Big, Bold, and Beautiful

By David Cohn

I know thou shall not covet, but I’ve wanted a 30-inch ultra high-resolution display ever since I first laid eyes on the 4-megapixel Apple Cinema HD Display. I finally got my hands on one when Dell sent us its 3007WFP flat-panel LCD monitor. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to take it out of its box and set it up.

Talk about visual gratification. There’s only one word for this monitor—awesome. The 3007WFP measures 30-inches (diagonal) and has a native resolution of 2560 x 1600. You can’t imagine how much screen real estate that is until you’ve experienced it first hand. I could easily open a CAD application, web browser, word processor, and a spreadsheet and view them all comfortably on screen at the same time.

The Specs

The 3007WFP monitor comes already assembled on its base and weighs just 22 pounds. The panel itself measures 27.16 x 17.7 x 2.93 inches with its base increasing the overall depth to just less than 8 inches. The base enables the monitor to be raised and lowered over a 3.5-inch range.

When lowered all the way, the bottom of the bezel is less than an inch above my desk and the height adjustment locks. The locking mechanism sounds like a good idea, but it can be awkward to reach around behind this big panel to press the release button. The panel tilts 3 degrees forward and 19 degrees backward and swivels 60 degrees left and right. The stand attaches to the panel using standard VESA 100mm mounting holes,  so you could detach it and use other mounting solutions.

The Dell 3007WFP LCD monitor

The active matrix TFT panel has a contrast ratio of 700:1, a brightness of 400 candelas per square meter, and a dot pitch of 0.25mm. Response time averages 11 milliseconds grey-to-grey and 14 ms black-to-black. With horizontal and vertical viewing angles of 178 degrees, the monitor is easily viewable from virtually anywhere in the room with no discernable reduction in brightness or clarity.

In addition to its native 2560 x 1600 resolution, the 3007WFP supports lower resolutions, but has only one other preset mode (1280 x 800). To use the maximum resolution, you must connect the monitor to a dual link-capable graphics card. For our tests, I connected the monitor to the NVIDIA  Quadro FX 4500 card in a Dell Precision 690 workstation. Most new ATI  and NVIDIA cards support dual link. The monitor accepts power in a range from 100 to 240 volts and 50/50 Hz. Brackets on the back of the panel let you attach an optional Dell Soundbar.

Controls are fairly minimal. Three buttons in the lower-right corner of the bezel turn the monitor on and off and adjust the brightness of the CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) backlight. The power button includes an LED that glows blue during normal operation when the monitor uses 117 watts and amber when in sleep mode during which power consumption drops to less than 3 watts.

Rear-panel connections include a single digital DVI port (a second DVI port would have been nice), a USB upstream port for the built-in USB hub,  and two USB 2.0 ports. There’s also a power connector for the optional Soundbar. While the two rear-panel USB ports are difficult to access, there are two more USB ports along the left edge of the panel along with a 9-in-2 memory card reader that supports CF, SD, SM, MMC, and memory stick.

Quality Check

We used DisplayMate from DisplayMate Technologies  to help evaluate the visual quality of the 3007WFP. DisplayMate uses a series of test patterns to help you fine-tune the image and picture quality of your displays and to help discover any picture quality or video artifacts that might otherwise go unrecognized. We regularly use DisplayMate both to test monitors and to help us adjust our own monitors for optimum performance.

While LCD monitors are generally sharp and show no geometric distortion,  they often have difficulty producing black and very dark greys, show fewer than 256 discrete grey-scale intensity levels, and usually lack color accuracy. But the most serious problem facing any LCD is bad pixels. A stuck pixel can produce a bright spot when viewed on a dark background or a dark spot on an otherwise bright background, while subpixel defects affect just one of the red, green, or blue colors and only become visible when viewed on specific background colors.

We detected no pixel defects in our evaluation unit. Other tests revealed excellent black levels, but the Dell 3007WFP had some difficulty producing a full range of grey scales. LCD panels typically react more slowly than CRTs, but with its excellent response time, we saw no evidence of smearing when viewing rapidly moving images.

Dell provides a DVI cable, USB uplink cable, and a CD containing HTML-based documentation and a monitor utility tool. Once its driver is installed, you can control the 3007WFP from the Display Properties dialog box. Unfortunately, the documentation never explains this, a bit of an oversight since the monitor does not have an OSD (on-screen display) for adjusting the panel. But since the driver-based monitor controls only let you turn the panel on and off, disable the monitor’s own power and brightness buttons, and adjust the brightness using a slider, you won’t lose much if you don’t install the monitor driver.

Dell backs the 3007WFP monitor with a three-year warranty that includes an advanced exchange service, and you can extend the warranty and add accidental damage coverage for a modest additional cost. The Dell 3007WFP has a suggested retail price of $2,199, but is currently available on the Dell website for $1,734. At that price, it may be the perfect monitor for CAD and graphics professionals.

David Cohn is a computer consultant and technical writer based in Bellingham, WA, and has been benchmarking PCs since 1984. He’s a contributing editor to Desktop Engineering, an applications engineer with The PPI Group, the former editor-in-chief of Engineering Automation Report  and CADCAMNet published by Cyon Research Corp., and the author of more than a dozen books. You can contact him via e-mail at [email protected]  or visit his website at www.dscohn.com.

Dell 3007WFP Monitor At a Glance

Dell
Round Rock, TX

> Price: $1,734
> Size: 30-inches (diagonal)
> Display Type: Active matrix TFT (thin film transistor)
> Measurements: 27.16 x 17.7 x 7.87 inches (W x H x D) on base
> Weight: 22 pounds
> Native Resolution: 2560 x 1600 pixels
> Horizontal Frequency Range:  49.31-98.71 kHz
> Vertical Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
> Display Brightness: 400 cd/m2
> Contrast Ratio: 700:1
> Dot Pitch: 0.250mm
> Response Time: 14ms (black-to-black) 11ms (grey-to-grey)
> Connections: One DVI-D
> Power Range: 100-240 volts, 50/60 Hz
> Power Consumption: 117 watts typical, 3 watts in sleep mode
> I/O Ports:  Self-powered USB 2.0 hub with one upstream, four downstream ports; 9-in-2 card reader
> Other Features:  Tilt/swivel base, DVI cable included, USB upstream cable included, software included