- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 102 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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35 out of 39 people found this review helpful
1.5 stars
"Ridiculously BRIGHT, washed out, overrated"
Pros: Nice aesthetic design.
Cons: Way too bright. Everything gets washed out. Hurts the eyes. 2 thumbs down.
Summary: I bought this ?top-rated? Dell 19? LCD based on the reviews on this forum and because it would look good on my home desk, knowing that my older Princeton 17? CRT would probably perform better in actual use. (Man, was I right!) I use it for MS Office work and websurfing. Paid $370 shipped.
We use 15? and 17? IBM LCDs at work and I?ve got a mix at home, so I have a few points of comparison. If the bulkiness of a good 17? CRT doesn?t bother you, buy it. The benefits in color saturation, true-deep blacks, and overall clarity can easily outweigh the cool-factor of a big LCD.
If you NEED an LCD, this Dell is NOT the way to go. Very sharp looking and sleek. Controls are fine/intuitive. The picture is BRIGHT. I knocked it down to 0% (ZERO) and it is still way too BRIGHT.
Virtually everything looks washed out. Very annoying. I?m using a Dell computer and native resolution for the monitor. I switched to Large Font with XP Clear Type and that works for most applications. Some websites still look a bit lost. (19? is LARGE!)
Oblique viewing is not recommended and the black level is poor. I also had to set the color tone to a red bias to keep some richness in there. Helped a little...
I know there have been excellent reviews of this monitor and CNET gave it their nod for best-in-class. My guess is that the manufacturing of these monitors is inconsistent...not a good sign.
Bottom line: NOT RECOMMENDED
- 7 replies to this review
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this sounds like the typical person that didn't know how to setup the monitor and just decided to talk shttttttt about it.
i own a computershop, and believe me that this monitor has aoutaken my other lcd monitors like:samsung,benq,sharp,hp and even some sony viaos. so please don't miss inform the people of non fact opinions. -
Learn the software.
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I am still interested in this 19 inch model.
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Perhaps your video card settings aren't optimal for use with this monitor. If you are running XP and your video card allows you to tweak your display settings (as mine does) you will be able to access this option by right clicking on the desktop and clicking Properties to get to the Display Properties window. Hopefully you will see a settings tab in the window. Click that tab and then click Advanced. When I do that, I get to slider controls that allow me to lower brightness, contrast and gamma settings. Hopefully you will have the same option. Tweaking these should help you get rid of the over bright and washed out appearance of your monitor. Hope this helps!
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I find the brightness and stuff to be okay at default levels.
Sometimes Dell's auto-adjust would blur things up on the display. When you get to your desktop, go through the menus and restore all settings to their factory defaults. -
I bought a Dell UltraSharp 1905FP 3 weeks ago. The monitor was placed in a room with dim light and the brightness was significant. Adjusting the Brightness of the monitor in setting menu was not helpful. The 1905FP was connected with digital input from the Dell Dimension 9100 and the contrast could not be adjusted in the Brightness/Contrast menu section. I went down to the color settings in the main menu, entered, and went into user preset. I set the Red, Green and Blue all down and found the monitor could be very dark and the brightness discomfort was removed immediately. Suggest try Red/Green/Blue at 73/80/73 and see if you like it.
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The problem you describe is exactly what happens with any monitor when you do not take the time to properly adjust the screen controls. The contrast happens to be a critical adjustment for proper optimization of this monitor. Moving off the optimal settings causes exactly what you describe. Don't believe me?...then check out Tom's Hardware Guide or Anandtech web sites in particular for technical test results and some insight into proper calibration of this monitor. Amazing what a little research can yield. Good luck with your monitor, it's a fine product, it uses an LCD panel manufactured by Samsung, and it's the identical panel used in the highly regarded Samsung 193P LCD monitor. All the info's out there for you to read.
