Rob Mayoff ([info]mayoff) wrote,
@ 2005-07-13 14:52:00
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Dell 2405FPW
At my office I've been connecting a Sony 20" 1600x1200 LCD monitor to my Powerbook. However, this only lets me put two 80-column Terminal windows side-by-side. There's more horizontal space, but not enough for a third 80-column terminal. (Not at my preferred font size, anyway). So I ordered a Dell 2405FPW, which is 24" and 1920x1200. It has enough room for a third terminal.

Most of the other LCDs around the office are Apple displays, but the Dell displays have a few advantages. First, they're cheaper. Second, the Dell stands are much more flexible. Third, the Dells have four USB ports. Fourth, the Dells support VGA, S-Video, and composite video inputs in addition to DVI. The 2405FPW also supports component video and has four memory-card reader slots. The only advantage of the Apple monitors is that they have a Firewire hub, but nobody here needs that.

My 2405FPW arrived Tuesday. The stand is height-adjustable and rotates, unlike the Apple stand. In addition, it supports rotating the monitor 90 degrees, into "portrait" orientation. MacOS X supports this (you set it in the Displays system preference pane), so I decided to try it just for fun.

It turns out that this is totally awesome. Here's what it looks like:

Powerbook and 2405FPW

I actually had a sense of vertigo looking at the monitor this way. The viewable area is about 20.5 inches tall. What sold me on this arrangement is that I can now get four tall (57-line) 80-column terminals on the screen with no overlap:

Powerbook and 2405FPW with terminals



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ROB!!!
(Anonymous)
2005-08-23 10:25 am UTC (link)
Nice powerbook - I have the same model and LOVE LOVE it.

However, you royally SUCK for having a 24" LCD hooked up to yours.

I have LCD envy. :-(

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vertical display
(Anonymous)
2005-09-01 05:47 pm UTC (link)
I have a dual display system at work with one horiz, and one vert. Most excellent. They are Dells and quite easy to swivel. At home I have dual 23" cinemas. Both are horizontal because the stand wont swivel. I manage to get by though:) -trenton

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which connector?
(Anonymous)
2005-11-04 07:13 am UTC (link)
I just ordered mine, have a 15" powerbook with the 128MB graphics card. Which connector should I get?

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Re: which connector?
[info]mayoff
2005-11-04 07:59 am UTC (link)
As far as I know, you don't need to get any connector. The PowerBook has a DVI port built-in, and the Dell LCDs all have DVI ports built-in and come with DVI cables.

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Re: which connector?
(Anonymous)
2005-11-04 01:48 pm UTC (link)
You're right, after calling the vendor, they said it comes with a DVI and VGA cable.
The DVI info at http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html was quite helpful. I wanted to make sure I got a DVI-D instead of DVI-I, as I understand it, DVI-D has almost 2X the throughput of DVI-I.

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