Dell 2405FPW 
Finally, after over two weeks passed since placing my order at dell.ca I have received this LCD monitor. I have, in fact, gotten two of these screens to run a dual monitor setup on my PC. Both have arrived to my door a few days ago and here are my brief impressions so far.
The screens are huge. I mean HUGE. After a few days spent working on them, I still cannot get fully used to enourmous amount of desktop estate offered. One of the very few things I did after hooking everything up was increasing sensitivity of my mouse, so that I can work more easily. What a difference they make compared to my former 21" Sony CRT.
Luckily enough none of the screens had any dead pixels, which is a very good thing. I ran extensive tests on each screen using DisplayMate and all turned out fine. One of the screens almost seemed too bright though. Since I'm running my primary monitor in DVI, I could not adjust brightness, so I turned it down a noth in ATI Control panel instead. The other screen connected via VGA looked dimmer, so I did not touch its settings at all.
Dell's pivot deserves a special note. The thing is amazing! I can raise my monitors by at least 10" or more as well as I can rotate them in any way I want. The screen is not nearly as reflective as my CRT, which is a big plaus for someone who has direct sun light in his room for a few hours per day. I could barely see things on my CRT before. With this LCD I don't even notice any changes in lighting.
Dell 2405FPW's are loaded with connectors. The unit has a USB 2.0 hub, S-Video input as well as Component ones. On top of that you have slots for SD/mini-SD card(highly welcome as I own a digital camera with SD cards), even CompactFlash (type I and II), Sony Memory Stick/MS Pro, Smart Media and Hitachi Microdrive.
No visible ghosting could be noticed in games. I only tried Unreal Tournament 2004, Scrapland and Half-Life 2 so far, but all looked very good on Dell 2405FPW. I did have to drop anti-aliasing from former 4x down to 2x in order to get smoother experience in Half-Life 2. But at native resolution of 1920x1200, it barely made any difference. Anisotropic Filtering remained where it was before - at 8x Quality. I haven't really tried playing games in other resolutions yet, so I cannot comment on that. I did a quick run with UT2004 at 1600x1200 with two vertical black bars and while image did not look as good as in native resolution, it was still very well acceptable to me.
Some UT2004 screenshots at 1920x1200(no AA/AF, as requested by some people). For some reason these look quite a bit darker than in reality though. I took them using built in command(F9) in-game and converted to jpegs afterwards.
Movie playback was a little disappointing at first. Why? Mainly due to low quality of a 480p DVD! I could see every imprefection of the image and pixelated areas very clearly visible in all movies I played. It was a different story when I played a .ts(transport stream) file encoded in 1080i. Wow, simply stunning image fitting screen almost perfectly(1080i offers resolution of 1920x1080). I'm very much excited for next generation consoles and DVD media which will offer 1080i as standart.
All in all, I have to say that the purchase was very well worth it and I have absolutely no regrets of any kind. I waited long enough for LCD's to catch up to CRT's in terms of image quality and now I feel that they're almost even. While, I believe that high end CRT's still have an edge in gaming, these LCD's absolutely come out on top in 2D.
I have added more pictures including requested sample 1080i videos takes from Microsoft's website.
Posted by P1x44r on 20/10/2005 12:40 
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Wow, killer of a setup you got there!Posted by: Dark1 on 30/05/2005 13:25
Damnit. Now it's 1920x1200. Those look good.Posted by: 1920x1080i on 15/06/2005 22:21
Question : Do you get a vertical bar if you play at 1600x1200?
Posted by: wessell on 17/06/2005 10:31
I would expect Horizontal bars not vertical.
Example Native Resoultion = 1920x1200 This means 1920 vertical pixels versus 1200 horizontal pixels. in 1600x1200 you get 1600 horizontal pixels. Again i would expect horizontal bars in that resoultion
My assumption in the previous question was wrong. Vertical Bars will appear on a 1600x12000 screen with the correct aspect ratio displayed.
Posted by: wessell on 17/06/2005 13:35
Yes wessell, I get vertical bars when running at 1600x1200.
