3008WFP feedback?

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tale

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Nov 8, 2007
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For the 3008WFP owners out there, any feedback? How is the scaler chip compare to xhd3000?
 
Let me know if the 3008WFP is significantlly larger in physical size than the 3007WFP!
 
Mine is shipped out as well!

I dealt with Lisa and paid the same price.


- Stan
 
is it too late to jump on the $1640 deal? So why or how is it possible that she can sell it below the Dell website price of $1999?
 
I received my 3008WFP today. Initial impressions:

Good:

1) No dead pixels - thank goodness!
2) Very little backlight bleed
3) Excellent brightness uniformity across the screen
5) Nice colors (better than my 30" Apple in that sense)
6) Dark blacks

Bad:

1) Chokes at the ends of the DVI cable prevent it from fitting into the hole in the back of the stand for the nice cable cradle. Duh... Makes you wonder about Dell.
2) Text doesn't look as good as it does on my 30" Apple, and Cleartype doesn't work as well. I think the problem is not in the panel itself, but in the signal processing performed on the image. Earlier-generation 30" monitors (like the Apple) didn't manipulate the signal. The Dell has some extensive signal processing going on: sharpness, contrast, scaling, etc. I wish there was an option to bypass all this junk. It's not so bad that I can't live with it (the degradation is minor), but it's a deficiency.
3) I wish the brightness could be set lower than the minimum setting - even the minimum is a little too bright, so I also have to lower the contrast from 50 to 45.

Overall, I'd say it's a winner and I like it, but it's not perfect.
 
I got a chance now to play some games on the 3008WFP. Gaming performance is very good. I couldn't detect any lag or blurring. I also tried the scaler to scale 1920x1200 to the native 2560x1600 - it worked very well. It looks better than the scaling performed by my nVidia video card.
 
I hooked up the monitor to: PC running GeForce 8600GT, Thinkpad T40, and Playstation III.

Hooked up to IBM Thinkpad T40:
  • The graphics card in Thinkpad T40 doesn't do justice to this monitor, but the scalar in the monitor itself works well.
  • Seeing some back light leakage mostly in the cornors, but more prominently in the upper left cornor

Hooked up to Playstation III:
  • Black levels and scaling were not as good as compared to when my Playstation III is hooked up to 50" Panasonic Plasma (more like an LCD vs. Plasma issue I guess).
  • Graphics and colors appear as good as Panasonic 50" plasma.
  • Didn't see any lag or blurring.
  • Overall, quite happy playing Motorstorm using this monitor.

Hooked up to PC running 8600GT
  • Don't see any backlight leakage.
  • colors are great - seems better than my old 19" Sony CRT

General Observations:
  • Overall very happy with the monitor and love the space (first time I used a 30").
  • Can see sparkling on screen (due to coating I guess) which I guess is usual on LCD screens as opposed to old CRT monitors.
  • Lag while flipping through photographs in full screen mode. This is probably a result of how quickly graphics card can draw large photographs (?).
  • If there is a way to turn of scaling, I haven't found it yet.
  • Running the monitor at minimum brightness level.
  • When the monitor is turned off, screen appears to be a little more glossy compared to Dell 2407. Just an observation. Nothing to worry about.
 
visualguy said:
I received my 3008WFP today. Initial impressions:

Good:

1) No dead pixels - thank goodness!
2) Very little backlight bleed
3) Excellent brightness uniformity across the screen
5) Nice colors (better than my 30" Apple in that sense)
6) Dark blacks

Bad:

1) Chokes at the ends of the DVI cable prevent it from fitting into the hole in the back of the stand for the nice cable cradle. Duh... Makes you wonder about Dell.
2) Text doesn't look as good as it does on my 30" Apple, and Cleartype doesn't work as well. I think the problem is not in the panel itself, but in the signal processing performed on the image. Earlier-generation 30" monitors (like the Apple) didn't manipulate the signal. The Dell has some extensive signal processing going on: sharpness, contrast, scaling, etc. I wish there was an option to bypass all this junk. It's not so bad that I can't live with it (the degradation is minor), but it's a deficiency.
3) I wish the brightness could be set lower than the minimum setting - even the minimum is a little too bright, so I also have to lower the contrast from 50 to 45.

