My New Dell 2408WFP 24″ Monitor

My design work has taken off as of late, which has afforded me the ability to purchase an external monitor for my MacBookPro (MBP).

After two weeks of extensive Googling, I settled on the Dell 2408WFP 24″ monitor. If you’re looking for a new monitor, here is a great place to start: tftcentral.co.uk. This site is pretty up-to-date. It contains definitions, histories, and explanations about every type of screen. It also has a very cool “selector” tool.

My 2408WFP was purchased from wecarecomputers.com via Ebay. It was new, sealed in the box, and came with a transferrable three-year warranty – all confirmed by Dell. The seller had good communication and met all expectations. I recommend them.

My extensive Googling had me frightened and excited. Many people have had issues with the 2408WFP, especially designers focused on precise color calibration. Other folk had good experience with the monitor, especially PC users.

Color calibration hasn’t been a huge issue. It certainly is bright, and the colors are highly saturated – especially out of the box. I spent maybe a 1/2 hour playing with the on-screen menu (OSM), and I feel like I’m good to go. I do web work, so it’s important for me to meet my client’s color needs. I’m happy with the calibration. If I have any question about the color, I just do a “same/same” color swatch sample.

Using the MBP with the 2408WFP

I didn’t install any drivers. I just connected my MBP using the DVI cable and a USB cable – both of which came with the monitor.

System Preferences (an OSX application) automatically recognized the new monitor.

System Preferences Screenshots

Below are screenshots representing the three Display option screens in System Preferences. The first shot shows the screen size selection – which is one of the reasons I chose a 24″ monitor, they are the only monitors capable of displaying 1920×1200.

The second shot shows the two monitors, represented by the blue boxes. You can click and drag the boxes into position (for instance, if you’re left handed, maybe you want the external monitor on the left side). The slim, white bar at the top of the box on the right represents the dock and main menu. If you want to use your external monitor as your primary display, just click and drag white box to the appropriate blue box.

The third screen shot show the calibration screen. I went through the System Preferences color calibration a couple times, but have settled on just using the MBP’s display settings and fine tuning the monitor using its OSM.