Posted by: P1x44r on 19/06/2005 11:05
The Dell 2405FPW is a beauty. Thanks for the info. I have a tech question for you.. I have a FIC ICE CUBE VL-67 machine P4 2.6Ghz/800 BUS/1G RAM with a 220 watt power supply. I am going to run the dell 2405fpw... what is a good video card that supports 1900X1200 for my machine? I was thinking maybe a ATI Radeon 9800pro. I dont want to spend a whole lot of money and my power consumption is limited due to the small size. I 'm just going to use the monitor for web surfing and dvd playback. Thanks
Posted by: mr. help needed on 07/07/2005 17:35
Hey mr. help
Posted by: P1x44r on 07/07/2005 21:26
I am using X800XT Platinum Edition with my monitors. However, I have a freind that has the same monitor with 9800XT. It's perfectly fine for 2D use and movie playback. He does of course have a problem running games at 1920x1200. Most of the time he just downscales them to 1280x960 for it to be playable. So, beware that you won't be able to play all games at 1920x1200. Even I'm having some problems doing so(with Battlefield 2 and Far Cry).
Hope this is helpful.
Thanks for the quick reply. Is there any other video card that you would suggest with my power rating? Aside from the 9800pro, WHAT ARE SOME OTHERS? The 2405fpw will be coming shortly and the video card that I'm currently using is the Nvidia geForce 5600 Ultra on a Dell 2005fpw (20.1 wide lcd). The max resolution on this card is 1680 X 1050. It is fine with this monitor but I dont think that it will do for the new one... Thanks
Posted by: mr. help needed on 07/07/2005 22:07
mr help: im pretty sure that your nvidia can do much higher res, the limiting factor is probably your current monitor. when monitor drivers are loaded, they limit the video card to the maximum res it can handle to prevent damage.
Posted by: fatty on 08/07/2005 09:27
these Dells are awesome, think im gonna grab one asap!
fatty is correct. The reason your 5600 only shows 1680x1050 as maximum resolution is because this is all your monitor supports. It will be just fine when you get 2405FPW.
Posted by: P1x44r on 08/07/2005 09:58
Just got this LCD last Week. I must say it is an awesome LCD. I had the dell 2001FP which is a very good LCD and a I tell you the Dell 2405 is superior and not just in size. I think that for the price this is the BEST Gaming LCD out there (IMO). The only drawback is that some game developers completly forget about widescreen resoultions and dont offer those resoultions in their options. But once you get a game that supports widescreen, there is nothing quite like it!
Posted by: wessell on 08/07/2005 13:12
Good to hear that you like it wessell! Have fun with your new toy! :)Posted by: P1x44r on 08/07/2005 13:25
thanks guys for the extra help... i didnt need to change my card afterall. Obviously I dont know much about computers. hehe
Posted by: mr. help on 08/07/2005 14:35
I got one more question for you guys though.... Like is said before... my ICE CUBE has a 220 watt power supply in it. My Nvidia card i think recommends a 250 power supply. I installed it in the cube and sometimes the fan on the card spins and sometimes it doesnt. Is that normal? Or is it supposed to spin all the time? I hope my card is not bad or it needs more power for the fan to work? Hmmmmm ... Thanks again for the help!
No worries, the fan doesn't usually spin while you're not doing intensive tasks(such as playing games, video rendering, etc.). It's normal.
Posted by: Guest on 08/07/2005 14:59
thanks again for the help and i'll let you guys know when my 2405fpw comes in!
Posted by: mr. help on 08/07/2005 16:34
hey guys,
Posted by: mr. help on 19/07/2005 16:55
i just received the Dell 2405FPW and I must say that this beauty is a gem! Unfortunately, my Nvidia GeForce 5600 Ultra card supports up to 1600x1200 for Flat Panel monitors http://www.pny.com/products/verto/geForceFx/5600ultra.asp
So for the time being, I am running at 1600x1200 and I dont like it! Everything is stretched so I had to adjust the image on the monitor to aspect to have the black bars on the side.
I am looking for a Ati Radeon 9800 PRO right now and I also found a 9700 PRO for a good price. Don't know if that is good though. I can't wait to see this running at 1920x1200. I bet there is plenty of real estate to play with!!! hehehe
Oh, sorry to hear about your problem. I honestly wasn't aware of this kind of limitation. :(
Posted by: Guest on 19/07/2005 21:36
9700 Pro should be just fine to run 2D at 1920x1200, but I know that both 9800 Pro and 9800 XT will run in this resolution for sure as I have personally tested it.
