Dell W3000 (12/11/2003)

Review: This product should have been a recall. If you check the internet you will find the same complaints by multiple people.
Checking out the internet I see dell has the same solution for everyone send them a replacement W3000?s that has the same problem. Lets face it repacking the W3000 isn't fun and to do it over and over because Dell refuses to admit that there is a problem is too much. The W3000 was a lemon.
All I can say is stay away from dell, initially they were great but obviously the standard of service has gone down.

Review: I have 2 of these tv's. They both have great pictures and sound but when unpluged for several days when I leave for the weekend or Vacation when pluged back in you get only sound and no picture. The must be left pluged infor 24-48 hours before a picture will return. If you are having this problem please email me, gmcelvy@accubaki.com. I have seen several others persons having this same problem.

Review: dell ignored my plight. now I see there are numerous complaints for this bad power switch on this model.

Review: First off, you can watch pure 1080i hdtv over air or by a cable co. etc, by using a hdtv decoder with dvi output. I built a custom small pc with ATI HDWonder. can we agree on victoria secert in hd is good? So it can also record my hd shows. run perfect.
- No hdmi support so it suck that you cant use current (upconversion) dvd players and some over the air (OTA) hd receiver/decoder. So resorting to component req. a conversion from all digital format to analog = lost of quality.
- svideo and other source has decent amount of noise and may have too blue setting like cnet stated. mine does.
+ 1080i picture perfect. little or no noticable ghosting, very low noise, color correct.
+ speaker decent for basic 2 channel setup.
Durability: after about ayr so far, mine started having problem with showing a picture after a cold morning sometime. maybe the lamp. but not major but can be annoying. overall , i wouldnt recommend, much cheaper higher grade like westinghouse and others.

Review: I had this TV for eight months now, and am completely satisfied. It is easy to use, the quality of the image is far better than many more expensive TV sets that I tried and it has all the connectivity I need.
I really can't see any of the tragic defects that the editor does: the color balance seems perfectly normal to me, the image quality is flawless, and I paid less than 1100$ for the new set. I can't be happier.
The only annoyance is the stupid DVI functionality that does not work with the Comcast DVR.

Review: Ill keep this short. CNET is reviewing this product as if it is designed to display video for the Oscars. The fact is that most people, including myself, who buy this TV arent looking for perfection. The bottom line is that it has decent, unappalling picture for a cheap price. You could go around to all sorts of stores looking for other TVs that have better picture but at a significantly higher price. For the common person, it is perfectly fine. Yes, the picture isnt perfect and yes some of the inputs are slightly frustrating (though having a computer input is awesome). But it is an honest-to-goodness TV. Thats all I could ask for. If I wanted to make a spectacular home theater, I would not buy this TV but for a bedroom TV I couldnt ask for more.

Review: Great price, great set... it's just fantastic for pc display, not that great for standard defintion but the same can be said for the others in it's class. Colour is brilliant. Some of the specs CNET has listed are incorrect so who knows what's up with thier review.

Review: The DVI input is not HDCP compliant, so after July 2005 you will not be able to use a HD DVD player. You are only able to connect an HD player in component mode, not HD!!

Review: The picture quality on this TV is not very good in my opinion . The remote control is pitiful not functional - you press the On button and it takes some time for the TV to actually TURN ON. The manual not helpful at all it does not explain anything . Connectivity is not that good. But overall its a nice looking TV with detachable speakers .

Review: I have had trouble with my set, purchased in January 2005. Dell will only send a refurb unit and it may be a very old (2003-all used up) unit to replace your faulty unit. I have had three refurb units so far. One was DOA, one was used up with very dim backlight and one was missing its rf input connector with solder around where the adapter would be mounted so I could not install another adapter, easily.
Dell does send a replacement out next day. If only the replacement TV worked well!
Dell is still working on this issue. If they work this out I will repost.

You may have better luck than me, but for more than a month, I have not been happy with Dell. I HAVE been happy with Dell computers.

So I have had four W3000's and they have all have had problems. It may just be terrible luck.

