Dell Launches New UltraSharp 3008WFP 30-Inch LCD

MojoKid writes "Dell has taken the wraps off their new 30" LCD monitor today and launched the UltraSharp 3008WFP. You'll note that there are more than a few upgrades provided with this newer 3008 version. Specifically, the panel now has a 117% color gamut, in addition to having a 3000:1 contrast ratio, versus the 1000:1 performance of its predecessor, the 3007WFP. The panel also comes with the same pixel response time of 8ms but now has enhanced brightness capability at 370 nits. Also, Dell finally saw fit to add significantly more connectivity options to the panel, with not only two DVI-D inputs, but also HDMI, Composite, Component, S-Video and the new DisplayPort interface. In short, anything you could want to hook up now or in the future, can be hooked up to this new Dell 30" panel."

Widescreen?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the resolution numbers I see that this new thingy is a widescreen. Needless to mention that 16:10 monitor has 7% less space than standard 4:3 screen with the same diagonal, plus the widescreen layout is fairly useless for any programming/web&graphics design work.

Monitors can be too big

[hirschma]

I just upgraded to two Gateway 24" displays (BTW, they're great for the money. I got two for under $800).

The truth is that once you get past this size, monitors become un-ergonomic. Bigger monitors make you have to swivel your head up and down; they also will exceed the limits of your non-peripheral vision if you sit at a "normal" viewing distance.

My $.02.

jh

DisplayPort

[HTH NE1]

Do we really need another video interface? How many does that make now?

There's wireless NTSC, PAL, SECAM, and ATSC.
There's RF cabling to carry those as well.
There's RCA-composite and S-Video. (Let's not get into all the audio options.)
You can get composite and audio on a 4-conductor headphone jack too on portable DVD players and some SlingBoxes.
IIRC Betamax had a monaural 3-conductor version too.
There's SCART.
There's component video.
There's VGA as well as 5-BNC (R,G,B,H,V).
There's ADC for Apple users, and that DB15F connector Apple used to use.
There's Sun's 13W3.
There's DVI-A (also carries VGA), DVI-D (digital-only), and Dual-link DVI.
There's HDMI, latest version being 1.3b (follows 1.3 and 1.3a, not "beta").
There's Firewire 400, and even USB 2.0 gets used for video. Multiple sizes too.
There's Unified Display Interface (UDI).
And now there's DisplayPort.

Did I miss anything? I'm sure there's lots more in just the streaming video area.

Makes HD DVD vs. Blu-ray seem like nothing, doesn't it?

Oh yeah, there's the TVs with players built into them too, so you could add VHS and DVD to the list so far. (UMD is opening that window too far.)

Re:I'll wait for the behardware review.

[entrigant]

It's funny you mention that. I'm not sure about PVA, but if I got S-IPS instead of S-PVA I'd be pissed. The original S-IPS is worse at color reproduction, has over twice the black level, and much smaller viewing angles than a S-PVA or S-MVA screen. Some of the extremely high end IPS types (AS-IPS and H-IPS) come pretty close to a good S-PVA/MVA in black level and color gamut, but still not quite there. You also still get bad viewing angles.

A great S-PVA w/ led back lighting will exceed sRGB with near perfect color fidelity down to the point where the typical LCD black level interferes, and with such a panel that is as low as 0.24 lumens (some even lower with specialized filters). They do as well with CCFL's within the limitations of a CCFL. The viewing angle is so good you can hit 170 degrees and still get great color both horizontally AND vertically.

Perhaps you had an old school non S PVA (those aren't quite as nice), perhaps dell didn't bother to calibrate it, or perhaps your subjective definition of good differs with the quantitative definition (hey, some people prefer some things that aren't technically accurate, and that's cool with me). I own a Samsung 204t which is a 20" S-PVA that I calibrated with a colorvision spyder, and I am extremely pleased with it.

Re:I love the Dell WFP Series

[Haeleth]

I have the 2407 WFP (the pre-HC, they released the wider color gamut HC model two months later). Best monitor I have ever used.

You got lucky. The HC model has nasty issues [tftcentral.co.uk]. I had one briefly. Even after calibration, the ghosting was incredibly distracting just dragging icons across my desktop, and games were all but unplayable.

(And frankly I was glad I had the ghosting as an obvious reason to return it. It also suffered badly from the colour shifting problem that all PVA displays have: the contrast decreases where you're looking at the display head-on, so there's a kind of circle in the centre of the screen where you can't see any detail in dark pictures. Not a problem for office work, but very annoying in games and movies. The 30" models have generally used IPS panels which don't suffer from this problem.)