Dell’s E207WFP is a dual-input, 20-inch wide-screen LCD. And although its feature set is minimal, it’s a solid performer and a good choice for budget-conscious display shoppers.
The E207WFP features a slim bezel design and a matte screen in a 1,680-by-1,050-pixel resolution. It has two inputs: one DVI input for digitally connecting your Mac, and an analog port for connecting to a second computer—a PC, for instance. As far as features, that’s about it for this Dell. There are no built-in speakers; its fairly rigid stand does not allow for height adjustment, pivot, or swiveling; and there is no USB hub, camera card reader, or inputs for consumer devices like game consoles or camcorders.
Luckily, as a basic display, the Dell performs pretty well. Like most consumer displays, images on the E207WFP’s screen look a little too bright and blue at its default settings. After we calibrated the display using a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display 2, images looked much better. If you don’t have calibration hardware, the Dell has various color presets available through on-screen menus, as well as a custom mode with controls for fine-tuning the colors to your liking.
After calibration, colors and grays appeared accurate, and our jury of Macworld editors gave the display a Very Good rating for both color fidelity and text legibility. One test that the Dell, along with many displays in its category, didn’t fare as well in was our viewing angle test. Though it earned a Good rating from our jury, color shifts and contrast loss will be easily visible if you move your head left or right of center while looking at the screen. If you want to, for example, take advantage of the display’s cinematic wide-screen aspect ratio and watch movies on the E207WFP with friends, chances are that the folks on your left or right won’t be experiencing the same colors that you are.
jury tests
| Viewing angle | Good |
|---|---|
| Color fidelity | Very Good |
| Text legibility | Very Good |
Scale = Superior, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor
How We Tested: We connected the display to a 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 1GB of RAM and an Nvidia 7300GT graphics card, running Mac OS X 10.4.10. We noted the performance of the display with its default, out-of-the-box settings and then calibrated it to 6,500 Kelvin with a gamma of 2.2, using a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display 2 colorimeter. The Macworld Lab viewed a number of on-screen test images and rated each display as Superior, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor on its color, text, and viewing angle compared with a sampling of similar displays.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith
specifications
| Size | 20 inches |
|---|---|
| Native resolution | 1,680 x 1,050 |
| Connections | 1 DVI, 1 VGA |
| Viewing angle | 160 degrees |
| Brightness | 300 cd/m2 |
| Response time | 5ms |
| Contrast ratio | 800:1 |
| Dimensions (height x depth x width, in inches) | 15 x 5.7 x 18.6 |
| Warranty | 3 years |
Macworld’s buying advice
The Dell E207WFP is a good, bare-bones, 20-inch wide-screen display. And though it’s short on extra features, it performed well in our tests against other displays in its class. You should consider it if you’re looking for an inexpensive wide-screen monitor.
[ James Galbraith is Macworld ’s lab director. ]
Dell E207WFP