Great monitor for the price
Written: Jan 27 '04
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Pros: Sharpness for digital images & movies
Cons: Some ghosting, poor instructions
The Bottom Line: Great monitor, fair price, but documentation sucks.
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| sml82799's Full Review: Dell UltraSharp 1901FP 19-inch Flat Panel Monitor ... |
The Dell 1901 FP monitor is about as good a deal as you're likely to find for a LCD monitor.
Ordering
Dell got me my monitor within days of the order being placed. Moreover, I placed my order on Dec. 18th, and I was looking at this beauty before Christmas. That's amazing considering that my x-mas cards to my next door neighbors took 2 weeks to arrive!
Packaging
This monitor comes in a deceptively small package, which is a plus if you're concerned about excess packaging. Everything is snug and safe in this box, and removal was easy.
Setup
I was surprised to discover that the monitor is actually separate from the base. But, assembly is far easier than, say, trying to get my son's car seat to fit our car (who designs these things?). No need for a degree is astrophysics or mechanical engineering. At first, all the cables--especially the USB cable--were a bit confusing for someone used to the simplicity of a CRL monitor. The rotating monitor was amazing, and I had to refrain from flipping it up and down in a vain attempt to impress my wife.
Installation
Hooking this monitor up to my "confuser" was a breeze. I also appreciated the nifty little cable holder at the back of the monitor.
Now comes my only concern. I run a new Dell 8300 (XP Professional) with a digital video output. So, I happily used the supplied digital cord (so nice that Dell thought to supply both types of monitor connection cords). However, the monitor refused to do more than show me a floating color scheme and a message about waiting for analog input. After much frustration and a few expletives, I tried the old CRT cable; low and behold, the thing worked. But I wanted the digital option. Accessing the CD manual was next to useless. As much as I appreciated having a space-saving CD, it just seemed like Dell through this thing together at the last second. And there was no mention of digital vs. analog issues. So...I called Dell and after getting nothing from the first tech, a second call resulted in someone with some digital compassion. After much searching, my Dell rep located an obscure instruction for switching between analog and digital on the menu command buttons on the front of the monitor. There's nothing about this in the CD manual, and it would take a few clever chimpanzees to randomly determine the proper button sequence. Nonetheless, I now have digital input for my new monitor.
I love the extra USB ports on the left side of the monitor. Great to have for digital cameras and such. However, I often get warnings from XP about high-speed USB issues. Nothing ever happens, so I just ignore them.
Display
The first thing I noticed is just how bright the colors and such are on this monitor. It literally lights up the room. Images and movies are razor sharp, and I love the space-saving options.
I did observe some ghosting (like looking through a screen door) for text. In the end, I had to change my font size to compensate. But it's nothing you can't get used to.
Some of the colors, particularly red and green, tend to overpower the blues. I made some simple adjustments on the monitor and love the vibrancy of things.
Summary
This monitor is great, and well worth the price. The brightness and colors are amazing. Text can appear fussy, but you get used to it after some minor tweaking of the controls. Documentation is not good, but the Dell support people are pretty helpful. All in all, a great deal and I'm one happy customer.
An added bonus is that this monitor doesn't seem to heat up the room the way my old 19" CRT monitor did.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 700
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
sml82799
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Reviews written: 3
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