Dell UltraSharp 1905FP: Setting the Bar for New 19" LCDs
by Kristopher Kubicki on January 29, 2005 12:35 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Quantitative Analysis
For the duration of this review, we connected the UltraSharp 1905FP to a Radeon X800 Pro with factory default settings on the DVI connection 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! Staring at your monitor shouldn't feel like staring into the sun. If you have plenty of ambient light around, you would be surprised by how much different a 250 nit LCD looks compared to a 300 nit LCD.
Below, you can see a comparison of the brightness for each of our LCD monitors.
The 1905FP sits right in the middle of the pack for brightness.
Our Contrast Ratio
We will 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 | |
| BenQ FP931 | 256.4 | 3.6 | 71.2 |
| Dell 1905FP | 234.6 | 2.6 | 90.2 |
| 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 |
The Dell 1905FP emits a brighter image than the Samsung 193P, but at the same time, it also has a slightly higher darkest dark. Even though the Samsung 193P and Dell 1905FP are using the same panels, Dell may be giving the backlights a little bit of a boost in power to increase brightness. Both LCDs appear in the middle of the pack for contrast ratio.
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Amol - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
and WHEN is the 2005FPw going to get reviewed? actually, nvm, i already got it :)JoKeRr - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
always LOVES Anandtech's review on LCDs, definitely the best reviews out there. So I guess response time isn't everything in the end.and what's up with the backlite problem? how do u detect that??
archcommus87 - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
1280x1028? Last page...Great article.
phaxmohdem - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
Time to upgrade my dual 17inch video editing setup! Sweet!*cough* first post! :)
igr11 - Saturday, September 3, 2005 - link
Excellent article. I own the Dell UltraSharp 1905FP and I find few faults with the monitor. I was wondering if it is possible to post your Colorvision calibrated profiles (the ones you used in the article). I dabble in image editing, but can't afford a decent hardware profiling system.Thanks,
Igor
rufwork - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
"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."I'm stuck with this thing at work, nearly literally salvaged from the scrap heap to hook up to my hand-me-down laptop that sports a VGA out and a really poor 1366x768 resolution that makes the Ancient One an improvement.
Hilarious reading through the gushing for what must have been a very solid square (!!) monitor -- over nine years ago -- and to see that Anandtech figured nobody'd see the limitations of analog use "in the long run", just like I'm using it now in 2014. Maybe I'll watch the Matrix too for old time's sake^H^H^H to push the 1905FP to its limits. ;^)