Dell SP2309W Monitor – ultimate gaming on a budget?

1. Introduction2. Appearance/Quality3. Testing4. Closing Thoughts5. View All Pages

Screen quality is exceptionally impressive and the contrast range is very broad with only some detail lost on the higher registers. This is more than compensated however by the incredible black depth which is what I would consider class leading in this price range. Pixel Jitter is minimal and there is also some colour variation across the gamut range, however once again it isn't a serious issue for the target audience. Mission critical designers and professionals won't be contemplating this panel for serious work.

The SP2309W does have some issues with screen uniformity which indicates that the display has some difficulty achieving uniform backlighting, a finding I confirmed by my dark screen test which revealed plenty of backlight bleeding, especially on the edges and along the bottom. This can be noticed with some movies and if this is something that would annoy you excessively then you may want to try and get a ‘hands on demo' with a local retailer before a purchase.

The screen posted a brightness score of 298 dm/m2 according to my testing, which is close to the 300 cd/m2 maximum which Dell claim in their literature. Compare this to the 2408 WFP's rating of 453 cd/m2 and you can see the benefits when you have a bigger budget to work with. Contrast ratio was slightly lower than I had hoped, reaching 649:1 – however you would be hard pressed to notice in general use and it just goes to show that ‘figures' don't always paint a true, real life picture. Viewing the screen from a lower than perfect angle does darken the visuals a little, however this is common with a TN panel.

Panel lag is almost non existent, however I would consider Dells 2ms rating to be slightly optimistic as I did spot some from time to time – I am prone to noticing this however and other people in the office didn't see anything wrong. Enabling the ‘Overdrive' setting helped to remove it completely and this is a setting I would leave enabled permanently, especially if you are unfortunate enough to have sensitive eyes (like myself).

Watching movies on the screen is a total pleasure and if you are in the market for a panel in this price range for gaming and theatre then you would be hard pressed to get better value for money. The colours are vivid and detailed and the ultra black reproduction gives incredible depth to modern day HD movies. Flesh colours are generally well reproduced and it really does give the appearance of a more expensive screen when analysed with several of the finest quality bluray discs. This 16:9 aspect ratio incidentally supports 1920×1080 pixel full HD resolution without issues. The Bluray disc of Avatar really ends up a stunning experience via the Dell SP2309W screen.

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