Dell 3008WFP hands-on!

We know the thing isn't even barely out, but we feel like we've already spent a lifetime waiting to check out the Dell 3008WFP. It's huge, it's bright, its color is beautiful, and perhaps most importantly, it has DisplayPort. Kinda unsightly base be damned, we want one. No, make that two.

Gallery: Dell 3008WFP hands-on!

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[darren @ Jan 8th 2008 10:49PM]

Dude, get a Dell.

[kinger @ Jan 8th 2008 10:52PM]

fiiiiiinally, more inputs!

[Ellianth @ Jan 8th 2008 11:00PM]

Wow. That's big. Probably have to twist your neck to look from one side of the screen to the other :p.

[Shane @ Jan 8th 2008 11:05PM]

Cool...but how's the black level? Is it any closer to black than before??

[BlissX @ Jan 8th 2008 11:22PM]

Well the 3007 had 92% Color Gamut, and this thing supposidely has 117% (which is odd, when you go to Dell's website it only states 100%).

That is quite amazing.
(The LCD Panel inside is a S-IPS)

[tcardone05 @ Jan 8th 2008 11:25PM]

By that standard, we shouldn't buy anybody's laptops because the batteries tend to explode?

[Eric @ Jan 9th 2008 12:00AM]

GradysGhost: take your worthless and racist comments and get the fuck out of here

[GradysGhost @ Jan 9th 2008 12:02AM]

It's not the breakage that's the problem. Hell, the guy probably got a power surge which makes the damage liability neither his nor Dell's, though he could have done better for himself by using a battery backup and Dell could have done better by installing a higher-wattage PSU instead of the crappy 160/250W ones that all manufacturer's use (presumably to save cash). The problem is how Dell handled the situation. The tech support representative from X-istan, had he any knowledge of how a PC works, would have understood that a dramatically blown capacitor (or damn near any hardware failure) renders their diagnostic software useless.

[Hung @ Jan 9th 2008 12:09AM]

@GradysGhost

"Call up Dell. Habib tells me that in order for him..."

Is that supposed to be a joke? I'm not Indian, but racial slurs of any sort should never be tolerated or condoned.

Also, your opinion is shit. ALL Dell displays rate well. The high-end ones are the best in the industry. As a matter of fact, only HP's 30" has been rated better than than Dell's, and that's still subject to argument.

But seriously, Habib? Bad news, bro, bad news.

[Wwhat @ Jan 9th 2008 12:58PM]

Indeed GradysGhost, so many people have horror stories about dell support, I'd NEVER try to get support from these people.
Ignore the votes against you though, that's because the engadget crowd is apparently so adapted and in line that you can't say anything bad about big companies or their CEO's, no matter how true and proven it is.

I thought the use of habib was perfectly ok, it describes the situation in a short term, and I think that to complain about the name 'habib' as being racist when used as a descriptor is pretty offensive to the millions of people called habib eh. And I have never seen someone complain when someone used such to describe a european, like 'hans' for german, or pierre for french, or joe for americans andsoforth. Seems the 'anti-racist' people here like to judge based on color of the person then eh...

Well have fun voting me down people, I hope it puts a glow on your cheeks.

[Josh @ Jan 8th 2008 11:21PM]

yeah, but do we even have any video cards on the market with DisplayPort yet?

[BlissX @ Jan 8th 2008 11:23PM]

Only from ATi for the time being.

[Jared @ Jan 8th 2008 11:45PM]

I completely agree with you on that ugly base. Why did they ever get rid of the V-style silver base that was on the xxx7 series? It looked so much better!

[E71 @ Jan 9th 2008 8:01AM]

If anything, silver is ugly. Black all the way baby!

[sinerasis @ Jan 8th 2008 11:51PM]

You'd think for a big display of the new displays they could take the time to make the bezels line up right... I wouldn't stand for that on my desk, and it bothers me looking at the picture.

[Randy @ Jan 8th 2008 11:55PM]

Want!

