Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Product: Dell 23” Wide Screen High-Definition LCD TV
Price: $749.00
Rating: Very Good 7.6/10.0
Pros: Sleek design, easy to use remote control, integrated TV tuner and speakers, HD ready, multiple inputs.
Cons: Screen resolution does not support all monitors,
Overall:The Dell W2306C 23” Wide Screen High Definition LCD TV is a sharp looking, affordable dual-purpose LCD that will please those who want a large display and a budget HDTV.

Design - 8.5 - Upon opening the box this dell display looked great. It is heavier than expected but the weight is necessary to make you feel comfortable letting the unit sit on a mantel or other ‘risky’ but attractive location (this is something you will want to show off). The Dell W2306C is a 23 inch widescreen (measured diagonally) HD-capable TV/monitor with built in stereo speakers (14 watts total). You can tilt the display 85° on both the vertical and horizontal axis for easy viewing. The screen is has a matt coating so bright light reflections are no more a problem than your standard computer monitor. The native resolution is 1366x768. It has a well designed remote control as well as direct (standard TV) buttons on the right hand side (remote IR sensor as well as power, channel, and volume buttons).

Continue reading our review, including features and performance.

Features - 7.5 - The set can handle multiple inputs at once and has a built in second TV tuner for PIP (picture-in-picture). All together the monitor has 10 video inputs, 3 PC inputs, and 2 outputs (Input: 2 x HDTV / 1 x Tuner - Coax / 1 x Composite / 1 x S-Video / 1 x DVI / 4 x RCA Audio; Output: 1 x RCA Audio / 1 x Composite; PC Input: 1 x 15-pin D-sub VGA / 1 x DVI / 1 x Audio). The inputs are placed on the back of the set, parallel to the table surface. This results in wires running down behind the set (with no built in wire tracks) and depending on placement, hard to access inputs and outputs.  The set has auto input scan so the set determines which inputs have a single easing your decision of which input to switch to. The set often went into hibernation mode when being used with my laptop and then took 5-10 seconds to ‘wake up’ and start running. Though it was easy to switch between inputs (the auto input selection was very useful) we would have liked to be able to do a PIP with our laptop and TV and then select which audio we wanted to hear.

Performance - 7 -  The set’s picture looked great when viewing PBS landscape shows via Insight Cable’s HD PBS channel. HD sports were not as clear, the set blurred with high speed sports such as the NBA and NHL. As a computer monitor the screen looked very nice. Much better for background images than text as compared to my dell 17 inch ultra-sharp monitor (as judged by my eyes). We want to note that not all video cards support the Dell native resolution. Though 1366x768 is now a standard resolution, there are lots of older video cards that do not support it (1280x800 seems to be more standard), so please check your resolution capabilities before you purchase the set.

Editors note - The overall rating was calculated by weighting design as 30%, features as 30%, and performance as 40%.