Gaming performance and thoughts
GamingDell's also pitching the screen as a top-end gaming display. The reasoning behind it is relatively sound, that is, if you're a gamer and can afford to drop around £1500 on a panel you're probably running high-end, multi-GPU gaming rigs, be it NVIDIA's SLI or ATI's CrossFire. You'll need all that pixel-pushing power, too, as, optimally, gaming at 2560x1600 puts a considerable onus on even 2 GeForce 7800 GTX 512 cards in SLI mode. Perhaps investing in Dell's quad-SLI Renegade 600 system isn't such a bad idea!
The initial problem with gaming at native WQXGA resolution is finding titles that support it. Most games' resolution options are limited to 1600x1200 or 1920x1200. However, should you find a game that can be run at 2560x1600, such as Far Cry, the result is nothing short of stunning. A similar screenshot, in full WQXGA resolution, can be downloaded here. 3DMark06, too, supports 2560x1600. Take a peak here.
Games that cannot be run at the panel's native resolution, which is the vast majority, can be displayed in one of two ways. Choosing the appropriate selection from the graphics card's control panel, games can either be run at a non-native resolution, full-screen mode (scale image) or the image can be centred with the display still running at 2560x1600.
Here's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory being run at QXGA resolution (2048x1536). Note the centred image, large borders on each side and the slight borders on the top and bottom.
General image quality
It looks good, subjectively speaking, and is priced competitively for a 30-inch wide-aspect display. However, all the style in the world doesn't account for much if image quality isn't up to scratch.
When initially plugged in and run off an ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card, replete with the necessary dual-link DVI transmitter, the panel, which was bought as a retail sample and not a cherry-picked sample, outputted an image that were slightly darker on the left-hand side of the screen than on the right. It was also a little darker at the top of the screen than at the bottom.
Using it for a couple of days did lead a little more uniformity, although having two browser windows open on a side-side basis highlighted the continuing brightness issues on each side. We didn't notice it all the time, but surely a £1500 screen, irrespective of size, should display a uniform image? We must note that the panel's image uniformity wasn't as good as our off-the-shelf Dell 2405FPW's, which, frankly, is flawless. Having bought 2 Dell 3007WFPs, presumably from the same batch, you won't be surprised to learn that the other suffered from similar image-related problems.
Overall thoughts
It's big, bold, somewhat beautiful, and has greater resolution than two UXGA panels combined. Priced at around £1,500 which includes delivery and a standard 3-year next-business-day warranty, the Dell 3007WFP is around £300 cheaper than Apple's similar WQXGA screen. The question is, is it worth it?
Let's trot out the bad points first. The £1,500 ticket price will be prohibitive for most. A bit of careful shopping and you can buy two Dell 2405FPW panels and a semi-decent graphics card for the price of this single panel. Run them in tandem and you have both a greater resolution (3840x1200) and a much larger array of inputs than the sole DVI-D present on the 3007WFP. Our samples' uniformity problems don't appear to be an isolated issue, and spending £1,500 should guarantee you a panel that has even brightness, right? Gamers may also need to effectively window the number of games that don't support the panel's ultra-high native resolution.
Counteracting the bad is a reasonable chunk of goodness. The 30-inch panel's 2560x1600 resolution needs to be seen to be believed. The ability to view four WXGA windows on one screen is an experience that's hard to come down from. Razor-sharp text and images are complemented by excellent moving-image performance, from fast-paced games to DVDs. We saw no evidence of smearing or ghosting throughout a long weekend of testing. HDCP compliance makes the Dell 3007WFP ready for high-definition content, too, so it's 'Vista-ready' at the outset.
In summary, then, our Dell 3007WFP isn't the stellar product that the 2405FPW was on its inception. Too many minor niggles take away from the oh-my-goodness factor of staring at a 30-inch, 2560x1600 resolution panel. Dell knows that the 3007WFP's immediate competitor is Apple's similar CinemaHD screen, and as long as it can keep undercutting the rival's better-looking panel, it will sell to the bunch of enthusiasts who are early adopters of technology.
Dell needs to rectify the uniformity issues apparent on both of our samples and, perhaps, needs to reduce the price a little. The Dell 3007WFP is an impressive panel, sure, but it's not quite a 2405FPW upscaled to a 30-inch display. The day that happens, though, it will become a must-have luxury product. Good, yes, great, no.
