Dell Professional P1911 19″ Widescreen Monitor

This week I’ve taken delivery of a Dell Professional P1911 19″ Widescreen Monitor from eBay.

My current bench monitor isn’t widescreen, nor does it have a good sync range (constant “out of range” issues), and was causing me problems with my B-roll camera not being displayed properly.

So for the “massive” sum of £10 + postage, I won this beast:

Actually, that pic doesn’t do the word “beast” justice, as round the back is a SFF PC cradle/stand…

…which actually adds a fair amount of weight and bulk to the monitor.  Fortunately I’m planning on arm-mounting the monitor and routing the cables round the back, so the bulky base isn’t required.

I’ve read a fair amount of positive reviews online for Dell Professional monitors, and although I’m usually in the HP camp for PC’s and Servers, I think this monitor looks very stylish, and quite at home mounted over my bench:

(yes I have some cable management to do…)

 

Image quality is good, with a 1440×900 16:10 ratio it’s fine for the work I do, and connects to my camera in widescreen just fine, along with my HDMI to DVI cable going into my HDMI switcher.  I was able to connect a device which uses 75Hz (rather than the native 60Hz of the monitor), and it worked OK.

The feature which sold it to me more than any other though, was the 4 port USB hub built into the monitor:

I have a lot of USB powered devices around my bench (such as my HDMI splitter, VGA converter, iPhone HDMI cable etc…), and the ability to plug some of these direct into the monitor for power saves on plugs, cables, and mess!  Although I’ve not done it yet, I plan on connecting a long USB A-B lead between the monitor and my PC to make accessing B-roll footage easier.

A quick flick through the manual (http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_electronics/esuprt_display/dell-p1911_user%27s%20guide_en-us.pdf) shows the USB hub is 2.0-capable which is fine for transferring small files to/from the bench, or pulling off short B-roll footage.