** Update**
Posted by: mr. help on 20/07/2005 15:43
I just bought a used ATI Radeon 9800 PRO for about $110. and I updated the drivers and.... BAM! WOW! Thats what I'm talking about... I'm viewing 2 web pages... winamp.. and watching a dvd at the same time... Worth every penny! I must say that this is the best monitor yet. Not to mention a bundle of savings. I got this for about $950 after taxes using the 25% coupon and $30 off.... I was just told that there is a spot that is selling this for about 7 something... oh well ... just as long as its under a G ... I'm good to go!
Good to hear you like it! :DPosted by: P1x44r on 20/07/2005 22:53
How do you go for playing games, do you just play on 1 monitor?
Posted by: Guest on 21/07/2005 23:19
If the question was addressed to me then yes, I'm only using one monitor to play games. My videocard can't handle more anyways, plus there aren't many games that support multiple displays.
Posted by: P1x44r on 22/07/2005 09:29
i dont play any games. I would like to get into some but havent gotten a chance to do so. =(
Posted by: mr. help on 22/07/2005 10:17
Do you hear this high pitched whining noise that I have been reading about on either of the monitors?
Posted by: Ant on 26/07/2005 01:04
Seeing your setup has made me want to get two of them, rather than 1 and a 19". I've got as asus eax800xt and can't wait to get two of these bad boys on it, esp playing half-life in widescreen.. dear god.
Here's a link to my only concern..
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_monitor&message.id=44518
Hey Ant,
Posted by: P1x44r on 26/07/2005 21:02
No, I hear absolutely no noise from either of my monitors. I have never heard of this issue before you mentioned it actually.
hey...
Posted by: mr. help on 29/07/2005 03:32
i am relieved that someone brought the high pitched sound up because last night I heard it very clear. I didn't notice it when I had music on but when I turned it off, the noise started to irritate me badly. I checked up on this site on comments about the monitor and I came across this sound problem. Good looking out on this issue as I too have this problem. I checked the Dell forum and I too share that same problem coming from the top right backside part of the monitor. The 2005FPW I guess will do for now. I had no complaints with that monitor. Although I love this 2405, I'm going to return this one and wait for a bit. I heard enough exchange stories not to do the same until this issue is resolved. This really sucks!
Hi, I'm looking at this monitor for my PC, which I use to see DVD movies as well. I plan to connect my PS2 to the monitor too. I would like to know how it handles 16:9 aspect ratio signals, say, from a regular dvd player into the component input. Since this monitor is 16:10, will I see thin horizontal black bars? That would be the ideal thing, instead of it stretching the 16:9 to 16:10. Also, will it take HDTV signals from the component input? (For PS2 games) Thanks.
Posted by: Andy on 30/07/2005 09:32
Hey Andy,
Posted by: P1x44r on 31/07/2005 20:09
2405 could stretch 16:9 image to fit the screen or if you use 1:1 setting it will display two tiny horizontal bars as you said. It's a user selectable settting.
Also, 2405 does have a component input, so a PS2/Xbox/etc. can be connected. Not sure what you mean by HDTV signals, because I have never tested this myself.
Hi again, thank you for your answer.
Posted by: Andy on 01/08/2005 15:18
I guess if you use the DVI port it will respect your 1:1 settings, because it is digital, but I was wondering what about when you connect it by the component, or S-video inputs? I don't think these can tell the monitor the 1:1 settings, they can just tell it the image aspect ratio, so I would like to know how does it work with 16:9 analog signals? does it stretch it to 16:10 or is there an option in the monitor for 16:9 (as I think there is for 4:3).
I am seriously thinking about getting this, since I can't find a bad review, which I can't say for Apple cinemas or Sony's. But this AR thing really is important to me. I intend to play PS2, which can send 1080i signals by component (ex. GT4), and eventually PS3 in 1080p (SWEET!) on this monitor.
Thanks again.
I just read the user guide, which is kinda hard to find on the Dell website, that there is "1:1", "fill", and "aspect" settings. In the "aspect" setting it says it "Increases Vertical image size to fit screen and adjusts Horizontal size to maintain proportional image". Actually what I need is backwards! Fit horizontally, and adjust vertical size proportionally, since 16:9 is wider than 16:10.
Posted by: Andy on 01/08/2005 23:42
So I was wondering is this the case? (Very easy to test, just connect any regular DVD player with any 16:9 movie to the component input with any RCA cable.) I have found no mention of this rather important feature anywhere else. Could you please help me?
Thanks so much.