[MadMike @ Jan 8th 2008 11:57PM]

GradysGhost: That's when you hang-up and call back to get another person. Not to be racial but the tech support outsourced to India is deplorable. The people they hire have zero technical training, and the language barrier is troublesome. They may know English, but they don't know practical English. Then there is the fixed rules that allow zero leniency.


See, no PC builder is really better than any other. All basic tech-support sucks. You get what you pay for. Buy the best tech support and you will get an American with a college degree or better yet, a smart Chinese person. Seriously, in my experience everytime I get a Chinese tech support person, they know what they were talking about.

[GradysGhost @ Jan 9th 2008 12:08AM]

I agree completely. It's true to an extent that you get what you pay for, but as I noted in my response to the other guy's response to my response to the first guy, the power supply in a mass-produced PC these days is probably the singularly most overlooked component. I've seen supposed high-end PCs ($1200+ HPs and Gateways with 8500GT video cards and dual SATA hard drives in RAID configurations) with 350 watt power supplies. Sure, that's enough to power the devices... barely! The PSU serves more than just that purpose. If you don't use surge protection of some kind (another misconceived issue), your power supply is your first defense against a toasted computer.

When I build my PCs, I don't settle for less than 500W units and, if it's in the budget, I go for 700+.

[Paulmichael @ Jan 9th 2008 12:12AM]

Yeah, always call Dell again if you hang up the phone with them and the problem isn't resolved. There's this one guy at my work who is insanely great when it comes to dealing with tech support, because he used to work for one of those companies. We've received countless motherboards from Dell thanks to him, and we were never asked to run a utility to receive a diagnostic code...I've learned to, before anything else, ask what the tech's name is. Then, later on, if he/she is not being co-operative, I will ask to speak with their supervisor, etc. You've just gotta not show hesitation and ask THEM the questions.

[DarCowAlways @ Jan 9th 2008 12:06AM]

How big is it? I'm quite happy myself with my 22" wide Samsung LCD.

[Dan @ Jan 9th 2008 12:27AM]

30", if you would like to put all the goodies on it, you would have no problem.

[Amani576 @ Jan 9th 2008 12:42AM]

Personally, I like the base. I mean... I can see ways of cleaning up desk space by using it (so long as it's flat) by putting things like docks for cellphones or DAP/PMP's.
And damn! All those inputs...
I'll take 4, free of charge (I complimented the base, that has to be worth something! :-D)
GR

[witsend @ Jan 9th 2008 2:12AM]

I am tired of engadget calling things unsightly/ugly and watching everyone jump on the bandwagon. The coverage of the Palm Centro also comes to mind.

While everyone may have different takes on every product, calling this thing "kinda unsightly" is over the top. This is a 30 inch monitor, it need some support.

http://www.engadget.com/photos/dells-3008wfp-30-inch-lcd-with-displayport-sneaks-available-in-us-too-1/538424/

[Amani576 @ Jan 9th 2008 11:31AM]

I agree. I meant to say something about the base actually being necessary to support it's girth.
And I agree on the Centro thing too. I, personally, kinda liked the design of it, and I remember it also being a good seller, so, it can't be THAT ugly.
GR

[lawrra @ Jan 9th 2008 12:44AM]

@Hung

The man's name could have been Habib; you don't know if it is or not. Don't make fun of a man's name. Shame....bro

[Hung @ Jan 13th 2008 1:09AM]

Because he said "X-istan" as a generalization of all middle eastern countries. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty offensive even to me, and I'm straight-up American.

[Jason @ Jan 9th 2008 1:03AM]

These look nice! We've been buying the 2007WFP like crazy at work and they are nice too but I have noticed a problem that hopefully doesn't carry over to this model. Some of them have an issue with what I call "shadowing" where a dialog box is open in the middle of the screen, just for example, and a mirror or shadow of it appears off to the right side of the screen, almost invisible unless you are pretty close to the screen.

One good thing though, going by these pictures, the base for the 2007WFP could be used with these as it appears to have the same connector. In that case, just call up spare parts and a base for the 2007WFP to use with your new 3008WFP!!!

