I am wondering if anyone has purchased one of these Dells yet.
It is HD resolution, 42 inch, 2 built in tuners with one being ATSC. and speakers included.

At $3000.00 it is a hard price to beat. And it says Dell on it and not "Gateway"

[Link: www1.us.dell.com]

-Don B

Well, after quickly scanning thruogh the specs this certainly looks competitive in the $3000.00 market. I don't think anybody has one yet as they are not scheduled to ship until the end of the month.

I don't know what manufacturer Dell has contracted with for production but spending some time 'cribbing' the specs with the plasmas currently on the market should reveal the assembler. Sampo makes 'em for Gateway.

-GeorgeM

GeorgeM,

You have good eyes seeing that Dec 2nd ship date. I missed that completely.

-Don B

Is Sampo still supplying most of these OEM models for Dell and others?

All I can say is "you get what you pay for."

42" plasmas can yield only 480 lines of horizontal resolution. It's a mathematical certainty, and no matter how much one tries to manipulate the resolution numbers and tries to convince you of their HD capability, even with the so-called "high definition" 42" models sold at higher pricing than the so-called "standard resolution" 42" models, all you will ever get for resolution out of that size monitor is 480 horizontal lines!

The vendors of the so-called "HD" 42" models state that those units will project a 1,024 X 768 resolution! That's an absolute hoax, because 1,024 X 768 is a 4:3 computer resolution that has absolutely NO application to High Definition! Are you purchasing a plasma to restrict your viewing to a 4:3 ratio that you would get on your computer desktop? What happens to the rest of the plasma? Is that wasted, non-usable viewing surface?

Broadcasts in High Definition are in a 16:9 widescreen format only. There is NO 4:3 HD format which will fit into a supposed HD 42" version. Don't be fooled. The numbers don't lie. You might get a nice picture on the right make, but a 42" plasma will NOT, repeat NOT do a full HD resolution! Period! End of story!

High definition is a minimum of 720 lines of horizontal resolution. Since a 42" has only 480 lines, you are losing 240 lines or a 50% reduction of the available resolution! So, while the size and price of a 42" might initially be impressive, you will be short-changed long-term by its purchase due to its inability to reproduce full HD.

The mathematics to substantiate the above is as follows: for a minimum HD resolution of 1,280 X 720 lines the total number of pixels is 921,600. For a plasma with a resolution of 1,366 X 768 lines the total number of pixels is 1,049,088. A 42" plasma with 852 X 480 lines has 408,960 total pixels. Therefore, how does a manufacture display HD resolution of 921,600 pixels onto a 42" surface that has only 409,440 pixels, and what happens to the remainder of the pixels? Remember, 1,280 X 720 is a minimum HD resolution! The answer is that the pixels have to "overlay" or "be crammed" into the reduced surface area which produces a greatly reduced image without detail and sharpness

Who says pixels are all the same size? If that is the logic I would hate to know what a 17" LCD can reproduce.

Sounds risky.

So... How many inches does a TV monitor have to be in order to be a TRUE HDTV monitor?

Vincent, that's interesting. I hadn't noticed that before. Check out Fujitsu's 42 HD models, they are 1024x1024. It may interest you also that CRT RPTVs cannot truly achieve 1920x1080 resolution, either. Not unless they have 9" guns, which is a very few models. They don't get wide enough for 1920. But that isn't too big of a deal, considering the sources are never 1920 vertical lines, either.

Mitch, any size is fine as long as it has the correct resolution.

You'd think they could alter the size of the pixels to get full resolution into 42". LCD is looking better and better.

Plasma / Flat TV True Resolution/Native Resolution:


When speaking of a plasma tv’s resolution, it is common to refer to "true" or "native" resolution. If a projector’s native resolution is 800 x 600, that means that the actual number of physical pixels on the display device is 800 x 600.

Benefits of Higher Resolution: High resolution plasmas are able to show more picture details than low resolution plasma tvs. Also, since there are more pixels used to make the image, each individual pixel is smaller, so the pixels themselves become less visible on the screen. However, you will pay more for higher resolution. So choosing the right resolution is the first step in finding the right plasma screen tv.

check this out also:
[Link: plasmatvbuyingguide.com]

Yes, that's exactly what we're discussing.

Visually speaking.

The Dell is now at the Kiosk at our local mall.
The picture looked as good as other Plasmas of the same approximate price range that do not have the built in tuners.

Of course the demo on the screen was probably designed to show off the best features of the Plasma.

The only thing that struck me is that it looked smaller than other 42 inch Plasmas I have looked at. But I really didn't have anything to compare it to, short of the Pioneer in the next Kiosk over which could have been the 43 or the 50 inch Pioneer.

-Don B

I think or thought that dell and gateway got thier screen from the same manufacturer. I have only read a handful of good reviews about the gateways. I would stay away from these and go get yours from a reputable manufacturer. Like Sony, sharp, pioneer, ect...

A plasma that has a resolution of 1024x768 can display 768 scaning lines. The 768 is the number of horizontal rows of pixels and is also the number of scanning lines a plasma can show. The 1024 is the number of vertical rows of pixels. The horizontal rezolution is enough to display 720p, the vertical is not, but all that matters as far as whether or not a tv can be considered hd is that it can display all the scaning lines in one of the hd formats. The fact that the actual pixel count works out to a ratio of 1.33:1 (4x3) and not 1.77:1 (16x9) does not mean that the display is 4x3, it just means that the pixels are not symetrical which is not a problem if the scaler in the unit is designed properly. The same applies to displays which are 1024x1024 or 1:1, these pixels are just a little less symetrical than others.