Dell at CES 2007

It wasn’t too much of a surprise when Dell showed us their new 27" UltraSharp monitor, which settles itself right in between the now inexpensive 24" and 30". The new monitor shares more in common with the 24" however, seeing that the native resolution is still 1920×1200 at 6ms.

Besides the fact that it’s 27", there was one thing specifically that Dell got excited over showing us. “Go ahead, look at the back!” They touted that this is one monitor that looks just -as- good from the back as it does the front. The entire monitor is styled differently than what we are used to, with a brushed aluminum look. But yes, the monitor itself really does look good from the back, as you can see from the photos.

The reason behind this, is for those who work in offices and have people walk by their desk all the time. Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of looking at an ugly back, people instead see a stylish work of art? That’s Dells take on things and it makes sense to me. The price tag on this 27" will hover around $1,399, almost as expensive as it’s bigger brother but includes the improved look and HDCP support through the DVI port.

Thanks to the overwhelming reaction to the 27" monitor, their newest “smaller” monitor seems to be getting overlooked. The 22" is for those who still don’t want a huge screen, like the 24", but want something bigger than what they have now. The screen quality was on par with the 24" and borrows the native resolution of a 20" screen which is 1680×1050 at 5ms.

What may very well be the most attractive selling point for the screen is that it retails for $299, a price tag much easier to swallow when compared to the 27", 30" and even the 24" in some circumstances.

Although it was tucked in a corner, Dell also mentioned to us about their newest all-in-one printer, the 966. It has the ability to print, scan, fax and copy. It boasts an impressive 32ppm for black and 23ppm, but it wasn’t proven to us there. Besides the usual, the 966 also includes a bright 2.4" LCD screen that displays various options as well as the photos from your memory card or digital camera. Oh, did I mention that the 966 is wireless? Doesn’t seem like a bad setup for $249.99, but I’d like to get one in and give it a run before making any conclusions.

Dell did not have a huge array of new products to unveil at CES, but what we did see left us impressed. One thing I was most pleased with was the fact that the 27" -finally- had a new look. Dells monitors (as most others) never did anything to impress by way of styling, so it was good to see an update. Hopefully current and future models will be updated to reflect this also. Thanks to Dell for their time and for answering all of our questions.

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