[Ubiquitous @ Jan 9th 2008 1:24AM]

My guess is that you're using a a reasonably high resolution combined with low quality VGA cable and analogue (VGA) input rather than DVI. Basically theres interference on the cable. Not the fault of the monitor so much as the technology used with it.

[crescentdavid @ Jan 9th 2008 2:53AM]

Huge, bright, beautiful color. So says Giz. Evil bezel. Evil base. More important than image. iDiots.

[Eric R @ Jan 9th 2008 3:43AM]

I think I need to request two of these to replace my 24" 2407WFP-HC's.. whoa!

[ecr @ Jan 9th 2008 5:08AM]

why isn't dell selling the ATI w/ displayport? It doesn't seem to have been announced at CES. Any ideas when it will be available (i want to get it on an XPS420)

[giuliop @ Jan 9th 2008 7:00AM]

"we want one. No, make that two."

Tow is minimum for "we", unless you want to share. Or is that really a royal we?

[mmh @ Jan 9th 2008 8:30AM]

What?

[giuliop @ Jan 9th 2008 8:36AM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralis_Majestatis

[Wwhat @ Jan 9th 2008 1:07PM]

giuliop meant to say that when engadget's article said "we" want one the author should have said "I" want one.
But you can have several people at engadget that all want 1 or 2 of them, then it's 'we', and I'm guessing that's is the case here, 'we, the people working at engadget want one'

[Speddy @ Jan 9th 2008 9:28AM]

Being a Mac user, Dell were the first LCDs I went with to save $$$ (I've two 24" refurbs that have been operating quite well for me and also serve as gaming LCDs for LAN parties).

Once this model shows up either as a Refurb or Dell drops it another $400...I'm there. DisplayPort, D-DVI, Component... can't beat that...

[Muu @ Jan 9th 2008 9:35AM]

I'd get one of these things in a heartbeat if I didn't have a horrid experience with a Dell 24incher before. Kinda sucks that specific TN panels or whatnot can really mess with your eyes enough that it becomes unbearable to use after 10mins or so.

[CosterMonger @ Jan 9th 2008 10:09AM]

why didn't they get a 5120 x 1600 background for these two 30"ers?

[James Anderson @ Jan 9th 2008 10:13AM]

This is old news, I want to see LG's new 30 & 26 inchers. :(

[Tyson @ Jan 9th 2008 12:01PM]

I've actually had good Dell customer service, despite it being obvious I was calling to India (and what does it matter if they're trained professionals?). She was exceptionally courteous and willing to help, and I had my battery + keyboard replaced on my 2 year old Dell laptop for free. I'd even suggest that she was going a bit overboard to help with the "are you sure there isn't something else that I can help with" comments. Pleasant experience though!

[Wwhat @ Jan 9th 2008 1:17PM]

Good choice of you to offset the bad stories with one that shows how it should be done, I've heard a lot of dell horror ones though, from all over, but that's why it's good to offset it to show it can go right too.
It's a bit like many ISP's, they often have customer support that's awful but if you hit the right person on the line you have a quite different experience. I guess these companies don't set out to hire people that give bad support, they just don't filter out employees that do not, like they ought to be doing.

[Biofeak @ Jan 9th 2008 12:19PM]

Wallpaper from www.interfacelift.com :)

[Wwhat @ Jan 9th 2008 1:11PM]

Thanks, might be useful info for some people that want that bg, or people in general looking for something to spruce up their GUI and didn't know about that site yet.

[YanksRock @ Jan 9th 2008 1:59PM]

Hey Eric why don't you get off your high horse. You get the fuck out of here.

[Titulanix @ Jan 9th 2008 3:21PM]

True, a 30 inch desktop is too small. A dual monitor setup is the least you should go for. Better yet, why didn't they put four of these in a row. like the alienware rig?

[Ende @ Jan 9th 2008 3:35PM]

Wow, we'll need HUGE mouse pads for this one...