It wasn’t just Fujitsu’s Media Center that stopped people in their tracks this month. Dell’s 30in 3007WFP, with its massive 2560 x 1600 (four million pixel) resolution caused double takes from anyone that walked past.

To use it you’ll need a decent graphics card with a true DVI-D port. Once we’d got it up and running we were greeted with an incredibly sharp and vast desktop that allows three Word documents to be opened at 100 percent all at once.

We put it through its paces with our DisplayMate technical assault course. Colour purities were fine, there was no pixel jitter in our fine-mesh patterns. Displaying multicoloured text on multicoloured backgrounds saw no problems either. However, its dynamic range isn’t the best: very dark shades turn black a little too soon and detail can be lost in highlighted areas. However, it did very well in the colour ramps with very little banding evident. The colour spectrum test, which blends different colours, looked superb.

In the real world, games looked phenomenal (and life sized) at every widescreen resolution. However, playing Far Cry at full resolution with HDR lighting proved too tough for two overclocked 7800 GTX cards in SLI. There was little lag when watching videos though compression artefacts get noticeably amplified. Even HDTV had trouble when scaling. But we can’t hold this against the Dell, it’s simply too good for the test. Viewing angles are good but not the best. The stands allows swivel and tilt control.

The high resolution is ideal for designers and photographers, but anyone who values immense clarity will find themselves wanting it. At $2899 it’s reasonably priced (over $1000 less than Apple’s competitor). You also get a four port USB hub and all-format media card reader built in. Dell’s two-week satisfaction guarantee also means that you needn’t accept any dead pixels on arrival. After this you’re allowed five separated or three clustered for a year before exchange.

All in all, while it’s not technically the most proficient monitor it’s still a hugely-capable professional tool. And the price, while high, brings it within range of mere mortals too, making it a winner.