Overall, I'd say it's a winner and I like it, but it's not perfect.
Click to expand...


How's the heat? I had the XHD3000 and it is quite warm.
 
Nice mini-reviews! Mine is on the DHL truck now and I'm waiting by my doorstep. Let's hope they get here SOON!
 
I am very interested in a few photographs measuring input lag vs. a CRT or even vs. the 3007 (since it is known to be low lag). How much is the input processor costing! I must know before purchasing one.
 
What I am most interested in is how good the scaler is.

If someone could hook up a 360 over VGA or component and a Wii over component and tell us what it's like that weould be great. Any chance of this?

Also what about even older stuff, composite/s-video? how does that scale on this beast?
 
tale said:
How's the heat? I had the XHD3000 and it is quite warm.
Click to expand...

Yes, I forgot to mention that - the 3008WFP generates a lot of heat! Much hotter than my 30" Apple. It radiates a lot of heat from the back, but some from the front through the panel as well. I guess it's not a bad thing in the winter, but can be bothersome during the summer.
 
visualguy said:
Yes, I forgot to mention that - the 3008WFP generates a lot of heat! Much hotter than my 30" Apple. It radiates a lot of heat from the back, but some from the front through the panel as well. I guess it's not a bad thing in the winter, but can be bothersome during the summer.
Click to expand...

It also may equate to lower long-term reliability... just sayin'.
 
SEALTeamSix said:
It also may equate to lower long-term reliability... just sayin'.
Click to expand...

Possibly, but I have to say that I stopped worrying about the long-term reliability of my computer-related equipment a long time ago. I just don't keep the stuff long enough for it to be relevant. Something new and exciting always comes out and tempts me to upgrade before the long-term is reached... For example, the longest I kept a monitor is 3 years - my 30" Apple monitor which I just replaced with the 3008WFP. When the 3009WFP comes out with LED backlighting and other goodies, I'm sure I'll be tempted again...
 
visualguy said:
Possibly, but I have to say that I stopped worrying about the long-term reliability of my computer-related equipment a long time ago. I just don't keep the stuff long enough for it to be relevant. Something new and exciting always comes out and tempts me to upgrade before the long-term is reached... For example, the longest I kept a monitor is 3 years - my 30" Apple monitor which I just replaced with the 3008WFP. When the 3009WFP comes out with LED backlighting and other goodies, I'm sure I'll be tempted again...
Click to expand...

True, you'll probably upgrade before failure occurs...
 
visualguy said:
I received my 3008WFP today. Initial impressions:


3) I wish the brightness could be set lower than the minimum setting - even the minimum is a little too bright, so I also have to lower the contrast from 50 to 45.

Overall, I'd say it's a winner and I like it, but it's not perfect.
Click to expand...

That is pretty much a killer for me. I find most of the bigger panels are too bright, I don't know why they think bigger panels have to be brighter. I had a Dell 2405 that was an eyeball scorcher even on minimum.

Brightness is nice when you sit far away and use it as a TV, but up close for text a lot of us need low brightness for comfort.

Is the Dynamic Contrast defeatable, does turning it off help?
 
Snowdog said:
That is pretty much a killer for me. I find most of the bigger panels are too bright, I don't know why they think bigger panels have to be brighter. I had a Dell 2405 that was an eyeball scorcher even on minimum.

Brightness is nice when you sit far away and use it as a TV, but up close for text a lot of us need low brightness for comfort.

Is the Dynamic Contrast defeatable, does turning it off help?
Click to expand...

Yah; I agree. It sounds like the brightness control does not effect the backlight, so the bacllight is not adjustable. Reducing the contrast just means your blacks are losy. I returned the Gateway XHD3000 for this reason.
I geuss we will have to wait to see what Samsung, HP and NEC come up with.

Thanks for the feedback

Dave
 
Snowdog said:
Is the Dynamic Contrast defeatable, does turning it off help?
Click to expand...

This is with dynamic contrast turned off. When dynamic contrast is on, the brightness setting is disabled (only contrast can still be tweaked), and the image is way too bright to be used for text work such as e-mail, web browsing, programming, etc. It's meant for video and maybe games.

