Dell UltraSharp U2711: Quality has a Price
by Jarred Walton on January 22, 2010 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Resolution Support and OSD
While the ideal solution is to run your LCD at the native resolution, there are times when you might want to use something lower. With the fine 0.233mm dot pitch and 2560x1440 native resolution, running at something lower becomes even more likely. We tested the VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI connections to see how the U2711 would handle non-native resolutions (note that we didn't test component or composite video). The OSD provides three aspect ratio options: Fill (use the entire LCD, with stretching), Aspect (fill as much of the LCD as possible but avoid stretching), or 1:1 (no stretching at all).
The vast majority of resolutions work exactly as you would expect. 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1440x900, 1600x1200, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1440 showed no problems at all. Also, when using a VGA connection, every resolution we tried worked properly. Shift to the digital connections and we did encounter a few minor issues.
Starting with DVI, both 720p and 1080p filled the whole LCD regardless of the aspect ratio setting. This isn't terrible, since the image will still maintain the correct aspect ratio, but it does mean that the 1:1 setting failed to work in this instance. We also encountered some oddities with 720p and 1080p using an HDMI cable at times, but those problems appear to be more of a laptop driver issue than something in the U2711. On one laptop, 720p output always looked blurry, and the 1:1 setting didn't actually map to 1280x720 pixels as far as we could tell. In general, though, these common widescreen resolutions still worked well.
The resolutions where we had the most problems are all less common resolutions. On DVI, 1280x768 didn't have the correct aspect ratio, with black bars on all sides. 1360x768 stretched horizontally but not vertically on "Fill", making for a very skewed result, "Aspect" left borders on all four sides, but "1:1" worked properly. 1792x1344, 1800x1440, 1856x1392, and 1920x1440 all did an "aspect" stretch, regardless of OSD setting.
HDMI didn't show as many resolutions, probably because we had to use a different computer as the source (a laptop). Again, "odd" resolutions caused some incorrect behavior, but we don't really fault Dell. 1152x648 and 1776x1000 (underscanned 720p and 1080p, respectively) have a black border at all times, and like the DVI connection 1360x768 was squashed vertically unless you use the "1:1" setting. DisplayPort behavior was the same as HDMI. Note also that the HDMI connection didn't allow us to select resolutions above 2048x1152 (a 16:9 resolution). 2048x1152 was also the maximum resolution we could use on a VGA connection. We're not sure if the limitation was with our test laptop or if it's inherent with the U2711, as we don't have any HDMI connections that we're sure will properly handle 2560x1440.
In general, all but a few uncommon resolutions worked well. Something else we really liked was the "Sharpness" setting when we were using something other than the native resolution. The default setting of "50" appears to pass the signal on without molesting it, but as you move towards 0 the display becomes a bit blurrier and increasing towards 100 will apply a mild to moderate sharpening filter. Running at 1680x1050 with sharpness set at 70, you have to look very closely to notice that the LCD isn't running at its native resolution. Other LCDs have a similar feature, but on many displays the sharpness setting is only active if you use an analog connection (i.e. VGA).
The OSD
For the sake of completeness, here's a gallery of all the OSD settings. Yes, there are a ton of options. We like that Dell allows you to customize the "quick jump" buttons, but we wish they had allowed us to make one of the settings "Aspect Ratio" rather than limiting the choices to "Preset Modes", "Brightness/Contrast", "Input Source", or "Mode". There's really not much to say about the OSD: it works as expected.
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Mumrik - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
This seems very odd to me:"While we know some of you would like us to compare performance to a CRT, few users have CRTs these days and all we're really interested in measuring is the relative lag."
That is an incredibly weak argument for not getting proper numbers. I don't get it - why don't you care?
Anandtech would never only show the FPS scores of the 5870 as a percentage of a benchmark GPU, so why do this?
JarredWalton - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
1) I don't have a CRT.2) I have limited space.
3) I don't want to have a CRT - I ditched all of the ones I had about four years ago.
4) I would need a CRT that can support resolutions up to 2560x1600 -- none I'm aware of handle more than 2048x1536.
5) CRTs are terrible at getting correct geometry. Pincushion and trapezoidal distortion are all too common, even after lots of time spent fiddling to try to get it "just right"... and if you change resolution or refresh rate, you have to do it all over.
6) If CRTs are faster, add 20ms or 40ms or whatever to my numbers.
Lag between user and display comes from mouse, GPU, CPU, and LCD, really - up to around 200ms in some tests. You'll never eliminate all of it, and even CRTs have some "lag".
Besides, no one is making new CRTs that are worth buying, so why should we continue to compare to them? FWIW, my five year old CRT was getting dim when I got rid of it, so I couldn't even use it for comparison anyway. I'd need a new, high-quality CRT to make the comparison even remotely meaningful.
