I have two Dell 17" LCD monitors (Dell 1707FP). I had to have Dell send me a replacement monitor for one because the color is bad. B&W hues have a bluish tint and no amount of fiddling with the RGB values will make that color flaw go away. I got the replacement today and the replacement has the exact same problem. Grrrr! How many times am I going to have to send monitors back and forth to Dell till I get one that is right?
I’m not being overly picky about the monitor. I’m not counting dead pixels (I haven’t even looked for dead pixels). The color is off enough that it is impossible to use the monitor to edit photos or do anything that has to do with color.
I’ll attach a picture of the two monitors side by side. The background image is a random B&W image that I found on the web. The skin tones in the image make the color problem easy to see. The web page that is open is a Monitor Gamma adjustment Java applet. The images on each monitor should look exactly the same, they don’t.
Anyone familiar with LCD monitors and know if this is a common problem with LCD displays? Seems odd that my replacement monitor has the exact same color problem. And yes, I have swapped monitors and swapped cables and swapped outputs on the graphics card. The color problem is in the monitor and is not affected by what cables or video card port it is connected to.
I had a friend that had the same problem with an older modle dell lcd, he had to return 3 before he got one that did not have the blue tone, a major pain in the arse I do say.
I’m using the monitors in a dual display. I love the dual display. IDE open in one monitor and help files or the application running on the other. Or when using VMware I can have Windows on the main monitor and Linux or Windows running in a VM full screen on the second monitor. The dual display gets you spoiled very quick for certain kinds of work.
The Dell 1707FP isn’t the highest quality monitor out there. But I’m also using two displays so I can’t be buying two $400+ displays. The performance of the monitor is adequate for my needs. It’s not the best color as it uses a 6-bit per channel panel and needs to dither to get 16M colors. But it’s certainly good enough for me as I don’t do graphics arts work. It also has a pivot feature where it can pivot to portrait mode. Portrait mode is great for reading documentation and help files or even web browsing. Viewing angle also isn’t the best, especially for the vertical angle (which becomes the horizontal angle when in portrait mode). But it’s just fine when sitting at the computer.
It’s an adequate monitor. I’d have to spend more to get better. The good display that I have is just fine for my needs. Now I just need another one just like it.
It’s gotten good reviews and some reviews even say it has very good color. I have to assume that the reviewers all got good versions that don’t have the blue tint in the greys.
The larger displays (20" and up) use a different panel so my comments about display quality aren’t going to apply to the bigger displays in their current line.
Oh well. I’ll see what Dell does when I call them back. The support in India seems friendly enough.