Minimum brightness and a contrast setting of 45 to 47 is ok. I wish there was a way to reduce the brightness below the current minimum and keep the contrast at 50, but it's not really a big issue since the image quality doesn't really degrade noticeably with the slightly lowered contrast.
 
visualguy said:
This is with dynamic contrast turned off. When dynamic contrast is on, the brightness setting is disabled (only contrast can still be tweaked), and the image is way too bright to be used for text work such as e-mail, web browsing, programming, etc. It's meant for video and maybe games.

Minimum brightness and a contrast setting of 45 to 47 is ok. I wish there was a way to reduce the brightness below the current minimum and keep the contrast at 50, but it's not really a big issue since the image quality doesn't really degrade noticeably with the slightly lowered contrast.
Click to expand...

OK; then how is the black level and backlight uniformity after these adjustments?

Thanks! being able to ask these kind of questions beats the hell out of the so called "pro"
reviews

Dave
 
Its bright for sure, but I wouldn't call the brightness problematic in any way. No glare like my old Sony CRT monitor.

Although I don't perticularly like the dusty sparkle coating on LCD monitor. 3008WFP seems to have more of this as compared to 2407WFP. Maybe I just see more sparkles on 3008WFP becuase it is kept in a relatively darker room as compared to 2407WFP. Will be able to do a better comparison on sparkels after some usage.

Also, the monitor is quite sturdy which is good becuase before I started shopping for this monitor I had bought a HP 2408 monitor which was very shaky. No such problems here. Structurally, 3008WFP is quite stable. In any case HP 2408 (TN panel) looked like garbage in front of this monitor.

FYI: As far as I know NEC 3090WQXi is going to have the same panel as this monitor.
 
Snowdog said:
That is pretty much a killer for me. I find most of the bigger panels are too bright, I don't know why they think bigger panels have to be brighter. I had a Dell 2405 that was an eyeball scorcher even on minimum.

Brightness is nice when you sit far away and use it as a TV, but up close for text a lot of us need low brightness for comfort.

Is the Dynamic Contrast defeatable, does turning it off help?
Click to expand...

Ya, I was being blinded for over half a year by my 2407 even with the backlight set to near zero. I finally managed to mitigate the problem by using a backlight; putting an actual lamp behind monitor (backlighting). I'm using an Ikea lamp I "retired" and a 7W 400 lumen 4100k bulb cause a 10w 490 lumen 6500k bulb was too bright and 'blue' for my taste. Now it's pretty good.
 
daveswantek said:
OK; then how is the black level and backlight uniformity after these adjustments?
Click to expand...

The image quality including black levels is fine at minimum brightness and contrast of 45-47, but it may still be a little too bright for me, especially at night.
 
interec said:
Although I don't perticularly like the dusty sparkle coating on LCD monitor. 3008WFP seems to have more of this as compared to 2407WFP. Maybe I just see more sparkles on 3008WFP becuase it is kept in a relatively darker room as compared to 2407WFP. Will be able to do a better comparison on sparkels after some usage.

Also, the monitor is quite sturdy which is good becuase before I started shopping for this monitor I had bought a HP 2408 monitor which was very shaky. No such problems here. Structurally, 3008WFP is quite stable. In any case HP 2408 (TN panel) looked like garbage in front of this monitor.
Click to expand...

LG panels tend to have a more "sparkly" look than Samsung panels. I don't know if it's really just the coating, or something that's more inherent in their IPS technology.

I agree that the monitor is quite sturdy, but it's not as sturdy as the Apple design (although Apple doesn't have a height adjustment).

Another pet peeve of mine with Dell is the way they pack the monitors. They really need to learn from Apple on this front as well. Dell's packing leaves much of the panel vulnerable (it's not all encased in foam like Apple). Also, the box is put together in a rather flimsy manner. The whole method of packing is kind of nutty with them - it all disintegrates like a pinata once you get the monitor out. No fun trying to repack it if you have to return it. Maybe that's why they do it this way...
 
visualguy said:
This is with dynamic contrast turned off. When dynamic contrast is on, the brightness setting is disabled (only contrast can still be tweaked), and the image is way too bright to be used for text work such as e-mail, web browsing, programming, etc. It's meant for video and maybe games.

