Dell UltraSharp 1905FP: Setting the Bar for New 19" LCDs

A Special Note about Gaming and Response Time

Every time we claim that the response time on a monitor is fast enough for gaming, we get four or five emails a few weeks later claiming that the monitor we had recommended was too slow for an individual's taste. Attempting to quantify response times subjectively for everybody is a dangerous practice - comments like "16ms response time is fast enough for anyone" are just opinions and therefore, we don't actively preach them. Given some of our previous works on response time, you should be able to draw enough conclusions to see if the 20ms TrTf response time on the Dell 1905FP is capable enough for your own gaming experience.

It's my personal belief that the transient time between two current generation LCD monitors is practically impossible in real world applications, but everyone has different levels of sensitivity on the matter. In general, through sampling our readers, we have come to the conclusion that readers upgrading from a CRT to an LCD for the first time are more likely to claim one LCD monitor as "slower" than another and at least "slower" than a CRT. However, in the same regard, we have also noticed that a growing number of readers who use LCDs with advertised low response times report no complaints even if that monitor has higher transient response times (particularly gray to gray) than the industry average.

That being said, the Dell 1905FP gaming experience was no different than that of the Samsung 193P. We spoke very favorably about that LCD's gaming experience back in April, so feel free to revisit those experiences.

Conclusions

In our opinion, it was very difficult for Dell to give us anything but a stellar product. Combining the excellent panel from the Samsung 193P with the brilliant user interface and Genesis signal processor was a sure-fire formula for success. To make the pie sweeter, Dell also made the monitor affordable and well constructed. The monitor boasted some cool revisions from the previous generation of Dell monitors, like housing the AC to DC inverter inside the monitor and eliminating the brick.

There is still room for improvement for Dell. We were not impressed with the analog connection on this display, for example. We noticed poorer than typical results when using the analog 15-pin D-sub connector with extremely bad streaking/interference errors. There isn't a large reason to use analog in our opinion, so this is not a huge issue in the long run. The DVI signal quality was superb, as expected on a digital connection.

Also, even though our Dell 1905FP supported pivot functions, Dell did not bundle pivoting drivers or software. Samsung and Dell do a great job of hooking their customers up with all the extra trimmings, but it looks like Dell dropped the ball to Samsung on this aspect. We are also slightly concerned about the exposed backlight issue that we mentioned on Page 2. We did not experience any issues in the lab, but this may be asking for trouble as dust can settle on the backlights over time.

The cost of the LCD is right in the middle of the pack for typical 1280x1024 19" LCD monitors. On the other hand, the primary distribution channel for the monitor is Dell's own website. For those of you who don't know, Dell.com runs incredible coupon and discount deals all the time - so finding a 1905FP for less than the $499 MSRP shouldn't be too hard at all. Once availability increases a bit, we should see much more competitive pricing on the monitor as well.

The 20ms typical response time on this particular monitor felt more than adequate enough while we performed our application analysis on the monitor, but that doesn't mean Samsung/Dell can't push the monitor further. We profoundly appreciate Dell's decision to stick with an 8-bit LCD for their flagship 19" LCD panel even though the current industry trend seems to lean more towards cheaper, "faster" 6-bit panels instead.

In general, our hats go off to Dell as they clearly built another winner.