It's taken a while, but LCD monitors have finally started to fall in price at a rate in line with most other IT products. LCD costs have fallen dramatically in the last 12 months, as Sony themselves whined about, which makes now a great time to invest in a new monitor. The Dell SE198WFP is one of the cheapest wide-screen monitors we've seen, and for the price it's simply amazing.
Design
The Dell is a 19-inch wide-screen which comes in the colour scheme mandated by computer law -- silver and black. For a budget design, it's actually quite easy on the peepers with a curved stand and solid base. The stand attaches quite quickly and easily at the back, and the monitor inputs are easy to access -- the stand itself also offers some cable management.
The stand has a 25 degree tilt forward and back, but there is no height adjustment on this model. Users whose desk is at a uniform keyboard height may want to invest in a monitor riser (also known in CNET.com.au circles as couple of textbooks). The controls themselves are clustered away in the bottom right of the silver bezel, and though small are easy to use.
Features
The SE198WFP comes without the bells and whistles of brethren such as the Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP, but also without the price-tag. With a budget monitor comes budget features -- it has a 1440 x 900 pixel native resolution, a DVI and VGA input, and a power socket for the optional speaker set, and that's it.
The panel itself is rated at 5ms, which means it should handle movement with ease, and it also has a relatively high contrast ratio of 1000:1.
The Dell also comes with HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection) compatibility which means it should replay HD content from a Blu-ray player or Vista PC without too much trouble. Theoretically of course.
Performance
Dell claims the monitor has "stupendous colour uniformity" -- which sounds a little like it wears its undies over its trousers -- but colour uniformity is indeed very impressive. Some monitors tend to darken in the corners, but the Dell copes well with displaying red and white screens, while blue tends to show an ever-so-slight darkness along the edges.
As with many budget, and not-so-budget, monitors, off angle viewing isn't the greatest. But we found that you'll get full brightness up to about 30 degrees either side of the sweet spot (60 degree total). The monitor doesn't "brown out" like some of its Taiwanese competitors, but only darkens a little off-axis. Dell claims the monitor has a 160 degree viewing angle, though it's a little less than this, and without a sextant on hand we'd say it was around 150 degrees before the display becomes unreadable.
Out of the box, the screen was set to "Normal" mode, and it was a little too blue for our tastes. Helpfully, there are a number of presets, as well as a User mode, which will help tailor the monitor to your tastes. Some of the modes are a little too vivid, though, and there is a little noise around text in some of the Video/Graphics settings.
Text is incredibly sharp, thanks in part to the higher than average contrast ratio, and the wide-screen format makes it much easier to place windows side-by-side for "better efficiency".
Pumping a high definition video feed through the Dell didn't show any sign of smearing or ghosting, and colours remained vibrant, though not as vivid as some of the higher-end monitors. We were able to view Blu-ray via the PlayStation 3 and there were no blank screens or other handshaking problems. Contrast wasn't up to the level of a plasma, obviously, but the night scenes in Mission Impossible III were rendered relatively faithfully. Gameplay was also OK, but there was some slight smearing in the Motorstorm racing game.
10%
8%
If you suffer from 'price sensitivity' issues, here's an LCD monitor going for well under AU$250; 19-inches, not 17; widescreen, not square; 5ms response, not 8ms or more; with a quality brand name, not some 'Pokomatic' special; and better than 1000:1 contrast ratio! To date, I haven't seen ANY LCD monitor that can match this Dell for price alone, never mind these unexpected bonuses. It can even handle digital OR analogue video signals and comes with cables for both! Sure, the base isn't 'fully' adjustable and it doesn't have onboard USB or speakers but to ask for any more at this price is just plain rude. Look around and see if I'm wrong!
This is my first LCD -- I've been waiting for prices to fall to reasonable levels -- but I was genuinely surprised at the price of this one; with a student discount it came to AU$221, delivered to my door. I'm no LCD expert so I can't say how good this panel is compared with others but the picture looks sharp, vibrant and contrasty. Its so sharp in fact that I've had to activate the 'Smooth edges of screen fonts' feature in the Display Properties dialogue box (Effects tab), something I've never done with my CRTs. The unit is quite attractive to look at, despite what some have described as the 'cheap-looking' silver-coloured plastic framing the screen. It doesn't look cheap at all; its same black and silver colour scheme you see on the Samsungs. This Dell is every bit as stylish as anything around and better looking than most. In particular, the foot isn't some dainty little round or oval thing like you often see, its a fully rectangular base that has decent footprint and more than a little weight to it.
I don't waste my time playing computer games so I can't speak to that aspect of the monitor's performance but I do waste my time on the odd DVD and they look fine. Apparently this monitor is HDMI-ready if you get a HDMI to DVI cable but that's not important to me. There are some reports around that bag out some extreme aspects of the panel's performance but these quibbles remind me of golden-eared audiophiles with their thousand-dollar pre-amps. I'll wager you'd need to be a graphic designer or a big-time gamer for these kinds of short-comings to ever bother you. For mine, this monitor is much more pleasant to look at than the CRT it replaced. Moving over from a 17" CRT, the 19" widescreen feels luxurious. It even feels much roomier than my sister's 'square' 19-incher. You'd need a 24-incher to really convince yourself you've truly got something signficiantly better because then you could see two complete A4 pages at actual size, side-by-side, without scrolling.
If you've got a spare griller for a monitor, don't be lookin' here! Get that 24-inch monkey! But if money's tight, buy one of these. Even if you find fault with it you can always tell yourself you got the best bang-for-buck LCD monitor on the market. You can even tell yourself you paid as little as possible to get into an LCD monitor! I'm very happy with this gem; I actually get excited about sitting at the PC again. I'm giving it a score of 9 out of 10 because you wouldn't believe me if I gave it a 10. It's not perfect, but it's perfect for me; maybe it is for you too?!
BTW, I'd like to thank ZD Net for their review of this monitor, it was instrumental in convincing me the monitor was worth getting. When the monitor appeared on the Dell website late in May, I was actually wondering if it was too good to be true. Your review was the only one on the 'net within a few days of the product's listing. There are still hardly any reviews of it on the 'net, which is why I've uncharacteristically decided to write and post this one. Thanks again!
The good: Unbeatable value for money
The bad: None, at this price!