It’s here, a day early even. Here are some random thoughts & first impressions of the Dell 2405 24″ LCD Widescreen Monitor:

• It’s bright. Much brighter than the Sony 21″ CRTs I’ve been used to.
• It was a snap to set up physically. (Hmm, bad pun). Snap the base into the screen, and voila.
• The base is quite sturdy. I don’t think the cats jumping off the window ledge will knock it over.
• Thanks to Bernd Paysan’s Dell 2405 web page for the correct scanlines to use in Linux. (Courtesy of Google).
• 1920×1200 resolution rocks.
• I need to get a DVD playing ASAP. Just for kicks.
• I’m not used to feeling like I’m sitting so far back, even though it’s just the monitor pushed back farther on the desk.
• I’ll have to keep my desk clean now that I have all this extra space. (No, really).
• I’ll be able to hear my speakers again as my monitor isn’t blocking them.
• Coding web pages and stuff will be fun with multiple windows.
• I can’t believe I bought something from Dell.
• I can’t believe none of Dell’s competitors can compete. The nearest monitor even close to this was a Sony 24″ at $1800. Buying a Dell became a no brainer.
• The 9 in one flash card reader is a very cool feature on the side of the monitor. And the 4 USB ports.
• Even better, Ubuntu recognized them without any prompts.
• Need to post the pictures. (And done)
• No burned out / dead pixels
• When scrolling this blog really fast, I get some motion blur on background on the far left, but you really have to look for it
• UT2k4 in 1920×1200 is jaw droppingly gorgeous.
• No noticeable motion blur in UT2k4. Get sucked right in and you dont’ even notice it’s an LCD anymore.
• I should probably go boot into Windows and check performance. But I’m lazy.
• Dell’s customer service still sucks. After the hard drive return process I went through last year, it’s not any better. The hoops I had to go through over the weekend, after I made the purchase, just to find out if it shipped with a DVI cable, were ludicrous.
• It ships with a DVI cable, FYI