Dell 2001 FP 20 inches of LCD Beauty

I want all to know that each person has different eyes/vision and each person experiences LCD monitors differently, below is my experience, which is purely subjective. Some people do not like what they see, when they watch an LCD monitor in motion. Glad I am not one of them. Please try before you buy. Or find a store with a great return policy.

THE GOODS

I love this monitor. 16ms response time 1600x1200 resolution at 20 inches is beautiful, Colors and Brightness are fantastic. Price is a deal.
For comparison I have a 19 inch CRT Sony E400 right next to this monitor and a Planar 20 inch LCD, setup as dual monitors on a windows XP computer with a Radeon 9700 DVI and VGA out video card. I switched back and forth between the Planar and the Sony for comparisons

It took a lot of research for me to purchase this LCD or any for that matter (Planar went back after comparison testing), I was worried about ghosting and bad pixels, neither of which is a problem with this monitor. The color reproduction was better than the Planar LCD but not as good as the Sony CRT but close. The colors were more vibrant and picture detail is outstanding!
I played some fast moving games like Halo and Unreal, also some movies on DVD they all looked terrific with no ghosting or color problems.
The input selection is vast, you can do s-video, composite vga and DVI, if something puts out a picture you can probably display it on this monitor. You can have all inputs connected at once and switch between any of them, which I have not tried. I did however hook up a video camera and played it back and it looked great. You can also do picture in picture displaying 2 inputs at once. Watch tv from vcr and compute at same time, I tried that, it was neat and crystal clear.

I also like the fact that the power supply was not built in to this monitor and made it a lot slimmer than ones that do. It also has a USB 2.0 Hub with 2 plugs in the back and 2 more on the side.

The monitor stand is very nice, raises lowers and rotates easily. It feels very sturdy even with monitor at maximum height. Rotation is nice and easy you can turn monitor 90 degrees to view documents or web pages in full portrait mode if you have the video card and drivers to support it.

THE BAD

My first monitor had bad pixels which is normal and uneven backlighting (uneven lighting, usually only seen on a all black screen as milky areas), but I returned it in hope of getting a better one, it payed off. Dells excellent return policy is why I purchased from them. They overnighted me a monitor before I shipped the bad one back, all at their expense. Way to go Dell. The new monitor is perfect.

Also if you look really close at this monitor (6 inches or less for me) on an all white screen, you can notice what some people describe as a screendoor effect. It looks like a very tiny black outline around each pixel which when you look at it from 1 to six inches looks like a screendoor. I have not noticed this on any other LCD but then again its the one of the first 16ms LCD's to hit the market. It does not bother me as I cannot notice it at all. I don't sit with my eyes that close to the monitor. I hope no one else does either.

Here are a few things I picked up on the Internet when researching this LCD. They are just my opinions don't hold me to them.

1. Size: Flat Panels display size is the exact diagonal size of the display. CRT or tube monitors give total size of tube diagonally, which is not the viewable size like in LCD's. Typically the viewable size of a CRT is 1 inch smaller than its given diagonal size.

2. Resolution: Flat panels are usually built to display a certain resolution setting, such as 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, which is the number of dots or pixels that make up the picture (Horizontal number of pixels x vertical number) LCD's look very crisp at their native resolutions. There are no focus or geometry issues, the picture is sharp and straight. But if you want to use another (non native) resolution such as 800 x 600 the monitor has to interpolate (simulate) this mode which in all the cases I have seen, dramatically reduces picture quality, it looks fuzzy, blurry. This inherent drawback to LCD monitors.

3. Input signal: Some LCD monitors have a DVI (Digital) connector and or a VGA (Analog connector). The Best picture is obtained using the DVI connector. If you use DVI the signal is coming straight from the video card and does not need to be converted at the monitor and is displayed exactly as it was meant to be. If you use a VGA connector the signal goes from digital in the video card converts to analog, then sent to the display and converted back to digital again for the monitor to display the picture. This can degrade the picture quality.


4. Response times: Rated in milliseconds, is the time it takes for the individual pixels on the lcd to turn on and off or change state, sometimes rated as (rise time and fall time) just add rise and fall together to get total response time. Older LCD's still on the market have a response time of 25 ms or worse, this can result in ghosting or visible trails left by moving images on the screen. 16ms or even better 12ms response times can help reduce or even eliminate this problem which can be quite apparent in fast moving games or Movies. This ghosting in the image is purely subjective, some people notice it, some don't, so try before you buy.


5. Bad Pixels are another inherent problem with LCD's. A bad pixel is a pixel that is stuck on or off, either displaying (allowing passage of) light of a certain fixed color or blocking the light completely showing up as a black spec or dot on screen. It is quite normal to have several or more bad pixels, and each vendor of the monitor has their own standards, in regard to number of bad pixels a monitor can have, before it cannot be sold. Typically 8 or more.

6. Refresh rate: The refresh rate of an LCD is very different than a crt. The refresh rate is the number of times the picture is updated per second. On a CRT a refresh rate of 60 hz would be very noticeable to some as a flashing screen which is more pronounced when using your peripheral vision so refresh rates on CRT's are usually set at 85hz or above to avoid this problem, which can cause headaches for some people whether they notice the flashing or not. On an LCD a 60hz refresh rate is not bothersome because the lcd's do not react as fast as the phosphor in a CRT and do not show this rapid blinking. I for one cannot tolerate a 60hz refresh rate on a CRT, but on a LCD I cannot notice it.