Review: I ordered my W3000 from a Dell Kiosk where they had a floor unit out. It looked really good. And it had all the ports I was looking for in a room unit - I wanted to use it for my PC, my cable feed, my DVD player and my camera - an all-in-one display. It seemed to fit the bill. Dell also sweetened the deal by chopping off 700 bucks from the price, added a DVI-equipped DVD player and even provided all the A/V cables.
The TV arrived within three working days. The free DVD player arrived the following day. Originally, it was supposed to be a Samsung HD841 (SACD/DVD-Audio, DVI interface and DVI-DVI cable). (By the way, this DVD player appears to have some quality issues, which is probably why Dell opted for the 850). Instead, I received a Samsung HD850 (HDMI/HDCP-equipped, HDMI-HDMI cable, no SACD, no DVD-Audio). What this switch did was force me to buy a 120-buck HDMI-DVI cable by Monster Cable. I'd have been OK with the cost had the combination worked but it didn't. After hours of frustration, I called Dell Support (which by the way was available on a Sunday) and they confirmed my suspicion. The Dell W3000 DVI interface is only for a PC connection. I thought I knew that already but one of the things that attracted me to this unit was the possibility of watching pure digital video on this HD-ready TV from a DVI-equipped DVD player (wasn't that why Dell was giving away free DVI-equipped DVD players in the first place?)But this was not to be the case. By the way, to properly display your PC desktop on this TV, you need to load a W3000 monitor driver on your PC (Windows only). I use an Nvidia 5700 LE with 256MB on my PC. Its 15-pin and its DVI ports sent both primary and secondary screens to the TV's 15-pin and DVI interfaces. So I effectively had two 30-inch displays to play in - albeit 1280 by 768... HUGE ICONS!!! Back to the DVI port on the TV, I also tried to use it with a Samsung HD-841's DVI port, on the assumption that this will work. It didn't. The DVI port also does not recognize HDCP. The Dell tech also specified that I will only get 720P and 1080i HD-quality video from the HDTV Component Video interface. The second Component Video interface on this unit is only 480i. What does this mean? There's only one decent port where you can connect either a set-top HDTV receiver or a higher-end progressive scan-capable DVD player. This is not an issue to someone who's happy watching DVDs thru the S-Video connection. But if that were the case, you should not be buying this TV - there's better ways to spend your hard-earned bucks - because this TV can do better than just S-Video display quality.
On the issue of the TV Tuner not picking up all available cable channels automatically during auto setup, I still need to talk to Dell about this. I can access all the channels by punching the numbers on the key pad (remote-to-TV response rates are a bit slow) manually but pressing the up/down rocker button for quick channel change only yields 8 or so stations. My experience with other brands (Sony, Sharp, Apex, Toshiba) on this 'auto-channel setup' feature were much more successful and satisfying. There is also no option to manually set up the channels, as in a favorites list, for example. This would have been a good workaround for this issue.
The manual for this TV is ridiculous. There's diagrams/pictures that tell you what ports are what or what features are available for each port but it does not tell you what they're for or how best to use them. It does not explain what DVI is or how it is different from DVI-A, DVI-I, HDMI, etc. I'm not really sure what Non-Linear Scaling is, but it's a feature available in some ports.
I saw a Zenith remote control and it looks very much like this Dell's remote control. What does this mean? HHmmnn.
With me not seeing how 720p/1080i looks like on this TV, I don't know how well video performance really is on this unit. Judging from the good cable signals and the 480p signal thru the HDTV Component Video port, it's OK. From 10 feet away, the artifacts aren't as bad, the screen is actually vibrant and clean. Still photos show excellent color and smooth grain. Versus what I paid for it, at almost half-price including the discounts and freebies, it's almost worth it.

Review: Bought from Dell Outlet for a very low price. The picture (hooked up to S-Video connection from a Panasonic portable DVD player) was awesome. Watching Mary Poppins SE DVD is a joy. The review here is just atrocious! Worse than Olevia? I really don't think so. The CNET unit is most likely defective. I own a 50" Sony HDTV Plasma, and this comes pretty darn close to the performance and quality of the plasma. This is one of my favorite electronic item. Great for the bedroom! Highly recommended. Buy it, because Dell has a satisfaction guaranteed policy.

Review: This makes a great second tv, I wouldn't recommend it as main home theater tv, but it's not as awful as rated by c-net, I have my Sony dvd installed via component and the dvds look fine. Yes, you can nit pick there are artifacts and such in the picture, but again as a tv for the master bedroom it's perfect. I have a Panasonic 42" Viera ED-tv which I highly recommend as my main screen and that unit is as good as it's rated by c-net.

Review: I bought this tv for a small well lit room and it works perfectly. I love the style (very clean) and under 2grand.

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