Minimum brightness and a contrast setting of 45 to 47 is ok. I wish there was a way to reduce the brightness below the current minimum and keep the contrast at 50.
Click to expand...

I was told by Gateway monitor tech support that reducing all 3 R G B levels equally was the same as reducing brightness. Try that.
 
Can someone who has the 3008FWP please confirm the color ... I know it's brushed aluminum, but is it black or "gun metal." Curious to know how well it matches the brushed aluminum of the black Lian Li and Silverstone cases.

(Yes, I'm shallow ... I like stuff to match ;) )
 
interec said:
Its bright for sure, but I wouldn't call the brightness problematic in any way. No glare like my old Sony CRT monitor.
Click to expand...

You must be thinking of something else entirely I am talking about the monitor being so bright it hurts the eyes even on minimum brightness. Ever CRT I have used could be turned down to black if you wanted to and even at full brightness were not as painfully bright as my dell 2405 at minimum. That monitor hurt my eyes so much I couldn't use it and had to sell it. So brightness levels are highly subjective.

Also on some other comments in this thread.

Every LCD I have seen lower the actual backlight when you lower the brightness control. It would be very strange if this one didn't. I suspect that comment is a mistake.

The tech who said lowering R,G,B is the same as lowering brightness is an idiot. One (brightness) lowers the backlight, the other (RGB) just puts more permanent blocking twist on the LCD crystals which is a terrible way to lower brightness.

Having to resort to bright light source to offset the panel strikes me as another terrible solution. The panels should just go to a lower more comfortable level. You would also save power by running the backlight lower and not running a second light source to offset.

How do we get the message across to idiot spec driven, bigger is better manufacturers who are probably now in a race to deliver the first 600 cd/m panel.
 
Snowdog said:
The tech who said lowering R,G,B is the same as lowering brightness is an idiot. One (brightness) lowers the backlight, the other (RGB) just puts more permanent blocking twist on the LCD crystals which is a terrible way to lower brightness.
Click to expand...

What about lowering brightness via the video card? I have brightness at 0 via monitor controls, but can still lower brightness via video card.

Here is what the tech said (actually it was from EzTune (calibration software) not Gateway)
when I asked about using the video card settings

Thank you for contacting Portrait Technical Support.

I would recommend you use only one color calibration tool at a time. To further reduce the brightness adjust the RGB controls in equal amounts should have the same effect as lowering the brightness.
 
visualguy said:
LG panels tend to have a more "sparkly" look than Samsung panels. I don't know if it's really just the coating, or something that's more inherent in their IPS technology.
Click to expand...

The sparkling seems to go away when the background colors are dark. For example, if I set my desktop background to white, I see a lot of sparkling, but if the desktop background is set to black, I don't see any sparkling.

Sparkling tends to bother me a bit, but I am glad that this monitor tends to sparkle less than some of the old 22 inch Ultrasharp monitors from 2004 that I have at my workplace. These monintors were the "in" thing in 2004 and most people at work were very happy to get one, but I promptly replaced mine with a Sony 22in CRT because the old Ultrasharp LCD simply sparkled too much. Sparkling on 3008WFP seems to be more granular and hence not as visible as compared to these old Ultrasharp monitors, but its still there.

I was kind of happy to see that 2407 (which I recently got at work) did not have sparkling. Although a little disappointed that the 3008 WFP that I just bought has sparkling in it although not up to the extent of old Ultrasharp monitors.

When sparkling goes away under dark backgrounds it just makes text appear better. Personally sparkling bothers me more than brightness. I really hope someone in LCD business would give priority to getting rid of sparkling.

visualguy said:
Another pet peeve of mine with Dell is the way they pack the monitors. They really need to learn from Apple on this front as well. Dell's packing leaves much of the panel vulnerable (it's not all encased in foam like Apple). Also, the box is put together in a rather flimsy manner. The whole method of packing is kind of nutty with them - it all disintegrates like a pinata once you get the monitor out. No fun trying to repack it if you have to return it. Maybe that's why they do it this way...
Click to expand...

Ya, monitor could have been packed better. Apple seems to always top the design issues and attention to detail in any case. Although I think the packing that Dell is using is quite standard as my 50" Panasonic Plasma was also packed in similar way.
 