Mumrik - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
Its not really an argument about the merits of owning a CRT. It's about having a proper zero to benchmark against. I don't really see what most of those arguments have to do with measuring a lag time and "I don't have a CRT" is a very surprising reason to see on what I consider one of the nets premier hardware sites. Anandtech always seems to have all the esoteric equipment in the world to work with, both hardware AND testing equipment...This is not some sort of personal attack on you by the way.
Also, it looks like Sony's FW900 will do 2560x1600.
JarredWalton - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
Here's an email I just sent to someone else on this subject (with a few edits):As far as input lag and the HP LP3065, if you trust another source you can find an LCD where we overlap, look at their result and look at my result, and then add the difference. But then, I'm not sure what other source I would trust, because I have seen sites report some of the LCDs I have as a "0" as anything from 0 to 20ms. None of them go into detail as to how they're testing (i.e. what stopwatch program they use, and how many pictures they take and average).
Anyway, here's one comparison to a CRT with the LP3065:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtop...">http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtop...
"I noticed no input lag at all with this thing. I took around 20 pics comparing input lag with a CRT -monitor and the worst lag I got was 24 ms, and the best was 0 ms."
So my choice of reference LCD has at most 24ms of lag compared to a CRT, and as little as 0ms, or perhaps an average of around ~12ms. But then, all CRTs aren't created equal, so what CRT do you use as a reference point?
I've seen other LCD vs. CRT tests where they post images of an 2405FPW and it gets an average of 35ms versus a CRT (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1047842&...">http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1047842&..., which would mean the LP3065 is somewhere in the vicinity of 10ms average most likely.
Ultimately you're stuck trusting some source for your information about input lag. All I can tell you is that I've played a lot of games on the LP3065 and have never, ever noticed any form of lag. I've played games on a 2405FPW and barely noticed lag, and I've played games on the 2408WFP and definitely noticed lag. I could list a dozen more LCDs, and the fact is that not a single one has had less lag than the LP3065 in testing; they have only managed to tie it -- and many of the TN panels I've tested were recorded as "no lag versus CRT" at other sites.
If I ever find an LCD that has less lag than the HP LP3065, I'll make sure to mention it, but when I can confidently say that there's no current LCD that does better in that area, why beat a dead horse any more than we already have?
Every chart on the internet can be misleading if you don't know what you're looking at, which is why I explain in detail exactly what I'm doing. Plus, not all stopwatch programs are created equal; at best they are accurate to 17ms on an LCD, since it only updates the display 60 times per second. I tried one program and had results that were off by as much as 100ms, where I showed a difference of only 10 to 30ms with 3DMark03 as the time source.
So why not accept that the LP3065 is my zero point, and unless and until another LCD can beat it there's not much point in worrying about it. TN panels with "0ms lag" tie the LP3065, so it must therefore also have 0ms lag. If you trust my testing procedures, of course.
(And will I need to go over this AGAIN when I do another LCD review? A reference point is just that, and I can't find anyone that can give me a clearly better reference point. 10ms at most doesn't count....)
redbone75 - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
I don't even see how this can even be listed as a complaint, no matter how minor. To me, this ranks right up there with the classic complaining about the speakers on monitors. Should makers of ultra premium displays cater to people with less than stellar eyesight? Isn't the point of it all to be able to resolve finer and finer detail? It just sounds funny: "Man! This monitor is too sharp!"san1s - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
you are crazy, this is a valid complaint that should be noted in the reviewI'm glad that you have perfect vision- but many people, like me, don't. I would be angry spending my money on something only to find out later (since it wasn't noted) that I would have to change settings so becomes actually usable!
strikeback03 - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
Well, resolution/pixel pitch is something each consumer should educate them on first. As it is a major point of this monitor, it probably isn't so much a complaint ("This is bad") as a caution ("This is something you have to know how to deal with")CSMR - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
Yup, just "This is something you deal with by increasing the dpi setting" would be sufficient.Amazing that you get posters on AnandTech not understanding this. What will they say next? "Don't get that 1080p screen, your 720p movies will look small and your 480p dvd you can hardly see."
Voo - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
I disagree. Just because you have a stellar eyesight, doesn't mean the notice isn't justified, because this IS interesting for a lot of people.If it's so small that I have problems reading text that IS a problem for me and should be at least mentioned in the text. If it's not a problem for you, that's fine, you don't have to agree with the review in every point.
It just sounds funny: "I don't have a problem with it, so it's perfect for anybody!" Talk about empathy..
Voo - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
I disagree. Just because you have a stellar eyesight, doesn't mean the notice isn't justified, because this IS interesting for a lot of people.If it's so small that I have problems reading text that IS a problem for me and should be at least mentioned in the text. If it's not a problem for you, that's fine, you don't have to agree with the review in every point.
It just sounds funny: "I don't have a problem with it, so it's perfect for anybody!" Talk about empathy..