I took delivery of the 2408WFP a couple of days ago and after hardware calibration i'm very happy with the colour, but the sharpness is just crazy. Wouldn't it have made sense to be able to adjust the sharpness from 0%-100% rather than just 0%-25%-50%-75%-100%, this would solve the problem. Simple, but too late for this revision.

After a couple fo days of messing around with the brightness, contrast and all other settings there is no possible way to get this monitor to look good with text. If anyone has i'd like to know how. This is a major design flaw and these monitors should be recalled until it is fixed. The 2407 didn't have this problem so why should this one?

All,

I do not see an issue with sharpness in the lab. Try it with ClearType on and off, any difference?

Turning ClearType on mostly masks the problem, but it's still there with graphics etc. And I don't want to use ClearType since it makes some letters look like I'm using an old CRT-tube.

 

If you turn ClearType completely off and put sharpness to 75%, do you then see the problem? It looks the same as the problem with 50% setting (but of course the edge enhancement effect is not so bad in the 50% setting). 2407WFP and 2407WFP-HC do not have this problem.

 

Edge enhancement is visible on this messageboards's thin letters on grey background. But it's worse with black letters on light blue background with RGB values R=223, G=227, B=239. Just make a Word-document with that background color and type arial 9 letters there. But you have to use Office with ClearType turned off.

 

 

I'm wondering if my problem is that i use a Mac? I have tried different font smoothing settings, but they don't seem to do anything much. I'm going to try the monitor in my pc laptop to see how that is.

I do think it would be a solution if the sharpness settings were more finely adjustable though.

I am wondering if it could be the cable that is at fault. Does anyone know if it is a dual-link cable that comes with the monitor? I'm assuming it's a DVI-D one (and not DVI-I) as the DVI port is. I am thinking this as a collegue has one of these monitors connected to their pc and has no sharpness issues. Mine is connected to my Macbook Pro.

I am also going to see how my Mac looks connected to one of the Eizo's I have at work to see how that looks.

Tried another cable, but still get the same issue.

It's interesting that the E248WFP has the option to select the sharpness value in increments of 10%, but not the 2408WFP. That would solve my problem, so frustrating. If this could be a user installed firmware update i'd be very happy, but i know it's not going to happen after reading posts about it on this forum. :robotmad:

I've had my Dell 2408WFPb (Rev A00) for a few days now.  The first thing I noticed was the sharpness of text when web browsing, it has a light fringeing / halo around it.  This is really noticable with black text on grey / lightly coloured backgrounds (black on white seems okay, although some people have stated this is a problem too).

 

First port of call was the sharpness setting in the On Screen Display, but this is practically useless as it steps in 25% increments!?!?!  Anything above 50% is too sharp, which makes the halo effect even more pronounced, anything below is blurred (which actually reminds me of pouring lighter fluid onto a newspaper, as the print starts to bleed it blurs the text, the look is very similar!)  Basically 50% is the ONLY usable setting.

 

Adjusting the Brightness / Contrast aliviates the effect somewhat, but it's still noticable.  At the moment I have mine set to Brightness 30 / Contrast 45, but I keep changing it!

 

I have a Pantone i1Display 2 monitor calibrator, but if I follow the setup software to create a new profile exactly, I end up with a profile that means screen text looks over sharpened.  So by reducing the Brightness / Contrast to compensate, I lose my calibrated profile, now you see my problem!

 

Is this issue something that can be fixed with a software / firmware update from Dell?  If it can then I might not ask for a refund (for £455 UKP the display quality should be better than this - I also have the red tint issue too, although it's only very slight).  What kind of time frame are we looking at for an update if this is the case?

 

Essentially, if this issue can't be fixed by a software update, and replacing the monitor with another will only mean another one with the same problem (you also run the gamble of a getting a monitor with "acceptable" dead pixel(s), currently the one I have has none) then a refund is the only option.  But I also don't want to hold out in the hope that a software update _might_ be able to fix it either (more difficult to return as time goes by). 

 

Can someone from Dell please advise? 

 

Regards

Matt

 

 

I recently recieved my 2408WFP ( on April 1st ). To resolve the color problems, I had to purchase a Spyder3 in order to calibrate it.  I believe this has addressed most of my color issues.  I'm still looking at a very slight red tinting towards one side off the monitor, but I think I can live with that. 

 

My main issue is now with the Sharpness setting on the monitor.  I was hoping the calibration would remedy it a bit, but not really.  I was dispointed to see that I couldn't disable the sharpness setting or control it like the manual seems to imply: "This feature can make the image look sharper or softer. Use or to adjust the sharpness from '0' to '100' ".  The manual apparently left out "in increments of 25", which is a big problem....  50 is too sharp, 75 is WAY too sharp, and 25 is too blurry.  If it worked like the other sliders, increments of 1, or even increments of 5, I think I could tune it to an acceptable level.  I think this control is extremely odd, since the only usable levels would probably be only from the 25-75 range.  Also I can see having the sharpness setting for VGA or other inputs, but why would DVI even require this?

 

 

Text is the biggest issue. Text at 25 is too blurry... I tried it at this setting, but started getting headaches.  At 50 text has chromatic halos and is just plain ugly.  I can't belive that text on my cheap $250 20" Chimei at work looks so much better. 

 

 

Images seem to suffer a little less from this, but still unacceptable for picture editing.

 

 

I previously had a 20" widescreen ultrasharp at home, and it looked fantastic.  No sharpness issues with text or images. 

 

 

I loved all my previous dell monitors... so I don't want to give up on this one yet.  Is there anyway to change the sharpness slider, ( disable it, or change the increments in some factory menu??? )

 

(Also I was so confident of the product, that I got rid of the packaging the same day I got it... so I guess return is out of the question.)

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

Frank

I've been trying to live with the two issues that are really bugging me with this monitor for a few days now, the text sharpness and the red tint.  I've come to the conclusion that it's just not acceptable, everytime I fire my computer up I start becoming angry that it looks this way.  I'm returning mine for a full refund, then going to shop around for something much more expensive (around the thousand pound mark) I think that's the only way to guarantee some sort of quality.

 

I won't be considering any Dell products in future after this.

 

All,

We will be changing the sharpness increments to 10. Give us time. No eta.

Chris, do you know if this will this be made available in some sort of firmware update or will we need to get a new revision of the monitor?

Giolon,

It will have to be an exchange. No eta.

thanks ChrisM. keep us posted.

Good it's been noted, but it begs the question why the sharpness setting wasn't adjustable in steps of 10% (or even lower) from the start.

 

Too late for me anyway, already arranged to send this back for a refund.