adds more connectivity, likely a good video-scaling chip, and a great color gamut...but somehow I doubt that costs an extra $800 compared to last year's 30 incher, which has been almost constantly on sale for under $1200 for the last 4 months or so.
The increased color gamut likely costs very little - probably just a different cathode for the back light, as in last year's HC updates. And (almost) all those connectivity options are already on the 24" monitor that costs less than $700. Sure, the scaling chip has to work with the much higher 2560x1600 native resolution in this case...but I'm still not seeing where this $800 price premium comes from.
Man, I've had my eye on a 30" monitor since they came out, waiting for them to drop in price like the smaller LCD's did -- it was almost a 40% price drop per year for a while there for 17-20" monitors. But now, after about 2 years, Dell's 30-incher is back up where it started, the waiting starts all over again, and I am sad.
I'm stoked Dell is continuing to improve the 30" screen - hopefully they are building a 36" and a 40" model as well.
Very nice, but where's the up-scaling? Gateway can do it, and they otherwise stink!
I love my 3007WFP to death but god damn it I want the new hookups! This would let me play my PS3 on it now because it has HDMI in. Theoretically you could use it as a TV too if you had windows media center. You coudl use the computer as the Tuner then just use component/hdmi cords to output the stuff to the screen. This is one hell of a monitor but no way can I afford it yet.
I have this theory on the $600 additional price. Which is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with how much more it costs to _build_ such a monitor and everything to do with how much more people _value_ said monitor. At least as measured by how much they're willing to pay for it.
And then there's the fact that while it's easy to run discounts and specials and such, it's nearly impossible to _raise_ the price of something if you start out too low. If you set the price at $1400 and immediately sold every last monitor you could build for 4 months you'd feel like an idiot.
Besides, setting the price "too high" initially lets you take a little extra money from the foolish prodigal early adopters. Like, um, me. :)
I bought this monitor to do Photoshop color work on and the one I got is totally unacceptable for use in that regard.
I calibrated using i1 Photo through every possible configuration (dvi-1 & 2 , vga, native, A98, Manual, factory default , etc., on a mac using OS X, with essentially the same result. If you set a NEUTRAL gray background (desktop) it is not consistent in color or density to the eye. Mine was reddish on the right, green/cyan on top yellowish across the bottom , and blotchy brightness-wise across the whole panel.
IT IS NOT THE VIEWING ANGLE-as the colors and effects did not change as you moved your head only the intensity of the defect.
The monitor profiles just fine (but I had to reduce brightness from 75 [factory] to 3 to achieve 120 ft/candels) and the gammut does closely match the A98 color space as they say- even exceeding it in the red/magenta axis, just shy in the green but if you are planning on WYSIWYG color calibrated & profiled workflow this is panel (just mine?) is not gonna cut it.
FWIW, I POSTED ESSENTIALLY THIS SAME INFO ON THE DELL WEBPAGE FOR THIS MONITOR AND THEY HAVE NEGLECTED TO POST IT ALONG WITH THE MORE FAVORABLE LESS CRITICAL REVIEWS.
I even said that for for less critical applications this would probably be an awesome monitor.
I have 2 older Dell displays (2405's) that are not nearly as advanced as this one and one Apple 23" Cinema Display that I use daily for color work for years now, and they do not display the same anomalies as the 3008 WFP .
ALSO their "TECH SUPPORT" is a JOKE. They read to you from the user manual that you get with the purchase.
THERE IS NO MONITOR EXPERT TO HELP SOLVE ANY PROBLEMS OTHER THAN BASIC SET UP FUNCTION and CONNECTIVITY - THAT I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET TO.
I may give them one more shot with an exchange but that's a crapshoot-just a roll of the dice... THEY NEED A QC/QA support Dept.
The EIZO for 25% more may be a smarter if not more painful solution. Or wait for the new Apples....
BUYER BEWARE.... We are talking 2 grand here.....
But that's just my experience, your mileage may vary......
Why isn't my review from this morning up yet??
...Nevermind...
2 grand well spent and although I wasn't expecting absolute perfection from and LCD this baby rocks my socks or should I say my eyes, have never seen an LCD with such good color coverage, tuneability and scaling. Playing games on this baby is gonna blow your mind.
Start a discussion:
Login with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?