Originally posted by: 10e
Hey XTKnight,
Merry X-mas and Happy New Year
I was thinking that the Dell 2709W might be a strong multimedia candidate for the list.
I bought this in August on a very special one-day only Dell Canada deal, and my plan was to keep or sell depending on satisfaction level. My aim was to have a monitor that could fulfill my console gaming and movie watching needs, as my NEC only has two digital connections which is not sufficient for me, as I need 3 (and preferably 4) for cable box HD use, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC (as a second screen)
I ended up keeping it and sold other monitors because I've been so satisfied with it. To be honest it has exceeded almost all expectations. Other than hardcore FPS gaming (due to some input lag), it has been phenomenal in console and movie duty.
So far it's been excellent with component, VGA and HDMI based consoles. I've tried the PS3 over component and HDMI, the Xbox 360 over component, HDMI, and VGA, and a Wii over component, and the Dell has taken them all with aplomb, not showing any overscan or image distortion over HDMI, and minimal overscan of 2% per side over component but perfect scaling. It also has the ability to do video or graphics mode over HDMI. This allows either video level black/limited range (16 to 255 RGB) and slight overscan with 16:9 and 4:3 ratios, or computer level RGB/full range (0 to 255 RGB) and scaling of 1:1, aspect, and fill over "graphics mode". In video mode it will even display 480p properly, which is a challenge for most other screens. They display it at 3:2 in aspect scaling mode, while the Dell can do 16:9 in video mode over HDMI and component. Very flexible.
It also helps that it has four digital connectors (HDMI, DVIx2, DisplayPort), and three analog (composite, VGA and component)
I have also run input lag testing on it, and have averaged around 40ms. It seems to be a very tiny, almost unnoticeable amount slower than my LCD2690WUXI. I do notice the lag on both screens, but it isn't enough to drive me crazy, and for console gaming both are great. I haven't needed to calibrate GH or Rock Band for it due to lag.
Additionally the phenomenal black levels and very good on and off-angle viewing are excellent for movies. I have measured mine at 0.12 cdm/2 black and 145 cdm/2 white at 5 brightness, so it can go quite low without panel blocking/digital darkening down to very respectable levels. I've even been able to calibrate it to less than 0.5 DE94 with BasicColor 4.1.8 and Eye One D2 from NEC, (verified by Blue Eye Pro). I was also concerned about off-angle gamma shifting of dark colors, but so far I have been impressed with this. It is slightly "shiftier" than my H-IPS based NEC 26", but far less so than other A-MVA and S-MVA variants I've used. Again it has met and exceeded my expectations here. Reading forums with dark grey backgrounds don't result in the "cross eyed" stereogram feeling that I've had with VAs in the past. Part of this as well is due to the larger pixel pitch, and the ability to sit back more than an arms' length away and be comfortable in viewing.
I would say the only caveats to this screen are the initially slow warm up for the backlight, which improves over usage/ownership time, input lag, and horridly de-saturated sRGB mode. It can even be used as a Photo editing screen for Adobe RGB due to its wide gamut screen, but this requires a good calibration suite like the Eye One D2, which adds a good $200.00 to the price, bringing it up to, or past LCD2x90Wuxi levels.