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By Eric Franklin
May 07, 2008

Priced at US$1,199, this 22-inch LCD is clearly not aimed at the general consumer. For the money, you could pick up four SP2208WFP Editors' Choice 22-inch Dell LCDs. Aside from the price, there's a lot to like about the Crystal, but even a perfectly outfitted 22-inch would have trouble justifying a four-figure price. The tempered glass design is striking and has a strong image quality. We would have liked to see more video connection options, however, along with better brightness and the capability to display 1080p video without scaling. We doubt it would attract many more buyers if it were a larger 24-inch panel, but the price starts to make a little more sense if the size was increased and resolution bumped up to 1,920 x 1,200. Either way, the Dell Crystal's audience is a small one that is likely purchasing it to fill a public space and charging it to an expense account.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details. The LCD is currently not available in Asia at this time, though Dell Asia Pacific has mentioned plans of rolling out units in this region in the future.

Design

The Dell Crystal can most easily be described as a normal 22-inch LCD with a 4mm-thick glass overlay. The glass facing extends over the edges--3 inches on each side and 1 inch on the top and bottom--and houses the speakers and the control buttons for the onscreen display. The glass overlay makes for a good first impression, but it's easily smeared and attracts fingerprints fast.

The display rests atop three metal legs. The foot on each leg is narrow, which raises the potential for an accident; make sure you have the Crystal set up on a desktop or stand with lots of room. The three-legged stand also does not allow for any height adjustment. The only adjustment option? You can rotate the screen back 30 degrees.

Two speakers are embedded into the glass overlay on each side of the display. The circuitry required to connect the speakers to the display is nicely hidden as two lines coming out of the screen and into the speakers.

The OSD has an elegant and simple interface that we hope Dell incorporates into its mainstream displays. With one press of the menu button, you are brought into the controls that most people want to adjust first--brightness and contrast. The color settings include six presets and separate settings for video and graphics. The video mode lets you also change color and saturation in addition to just choosing the presets. We really liked the capability to turn off the confirmation beep you usually get when pressing any of the buttons. Another useful touch is the capability to adjust the volume of the speakers simply by pressing the up or down arrows whenever the OSD is not open.

Dell went for a simplified one-cord solution for the cables. The cord is more than 1.2m in length before it splits into four smaller cords: HDMI (there is an adapter included for DVI connection), USB for the Webcam, an audio connection for a subwoofer, and power. A 2-megapixel Webcam is almost hidden on the top bezel and is very easy to miss.

Branding is kept to a minimum. A large Dell logo sits in the middle of the back of the display, illuminated by a bright blue LED. Another blue LED lights up a smaller transparent Dell logo beneath the screen on the front of the monitor.

Manufacturer's specifications:

Resolution: 1,680 x 1,050

Pixel-response rate: 2ms

Contrast ratio: 2,000:1 (Dynamic)

Connectivity: DVI (via adapter), HDMI

HDCP compliant: Yes

Included video cables: DVI (adapter), HDMI

Features

In keeping with the sparse design, Dell went for simplicity instead of abundance with the Crystal's features. The one-cable system provides an HDMI or a DVI connection. We're more than willing to sacrifice VGA or composite-video connections, but at its price, we expected to see component-video jacks.

The Dell Crystal offers HDCP support for displaying high-definition copyright-protected content, but a 22-inch screen has a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050, which means it will need to scale to display 1080p content. A 24-inch Crystal model would provide a 1080p-friendly 1,920 x 1,200 native resolution and perhaps go a little further in justifying the high cost.

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