The Inquirer

Dell dragged me into monitor hell

Rant Charlie does his biscuit

  • Charlie Demerjian
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WHEN I WROTE a five-page rant yesterday, little did I expect the volume of mail I got on one particular point, the Dell 3007 monitor. Most people wondered how Dell, usually a solid maker of monitors could get it so wrong. Let me tell you.

First off, as you can see in the pic linked above, I have three monitors on my desk, from left to right a Dell 2405, Dell 3007 and Samsung 214T. I bought the 3007 based on my good experiences with the 2405 and the low price. Unlike most of the freebies that the press gets, I bought this one for about $1300 with my own money, long enough after it went on sale that I figured it wasn't worth a review.

The picture is great, no question there, the panel itself is one of the sharpest and noise-free pieces that I have ever owned. So why did I say "The middle monitor is a Dell 3007, one of the worst monitors on the face of the planet, avoid it at all costs."? Easy, everything else around the panel.

There are two deal-breaker problems with the 3007, and the later 3007WFP-HC, a high color panel variant appears to have the same flaws. They are the inputs and the controls, both are so lacking it is borderline criminal to sell this monitor.

First lets talk about inputs. The 3007 has exactly one, a DVI input. On a monitor that costs over $1000, and that is the flagship of the Dell line, not having half the inputs of it's 24 and 27 inch brothers is just dumb. The 2405 has a full compliment of ports, and the 2407 probably has more, and the 2707 has yet more. The 3007 has 1. Yes 1. Duh.

I know what you are thinking, get a KVM you moron, they are cheap and work pretty damn well. I have two on my desk, in the pic linked, the DVI one is under the video decoder board between the mug and the 2405, you can't see the analog one, it is by the servers.

That said, the 3007 needs a dual link DVI signal, and because of the brain dead electronics in this beast, it only supports 2560 * 1600 and 1280 * 800. Please note, I am not joking, the highest end part by Dell supports two resolutions, you can't run 1920 * 1200 if you wanted to.

This means that any KVM needs to support dual link DVI at 2560 * 1600 with dual link HDCP or you get a black screen. It took me a while to figure out why I was seeing nothing when I first set it up. As far as I can tell, such a KVM does not exist, and I could not coax the monitor into displaying 1280 * 800 through the KVM even for testing purposes.

This utterly moronic design decision is compounded by the fact that almost two years after introduction, this stupidity has not been fixed. EVERYONE is better than Dell here, and as far as I can see, you can't buy a monitor this bad from another vendor, they seem to have ethics and a modicum of common sense.

The other problem is the controls, or lack thereof. They follow the same minimalist design philosophy as the ports, IE don't put any on. Here they all are, three of them.

Yes, I said three controls. There is power, the blue lit one, + and -. The latter two control the brightness, and that is all you get. If you want to control ANY of the other functions of this beast, you must install software on your PC and hook up the USB connection. Great, another bloated TSR to pollute my system and take up memory. Whoever thought this up, kill yourself.

Could it get worse? Hell yes it can, the damnable TSR/software is Windows only. I can't tell you if it is only XP or also supports MeII because I can't find the damn thing to download at Dell's site. Yup, service and support below consumer grade call centre levels, a Dell hallmark of yore back to haunt us again.

I have one XP box left here, and it is my test system. I use the 3007 for my main monitor, and because of the moronic port situation, it is not connected to the test box unless I physically rewire my setup. That means to change anything other than the brightness, I have to rewire, fire up a test box, find (is it available for download at all?) the software, install it, change the settings, reimage the test box back to it's neutral state, rewire, and go back to work.

Completely unacceptable. Like I said before, to the design team, please kill yourself for the good of humanity. This control setup is beyond laughable, it is like some demented nightmare come to life to taunt those who dare try to buy something nice from Dell.

In the end, the Dell 3007 is a nice looking panel wrapped in electronics so broken it is a wonder that it was approved for sale. I can not fathom how this made it though any even mildly critical product review. My only conclusion is that Dell cynically thought that a big shiny number, 30 inches, and a low price would be enough to tempt people. Once they have your money, they have your money.

I admit, I was a sucker, and trust me, I do feel stupid every time I think about it. In the end, I think Dell owes me and everyone else who bought one of these a new monitor with real ports and controls. Barring that, at least a KVM that works with this.

Bottom line, let me reiterate, avoid the Dell 3007 line like the plague. Their flagship is complete crap, you will be better off buying ANYTHING else. To anyone involved in bringing this to market, there is no honour in killing yourself for this product, but please do it anyway. µ

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