The 20" LCD Shootout: Dell versus Apple
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 27, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Quantitative Analysis
For the duration of this review, we connected the UltraSharp 2005FPW and Apple Cinema 20” simultaneously to a Radeon X800 Pro with factory default settings on both DVI connections unless stated otherwise. Brightness has been set to maximum as well.Luminance
Brightness ranked as one of our most important display qualities. The largest mistake that we see people make when they buy a new LCD is to put their new, bright LCD in a dim, dark room (and then turn the LCD down to 25% brightness). Not only is this terrible for your eyes, but it also unnecessarily offsets hues; a blue screen in a dark room doesn’t look the same as a blue screen in a well lit one!Below, you can see a comparison of the brightness for each of our LCD monitors.
Our Contrast Ratio
We will note the same observation from the 19” LCD Roundup two months ago. Using PreCal and our ColorVision Spyder, we will measure the luminance of a pure white image and a pure black image on the LCD monitor. The observed contrast ratio is simply the highest recorded luminance divided by the lowest. All measurements are in candela per meter squared; larger contrast ratios are more desirable.| Observed Contrast Ratio | |||
| Highest Recorded (white image) |
Lowest Recorded (black image) |
Observed Contrast Ratio | |
| Apple Cinema 20" | 247.4 | 2.4 | 103.1 |
| BenQ FP931 | 256.4 | 3.6 | 71.2 |
| Dell 1905FP | 234.6 | 2.6 | 90.2 |
| Dell 2005FPW | 280.4 | 2.6 | 107.8 |
| NuTech L921G | 278.2 | 2.6 | 107.0 |
| Planar PE191M | 234.0 | 3.0 | 78.0 |
| Samsung 193P | 230.4 | 2.2 | 104.7 |
| Samsung 910V | 219.8 | 2.6 | 84.5 |
| Sony SDM S94 | 233.8 | 3.0 | 77.9 |
| ViewSonic Q190MB | 261.8 | 2.6 | 100.7 |
Contrast ratios were fairly close to what we expected to observe. The Dell display does emit whiter whites, but at the same time, our darkest darks were not quite there. Keep in mind, the accuracy of our ColorVision Spyder is only within 0.2 cd/m 2, and this plagues the accuracy of our results. Our numbers should give you a good estimation of where each display falls in line with another, but it is far from an absolute authority.
For those who would like to see how the Apple Cinema 20” and Dell 2005FPW compare head to head, we placed an image spanning both displays on the desktop and took a snapshot. The image below is the raw image before we cleaned it up for easier comparison.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
70 Comments
View All Comments
sandys - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Oh yeah and as for panel manufacturer it can only be Samsung, not seen anyone else doing one. probably the ltm240w1http://www.samsung.com/Products/TFTLCD/common/prod...
pure guesswork of course :p
Gatak - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
#36, It is about contrast. The eyes are strained if you have a bright light in just a part of the field of view. The strain comes from having to both adjust for the bright light _and_ at the same time allow enough light to come from the darker areas. In other words it is difficult for the eyes to properly acclimate to the lighting situation.sandys - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Hi JNo,The 2405 can be bought in the UK, for some reason it is not showing on Dells site but you can still phone them and buy it so answers to questions
a) yes it supports 1:1 pixel mapping
b) it can be bought but price varies depending on offer at the time, I bought two and got one half price plus 20% off bring each to £540 which was a bargain, others have got around 600-693 for a single unit.
c) yes it can.
The 2405 also has component and I run my PS2 and xbox off of it, unfortunately we get stiffed a bit in the UK and box Sony and MS remove the useful progressive resolutions in place of interlaced so the only way to get a quality output on Xbox is to mod it and switch it to NTSC and for the PS2 buy US games or live with 576i :(
look here www.hdtvarcade.com
Cheers
xsilver - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
#31obviously to "fix" a dark room you just turn on the light... but I wanted to know more about the principles behind it.... what makes the monitor so different when its used in a dark room?
why is it so bad to turn down the brightness?
why does it hurt your eyes? (cause it doesnt hurt mine)
Zak - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Doom3 and Trainz configs can also be edited to support 1680x1050.Zak
ir0nw0lf - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Don't forget that World of Warcraft natively supports 1680x1050!!bob661 - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
#21I won't buy a LCD either, yet. I do have a Viewsonic VP201b (supposedly the same panel as the Dell 2001FP) and it was VERY good playing UT2004 and Doom 3. I'll wait for two more generations of LCD AND then I'll some more for those to come down into the $300 range for a 19 or 20".
DestruyaUR - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Will these new 23 and 30" samples you speak of have HDCP circuitry so they could actually be used as TVs?Gatak - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
#9: Easy to fix. Increase ambient light in the room. It is usually never good to work in a dark room. The "White" on the screen should also be the same color temperature as the ambient light.TinyTeeth - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Great review, but you really should use a better camera... :X