Ok as I posted a while back, I’ve been looking at LCD HDTVs for a while now. Dell has very recently released a new line of LCD HTDVs which look pretty damn good on the spec sheet.
Tons of inputs (2 HDMI), good contrast ratio, integrated tuner, response time is not the fastest at 16ms (b/w, typical) but every damn company measures that in their own way making their quote meaningless. So I ask of ye to find me any sucke-… er I mean ‘early adopter’ who picked this up and posted his/her opinion on it. I checked avsforums and so far no one has bitten yet.
Cnet hasn’t looked at it yet but these are there pre-hands on feelings…
Upside: The Dell W3201C has a native resolution of 1,366x768, which means it should be able to display every detail of 720p HDTV material. It also has a built-in ATSC tuner but no CableCard slot, so you’ll be able to watch over-the-air HDTV without an external tuner, but digital cable users will still need a cable box with this TV. Its excellent jack pack includes two component-video inputs, two HDMI inputs, a VGA-style PC input, and a stereo minijack for use with PC audio.
Downside: We’re a little skeptical of the performance of this LCD, considering our experience with Dell’s 30-inch model, the W3000. Either way, $1,800 is far from the cheapest LCD in this size range, so it’s hard to justify the extra expense if it doesn’t perform appreciably better than no-name models.
Outlook: Although we were disappointed with the W3000, Dell claims that the W3201C is completely redesigned. We’re not sure if its performance will be able to make a big enough leap to justify its price tag; in fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if Dell lowered the price on this popular-size LCD before the holidays.