Review on Dell S2409W Widescreen Discontinued Manufacturer: High Resolution Wide Screen Display by Quinton Garrett

I upgraded from a 22" CRT Viewsonic which was a beast when I first bought it, not to mention it cost me a fortune at the time. Actually still works fine. It has been recognized as one of the best gaming monitors. This monitor only had one VGA input and one BNC cable input (can anyone remember it :-)). I used the VGA input because I had problems with BNC cables as my graphics drivers couldn't detect the monitor. I mention this because it fits the review. After years of people telling me to go with LCD, I came in to save a few hundred dollars on gift cards from an electronics retail store. So I decided to consider upgrading my monitor as I don't need anything else and given the price it will cost me some out of pocket. I mainly use this monitor for gaming. As such, I was most concerned about the input lag and response time. When I first got the monitor I played World of Warcraft exclusively and was both pleased and disappointed at first. Firstly, alongside the sharpness and detail, the color was amazing. I saw details and colors on my cartoon that I never saw/noticed on my old rig. I think this is largely due to the higher resolution and the switch from VGA to DVI input. But still a fantastic visual upgrade. My first disappointment was the noticeable input lag in WoW. I immediately wondered if I was wrong, and a checkbox in WoW settings called "Reduce input lag" or something like that actually fixed the problem at the cost of a few frames per second. Since then I've played many other games and can say that input lag and response time are really not an issue with this monitor. Examples are Dragon Age, BF2142, Left 4 Dead 2, Bioshock and COD Modern Warfare. I move fast with the mouse. I do very quick 180 degree spins to check my surroundings in first person shooters and the experience feels very accurate. L4D2 is a good example of this and if you play you'll know what I'm talking about. You are constantly under fire from all sides and you have to take the enemy away from you. I don't notice any ghosting, lags or anything else with fast mouse movements. However, I recently upgraded from 8800GTX to 275GTX and the gaming experience is even better and crisper. I think it was partly due to the improved footage. However, graphics cards are notoriously an input lag factor, so take that into account if you're using an older card. I would like to point out that my 8800GTX still felt good and fairly solid, overall things went better with the new card as it should. So the experience with the old card was really good, but with the new one it was awesome. If you search YouTube for input lag and the S2409W, someone actually tested this monitor's input lag on a CRT and it's near perfect. Many more expensive monitors cannot recognize this. So if you're gaming and looking for more features than this monitor offers, do yourself a favor and research each target monitor carefully. Even other Dell monitors have had input lag issues, so it's not necessarily a brand name, good or bad. Finally, millisecond response time isn't necessarily an indicator of input lag, so don't jump to 2ms because it's better than 5ms on paper. The internal processing of the monitor can be a difference. You can find a good article by searching google for anandtech and input lag. Other comments: Design/Appearance - I personally think the monitor looks great. It's a nice change from the boring, boxy design. thumbs up from me The viewing angle is tricky, and the other reviewer is right. If you look directly at the monitor, then everything is fine. Stand up for a second and the visual quality will degrade. Stand a little to the side and the picture will be blah. My brother stood behind me and watched me play and it looked good. I got him to sit down and he's like "wow". This is the difference in viewing angles. I went with what I think looks good, but only when you look at it directly. From time to time I tip it and move it around to see if I like something more. However, as far as I know, this is mostly the case with TN LCD panels. If you search for this monitor on Cnet there is a great description of the optimal viewing angle which I have found to be the best for me. controls. The controls are easy to use and understand. This monitor appears to be factory calibrated but I found it too bright. Turning the brightness down is easy and you can sort it out quickly. The only thing I have is that the modes (game, standard, multimedia, etc.) take a few clicks to get to while digging through the menus. So, I play mostly, and it looks good in game mode, but in standard mode for most others that I like. Game mode isn't as good for desktop and movies where it feels like standard. However, switching to different modes is quite painful, although it does not take much time. For example, I don't want to boot the system, read a little web, browse menus to switch to game mode, play games, switch back, etc. So I usually stay in game mode and switch to standard if I plan to be out for a while to be while I do other work. I had an old Dell CRT with a dedicated mode switch. I wish they would have done the same with this monitor. Text. If you switch from a lower resolution to an HD monitor, the text will be much smaller. However, I can say that with my setup, the text on this monitor is sharp but smaller. Be prepared. In games, most new ones adapt well to the native resolution. For example in WoW, going from my lower 1280x (can't remember) to that native resolution didn't shrink the text on the screen. It actually made it easier to see all the information, including the mods I had running. The text size stayed about the same. I have no problem showing chat windows or text in all my games. The size seems to be windows and web only, which can basically be adjusted if needed via the settings or the size view in MS Word or similar. So if needed, there is a workaround. In summary this is a great monitor for the price and I am very happy with it. If I had paid full price without gift cards I would still say so. It goes very well with my games and is a fantastic upgrade from the CRT I've been using. If you're still using a CRT (especially in VGA!) since it still 'works', I'll tell you that you're missing out on a decent enhanced experience, especially if you're gaming.