The image quality of the Dell 2405 is stunning. The once king of the large LCD displays, the 2001FP, looks downright dim when placed side by side. The 500 cd/m2 brightness rating makes whites bright and colors vibrant. The 1000:1 contrast ratio gives deep blacks and rich color transitions. And with a 12ms response time, even the fastest motion is as smooth as butter. Compared to the Apple 23-in. Cinema Display, the 250 cd/m2 brightness, 400:1 contrast ratio, and 16ms response time look second rate. The HP L2335 23-in. display uses the same panel as the Apple display, but improves the backlighting slightly, with a 500:1 contrast ratio. We used the 2405 with Quake 4, City of Villains, and Counterstrike: Source, and never observed any ghosting or smearing. We watched parts of The Matrix and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King to test dark scenes and earth tones. We could find no shortcomings in image quality. The dot pitch is .27 mm, which is a little high, and accounts for the 1-in. vertical difference between the 2001FP and 2405FPW, since both have the same 1200 vertical pixel count.

The one glaring omission is an HDMI port. Without HDMI, and HDCP, protected high definition content such as HD-DVD and Blue-Ray Discs will not play at native resolution under the upcoming Windows Vista. An updated version of the 2405FPW is rumored to be in the works to add HDCP, but that doesn’t help owners of this display. We feel that if your primary use of the monitor will be for anything other than a high definition video display, you shouldn’t worry about the lack of HDCP. To be cautious, it might be worth waiting for the rumored 2407FPW with HDMI.