20" Apple Cinema Display V.S. Dell 20" 2005 FPW

Well I am once again on the fence about which monitor to get.
I can afford either so price is not a factor. What I want to to have the least amount of problems, longest lasting, best picture out of whatever display I purchase. My decision will be made by Monday as well as a purchase.

The main thing I will do with this is play games so if either has a ghosting issue that is very relevant to my situation. I will be upgrading from a Viewsonic 19" CRT that is about 5 years old.


I encourage anyone that has experience with either monitor to please post in here.
 
I've used both and based on what you've said I'd go for the Apple. It's a better screen than the Dell. As the other topic in this forum shows, backlighting is a massive problem with the Dell and dealing with their customer support to get replacements is just a nightmare. With the Apple it should work just fine out of the box.

However....

- The ACD warranty is only 1 year as opposed to 3 with Dell.
- Not as many features - doesn't have analog, S-video or composite input, adjustable stand or rotation, while the Dell does.
- Post and Bios may not display when booting your PC based on what video card you have, if you overclock or tweak your hardware settings often, it's a major issue
- When it comes to gaming, I haven't noticed any off putting ghosting. They both use the same panel and I've tried Half Life 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, UT2004, Halo and they play fine. Nowhere near as well as a good CRT but no LCD can match a CRT for game smoothness.
- Continuing on that point, I played UT2004 for about 20 minutes last night on the ACD and afterwards my stomach felt a bit off for about 15 minutes. It might have been mild motion sickness, I'm not sure. I've been used to CRTs all these years, so I guess I'm not used to playing a very fast paced game like UT on an LCD. Hopefully it won't be a regular occurence or my days as a FPS demi-god could soon be over! ;)
- One other thing to note is to play games at the native resolution of 1680x1050 you'll need a pretty beefy video card. And you're locking yourself into a cycle of having an up to date powerful card that can not just keep pace with the latest games but also play them at such a high resolution. Of course you could drop the resolution but the results vary from game to game. Some look ok, others look like muck.

That's my advice. If you can get a Dell with no (or very little) backlighting problems it's a great monitor. But I'm happy with my ACD.

Let us know what you decide.
 
I say this as a 2005FPW owner....

If you want the least potential problems and you really don't care how much you spend go with the ACD.

For the best functionality go with the 2005FPW. I really like the ACD, but I wasn't going to spend $700 (I paid $484 back in December) extra to get a marginally better display. If you know that you play in darkness a lot, and that you'd just be bugged by having anything less than the most perfect LCD you can have then go with the ACD. However, I should say that I've been very very pleased with the 2005FPW, it is amongst the best panels of it's size.
 
Yes I forgot to add that part. My office is almost 100% without light. Minus what light come from monitors and LED's that are on my PC's
 
Sidane covered it well. One thing I wanted to add is that I don't think Dell's monitors have a 3yr warranty if purchased seperatley. CS told me they'll see to it that I was happy but said they don't have a specific warranty for their LCDs bought seperately beyond the 21 days return for new, then return for refurbished process.

Another minor issue with the Apple is that while it has a Firewire and USB hub, the ports face the back, so it's not as easy to use thumbdrives with it - I use the front ports on my case. The Dell has it on the side so its easier to get to.
 
dmonkey said:
How would you qualify for the educational discount? Do you have to go in-store and ask or can everything be done by phone or online?
Click to expand...

Many options. You can go to the store and just show some school ID. If you purchase online, you don't need to show anything I believe..
 
So I finally got my 20" ACD this afternoon. It is easily the best monitor I have ever owned, all of them combined. Color is perfect, there are 0 dead pixels and NO backlighting issues at all (hear that all you Dell users?!). The backlighting is so even it almost looks like a CRT.

As is the case with many others (especially 9800 Pro users) I cannot see POST at all. No big deal, if I need to make a BIOS change I can use another monitor when necessary.

The thing that does annoy me however, is that the USB hub doesn't work. Windows sees the firewire hub fine and it works without a hitch. Windows shows the USB when I plug it in, then one second later in Device Manager it moves to HID (Human Interface Device) with a yellow exclamation point and an error code 10 (device could not start). Anyone else have this problem?

