24-inch monitors are becoming available, and while 22-inchers are still mainstream, we are still more demanding of 24-inchers… Recently we got an opportunity to review DELL’s 2408WFP, and while we like the monitor, as it has a trillion of input connectors, and looks good on paper (specifications), we found out an interesting problem, that DELL is not adressing.

As you can see on our video, the prolem is with lagging. Now, every LCD monitor has a delay between time when video card sends a picture, and when it is actually displayed on monitor. This time is called lag. CRT monitors had 0 lag, and some of smaller LCDs are also very fast. This is something which can put off serious gamers and is a delay between graphics card and monitor output. By hooking up a CRT you can show that the LCD lags behind somewhat, which can affect users in some situations where they rely on the screen image being as fast as their inputs (e.g. fast FPS shooting games). Often, input lag is very low and probably wouldn't represent too much of a problem in real terms.

You should not mistaken lag delay with response time, as that simply means how many picture refreshes (frames) can monitor display in a second… But lag is more problematic, especially for gamest, as it introduces another delay – which might be crucial when playing online, and when every milisecond counts, as who will open fire first…

As you can see from out comparison video – even on multi monitor setup, this DELL is quite annoying to work with, as it is plain obvious that there is noticable lag in video processing.

p>All in all we were impressed with new Dell 2408WFP. The ergonomics and interface options are excellent. Build design and quality are very nice. Some early users reported text blur and sharpness issues, but we were unable to reproduce the problem. The panel uniformity was affected ever so slightly by the pink tinting issues some users have spotted, but it is so minor I doubt you would ever notice this in practice to be honest. Colour accuracy was sadly quite poor at default settings, a sacrifice made perhaps while offering the ever extending colour gamut? However, once calibrated, the screen performed very well in this regard, and colour accuracy was excellent. All in all, we liked the monitor, although it is priced a bit on the high side. But for gamers – because of high input lag - is perhaps the best to stay away from this monitor. If you are not hardcore games, this might not represent an issue if you are not planing to have it in multi-monitor setup (different manufacturers and different models), and the 2408WFP is still an excellent choice offering great all round performance and features.