Snowdog said:
You must be thinking of something else entirely I am talking about the monitor being so bright it hurts the eyes even on minimum brightness. Ever CRT I have used could be turned down to black if you wanted to and even at full brightness were not as painfully bright as my dell 2405 at minimum. That monitor hurt my eyes so much I couldn't use it and had to sell it. So brightness levels are highly subjective.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. The monitor IS bright and a little too bright for sure. The brightness on my 3008WFP is set to minimum. Dell could have definitely done a better job with brightness controls. As far as I know if you reduce the voltage going to a light source, its brightness will reduce. So not sure why Dell didn't set up the controls to go all the way to zero?

I tend to get more bothered by sparkling than brightness. Plus, if you work in a well lit environment (which I think is recommended for everyone and easy on eyes) then the brightness will be less of an issue. The minimum brightness level seems to be ok for me, but I would have probably turned it down lower if it was possible. In any case, I should get a better idea with some usage.

Also, from what I have heard, brightness of LCD (and Plasma's too) tends to reduce with usage. After 3 years or so LCD/Plasma panel will only be half as bright as it is today.

Snowdog said:
Every LCD I have seen lower the actual backlight when you lower the brightness control. It would be very strange if this one didn't. I suspect that comment is a mistake.
Click to expand...

I think Dell 3008WFP does lower the back light when brightness is reduced. After I lowered the brightness to minimum, I though the monitor was running coolor (i.e less heat touching the back panel).

Snowdog said:
The tech who said lowering R,G,B is the same as lowering brightness is an idiot. One (brightness) lowers the backlight, the other (RGB) just puts more permanent blocking twist on the LCD crystals which is a terrible way to lower brightness.
Click to expand...

I tried it and it does lower the "brightness" although it would have been better to have the brightness control go down all the way to zero by adjusting the backlight.
 
interec said:
Ya, monitor could have been packed better. Apple seems to always top the design issues and attention to detail in any case. Although I think the packing that Dell is using is quite standard as my 50" Panasonic Plasma was also packed in similar way.
Click to expand...

It's ok for Panasonic plasmas because they are mostly shipped in pallets to stores and then delivered from the store to the home. They are typically not mail ordered and don't have to go through the package torture hell which is UPS/FedEx/DHL.

Dell, on the other hand, is almost entirely mail order.

There are a number of small details that Dell just doesn't get right. I mentioned the DVI cable chalks that don't pass through the cable cradle, the packaging, and the inability to reduce the brightness all the way down to a comfortable level. Another example is the light on the on/off button which is too bright and somewhat distracting. Why not put a small low-intensity light there instead, like Apple does?
 
bw31 said:
Can someone please do an input lag test?
Click to expand...

I am not sure if I did it properly. But I basically used 3008WFP and a CRT connected to 8600GT for the test.

Used the clock at http://tft.vanity.dk/inputlag.html. Here are the time differences that I am getting:

16ms
16ms
16ms
16ms
16ms
16ms
31ms
31ms
31ms
32ms
32ms
36ms
46ms
47ms
47ms

The numbers mostly tend to be either 16ms, 31ms or 47ms.
 
Syphon Filter said:
What I am most interested in is how good the scaler is.

If someone could hook up a 360 over VGA or component and a Wii over component and tell us what it's like that weould be great. Any chance of this?

Also what about even older stuff, composite/s-video? how does that scale on this beast?
Click to expand...


I am told the Faroudja scaler in this monitor is of lower quality than the renowned HQV one that is in the XHD3000. That's just from reading.
 
visualguy said:
It's ok for Panasonic plasmas because they are mostly shipped in pallets to stores and then delivered from the store to the home. They are typically not mail ordered and don't have to go through the package torture hell which is UPS/FedEx/DHL.

Dell, on the other hand, is almost entirely mail order.

There are a number of small details that Dell just doesn't get right. I mentioned the DVI cable chalks that don't pass through the cable cradle, the packaging, and the inability to reduce the brightness all the way down to a comfortable level. Another example is the light on the on/off button which is too bright and somewhat distracting. Why not put a small low-intensity light there instead, like Apple does?
Click to expand...

The six control buttons also seem to be a little hard to press. Should have been easier to press with less force or one of those touch sensitive buttons perhaps
 
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