All in all a minor setback. I can just use the front USB on my case if need be. In my opinion this monitor was well worth the $300 more than the crappy Dell 2005FPW I had (well, the three of them I had). Nice touch of Apple to throw in the LCD cleaning fabric too.

I was worried that the screen would be too low (lack of height adjustment) and my center channel speaker would not fit underneath it. Well, the monitor is at exactly the right height and the speaker fits snugly between the base and the bottom of the monitor. All in all I couldnt be happier :) Definitely spring for the 20" ACD.
 
I read in one of the posts that it only has a on screen display for brightness? So does that mean any color or width/height etc. adjustments need to be done via Windows display settings?
 
what monitor are you referring to? The apple has brightness buttons on the right side of the LCD, and no on screen display. I just went into the settings tab of the display window and set it to 1680x1050. I had to make no changes.
 
The Apple 20"... I didn't know that it only had the brightness on the side. I thought it had an OSD or something. :)
 
I just recieved my Apple Cinema Display. Evething is perfect, but when I see white, such as in WORD of webpages, it doesn't seem to look really white, but some sort of CRT white, a bit washed out, maybe even very light yellow/brown.
Is this normal or should I exchange it? Can somebody please post a picture of a white background on this type of display.
 
My white is dead on. I dont have my digicam now otherwise I'd post a pic for you. I heard about some people who thought their whites were more pinkish. If it's really bothersome to you, I'd exchange it. No sense spending that much money for less than perfection, which was my philosohpy when I had to return 3 2005FPWs.
 
this is a picture of my display with a white bachground, but it's kinda crap. Maybe I'll post a picture when it's darker here with a longer schutter time. But for now this is it.

DSC00592.jpg
 
anybody else a comment? I would like to know if the whites from apple are indeed deadon A4 paper whites or bit warmer?
 
i personally think that's A4 white (judging by the picture). but i don't have amazing eyesight and even if i did i wouldn't be too bothered if the white wasn't white enough ;)
 
MJ007 / Sidane

I've got a question about your ACD. I've got one myself for a few days now, but the white colours seem a bit orange/pink and as wel as black, most noticable in a dark room. Now I don't know how you shot your ACD in the dark at what kind of shuttertime, but mine seem worse in the dark than your screen. Can you give me your opinion on the whites and blacks on your screen and maybe the shuttertime you used on the dark shot of the ACD.
 
I didnt post pics (No digicam ATM :( ) but my whites are dead on and my blacks are pretty much as dark as my Viewsonic 19" CRT was. There's no pink or orange tint to the whites and the blacks are pretty deep and rich.
 
How is your display holding up in a dark room. I've got virtually no bleeding, but there is still a white/yellow tone over the black background. In the end that's something that can't be eliminated to zero on a LCD screen.
 
ramuman said:
Sidane covered it well. One thing I wanted to add is that I don't think Dell's monitors have a 3yr warranty if purchased seperatley. CS told me they'll see to it that I was happy but said they don't have a specific warranty for their LCDs bought seperately beyond the 21 days return for new, then return for refurbished process.
.
Click to expand...

I disagree:
from http://www1.us.dell.com/content/top...en/policy?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~ck=lf&~section=010
Monitors carry the longer of either a 3-year limited warranty or the remainder of the warranty for the Dell computer to which the monitor will be connected.
Click to expand...
 
RDO said:
How is your display holding up in a dark room. I've got virtually no bleeding, but there is still a white/yellow tone over the black background. In the end that's something that can't be eliminated to zero on a LCD screen.
Click to expand...

Looks great in the dark. The white/yellow tone on the black is next to nothing on my LCD, virtually undetectable. This is withouth a doubt the best computer purchase I have ever made.
 
Here are two pictures of my ACD. One at a darker room at daylight, rainy day. The other one in a total dark room. De hue is evenly spread out then on the picture, but this is the closed as I could reproduce. I'm still in doubt.

1.jpg


2.jpg
 
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