Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24″ Monitor Review @ Short-Media

Lincoln Russell 4 Apr, 2006 at 11:43am ET Article published in Tech

Short-Media guru RADA has written a review of this monitor after a year’s experience using it.

I cannot find a single thing wrong with how Half Life 2 looked on the 2405. It is almost like the designers programmed HL2 with a monitor like this in mind. The images are so beautiful, life-like and HUGE on this monitor; I never thought I would experience true physical synergy with a video game, but I actually found my heart racing and having a slight case of vertigo as I crossed the bridge superstructure in the Highway 17 Level!

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Source: Short-Media

Comments

4 Apr 2006 ~ 3:42pm lemonlime Great review RADA! omg I want one so bad
5 Apr 2006 ~ 3:13am mondi nice review, question though, why didnt you run the tests at native res ??? methinks that would have made things look even better. plus the stretching that happened, (seeing as how 1600*1200 isnt a native widescreen format) would have been eliminated.

also - my 2005FPW's challenge you to a duel

mmm - 3360 * 1050
5 Apr 2006 ~ 10:48am Garg Nice review! Do the games in the article support the native resolution? That's great if stretching wasn't evident, as I'm not even sure my card can push 1600x1200, but I was wondering if the games let you select a wide ratio if you wanted to.
5 Apr 2006 ~ 11:33am RADA

Gargoyle wrote:

Nice review! Do the games in the article support the native resolution? That's great if stretching wasn't evident, as I'm not even sure my card can push 1600x1200, but I was wondering if the games let you select a wide ratio if you wanted to.

Most games load at 1024 x 768 (or 800x600), and must be set to 1600x1200. Some newer games supposedly will seek out the best settings your monitor and video card can acceptablely recreate, but I'm not sure. I haven't bought any new games in a while due to my school workload. That will be changing now that I'm finished with school.

You are completely right about needing a strong video card to push 1200x1600 images to this big LCD, as you would need were this a big CRT. I plan a follow up to this review soon to address some feedback I've received here and through PM.

Upon more review, I feel the stretching of the image that was so apparent in DOOM 3 was due to all the tight hallways and all the straight lines associated with a "man-made" Mars Space Station. Far Cry and Half Life had large open spaces, and "natural" landscapes that softened the eye's natural ability to pick up changes in spatial relations very quickly.
5 Apr 2006 ~ 2:44pm Thrax Most of those games also support wide-screen resolutions by default, or with config/console editing.