You'd Need this Guide to Make Your Decision!

Truthfully speaking, I have dreamt and dreamt of getting an LCD screen. My wife would vouch that I took hours and hours of our shopping time, ogling around in the electronics store in awe of this lithe miracle of human creation..

Point #1
I do not have a 'proper' TV at home.

Point #2
I watch TV via a TV Tuner card on my aged Athlon 750, while plugged in to the cable box via the composite video (RCA) connection.

Point #3
I had been using the Samsung SyncMaster 763MB which has served me well over 6 years without a problem.

I have always wanted a 'proper' TV as I wanted to plug in the cable box input directly. You see, using the TV Tuner software, the picture would appear fuzzy around the edges, even if you have it on a high resolution. You'd get used to this though, but be brought down bump to earth once you set your eyes on a better display (which was what happened to me..)

This was the reason why upgrading to a bigger CRT did not appeal to me. More real estate, same bleghh picture quality..

On the other hand, LCD monitors are expensive, LCD TVs a bit more, while plasmas are way out of the ballpark.

This was when I did my product research and found out about the issues with entry-level LCDs, such as ghosting, blacks not really being blacks, dead pixels, etc.

I was also concerned about the brightness of the display as my living room is brightly lit, especially in daytime. I wouldn't want a poorly backlit display as what would happen when you try to text a message on your phone under bright sun.

Somehow or rather, as luck would have it, I stumbled upon this item on the local auction site. The condition was 'Open-box' and warranty was given for 3 months. The price was attractive at slightly over USD430. It retails currently on the Dell website at about 570 dollars even with the rebates and all, so that was a considerable saving.

This unit came in a big box (big enough for my 1-year old to play house with..), although not too heavy. Packaging was nice and slim, with all the free cables and manuals stashed nicely in between two large, durable Styrofoam sheets.

Setting up was fast, it was just a matter of clicking in the V-shaped stand to the square recess at the back. Very nice and sturdy..

The only thing I wanted to know was whether it had multiple source inputs or not, and was I blown away!!

It has these video inputs:
1 blue 'normal' VGA
1 white DVI
1 set of 3 (green, blue & red) component video
1 composite video/RCA
1 S-Video (round with several tiny pins sandwiching a plastic bit)

Game consoles, your company's laptops and DVD player? Sorted!!

Once I've plugged in the power cable, the VGA input goes to my PC and the composite video to the cable box - It was time to Rock 'n' Roll! By this time, my little toddler had quit playing with the giant box and was standing beside me in anticipation of the 8th Wonder of the World in action!
I instinctively had selected the RCA source at first, and to see Bob the Builder the size of real kid really was something. My little boy really thought I brought him a new friend back home!

This was really good I thought, and so cutting my toddler's joy short, I switched to my favorite channel - SPORTS!!

Woohoo! LeBron James never looked so damn close to my face!! Football, uhm, I mean soccer - I swore I saw a pimple on Alex Ferguson's face..

I spent the night watching a fantastic Champions' League match between AC Milan and Man United, forgetting that I haven't even tested the PC display capabilities yet..

Trust me, excellent is an understatement.

The next morning, I woke up to see the manuals on the floor which reminded me that I haven't even read the pesky thing.

Switched source display to VGA (BTW, my GeForce4 MX-460 didn't have DVI out), and proceeded to see how high would the display go. Pretty large, I have to tell you as my default settings was at maximum 1024 x 768 resolution. A quick check with the manual revealed that I needed new drivers as the oh-so-old Detonators just couldn't get me to where I wanted.
Fortunately, Radeon and nVidia as well as the monitor drivers are included in the accompanying CD. Installing the correct ones resulted in maximum happiness.
In-Your-Face 1920 x 1200 resolution - There's just nothing like it. It was like two side by side 17"s in all its glory..

Point to note, on CRTs, the diagonal measurement for the size is from edge of the plastic casing to the other edge. That means if the plastic bit that holds your monitor encroaches too much to the front of your tube, you'll get a smaller viewable area (thus the term v.i.s or Viewable Image Size). On LCDs however, the measurement IS the v.i.s! I didn't know this either until I browsed around the product site. No wonder that it looked monsterfully huge..

Swapping the source input was easily accessible with a couple of presses of the Source button. Goofing around with this was when I saw the extra button which is not on the 17" and 19" models..

"Lemme see.." Lo! and behold, I had my TV input in a small window at the corner of my screen!!

"PIP!!" I screamed, as my wife came running from the kitchen, thinking that I was shouting the wrong 3 letters for emergency..

PIP means Picture-in-Picture which enables you to watch two things at once (useful while doing your assignment and keeping tab of the latest English Premiership tussle between Chelsea and Man United at the same time..)

Another push of the button reveals another wonder - PBP (which I think means ‘Picture-by-Picture’). This is currently is my favorite mode as it enables me to do some surfing while my wife gets her daily fix of Fashion House..

If you were wondering, my current setup has the LCD monitor on a 1' high table cum pigeon hole box where all the TV watching and web surfing is done on the floor. That being said, I do have the sofa a couple of yards away, but I have never enjoyed watching TV on a sofa.

Which was what happened when my in-laws dropped by.. Thankfully, this model has an adjustable stand which allowed me to change the viewing line of sight depending on whether you're sitting up on a chair or lying down on the floor. The display pivots left to right about 30 degrees from the centre line, tilts up and down between 15 degrees and the arm holding it stretches up to 5.1" from the minimum low. So long, neck strain!

Not only that, you can also swivel it 45 degrees to view an A4 document, portrait mode, zoomed to your heart's content.

Talk about innovation man..

Brightness of the screen was another strength as at the published 1000:1 contrast ratio and 450cd/m2 brightness, I could open all the curtains and windows and let my child get all the sunshine he needs without struggling to see whether Michael Jackson is really Black or White..

But I digress..

The other nice feature of this already cool product is the USB card reader. Plugging in the supplied USB cable to the upstream port and connecting it to your USB socket on your PC allows you to plug-in your USB thumb drives to view all those old baby pictures. It's sort of a USB hub, giving you an extra 4 slots. But No, you can't do it without having the PC turned on..

Which is really not something that I need, considering the PC is on 24 by 7.

I find that the colorful menus are very intuitive with easy navigation using the '+' and '-' buttons. Something of a drag though is the fact that I still can't figure out on how to keep the PIP setting to stick showing my VGA display as the default input.

The screen also gets a bit warm, not too hot, just slightly - really not surprising given the kind of luminance it dishes out!

All that been said, it was really difficult to find a fault with this miracle of a creation. Fantastic, fantastic picture. Superb and thoughtful design.

I should be the Dell Dude writing this, ha!