Ordered a new Dell UltraSharp 2005FP Wide Flat Panel display at near midnight on Wed (that’s when the sales promotion ended), and it arrived today (I didn’t order even overnight!)  It’s pretty amazing what’s happened in monitors since we made our last big investments back in the early nineties (20 in Apple monitors).  This new monitor takes a small fraction of the space the old one did, and has a greater visible area.  At last we can fully open the cabinets above the computer desk!

I did a bit of research, and still ordered with a bit of worry, and though everything has worked out wonderfully I thought I’d pass along some of my learning.

The widescreen was appealing because of the low height (trying to avoid those cabinets was a main motivator for the purchase), but the monitor works in a rather odd native resolution: 1680×1050.  The Dell site has a very useful warning that some video cards can’t drive this resolution, and points to lots of updates.  Well, my computer is the Gateway 901X Media Center, with a RADEON 9800 series video adapter, and I went to "List All Modes…" in the adapter to see if that was a supported option.  It wasn’t listed!  I was unable to find a driver update that would support that resolution.  Would I end up using only part of the screen?  Or would it be stretched and have pixel alias marks across it?

I played with a Dell 2005FP non-widescreen I had access to to see what the effect of a non-optimal resolution would be.  I found that you generally will set the resolution well below the max resolution of the screen anyway, and the aliasing effects are generally pretty subtle.  So I went ahead and ordered it, with the prompt delivery mentioned above.

It turns out I am able to drive the monitor at 1680×1050 after all.  Either luser error in "List All Modes…" or it adjusts based on the type of display it’s attached to.  The screen is amazingly clear! But the lower resolutions weren’t unacceptable either.

I didn’t have as much luck hooking up the DVI cable instead of the VGA.  DVI is supposed to be better for high resolutions like this, but for some reason there is about 1/2 inch of black all around the screen.  I couldn’t really see any different in clarity - so I went back to VGA.

Biggest problem is that with the update in my ability to view photos, some of my recent postings need some significant readjustment - especially in the yellow/greens.  I’ve updated a couple already. And I updated my firmware in my Casio to tone down the saturation at the source. 

I really like the widescreen format - if you’re used to working full screen at 1024×768, all of a sudden you have extra real estate where you don’t expect it (off the side), and there are always good ways to fill screen real estate!