Get the Big Picture

Today, I saw Dell's new Ultrasharp 3007WFP, a computer monitor that's so big, I might actually be embarrassed to put it in my home office. I can just imagine people spotting it on their way to the bathroom and exclaiming, "Holy cow, Al; did your parents let you sit too close to the TV when you were growing up?"

The 3007WFP's screen looked pretty darn nice, thanks to 2560-by-1600 (WQXGA) resolution and an 11ms gray-to-gray response time. The resolution is so high that you must have a dual-link DVI-D graphics card, such as an NVidia GeForce 7800GTX (Dell, of course, will sell one to you; it costs only $699).

The monitor itself costs $2199 on its own, or $1999 when purchased with a system. Dell was running specials in recent months that seemed to throw in a PC for free (well, more like a couple hundred dollars) if you bought its 24-inch monitor, but I'm guessing deals like won't be popping up soon. At least you won't have need a memory card reader; the monitor has a 9-in-2 version built into it.