Usually products arrive at IT Reviews on a temporary loan from their manufacturers for us to test, write up and send back. But we do mix in quite a few 'money-where-our-mouth-is' reviews as well, where we buy the item in question ourselves to get a feel for the experience of dealing with the company.

This is one such test. And it's one we entered into with a little trepidation, heightened by a mixture of stories and experiences of dealing with Dell's internationally-based ordering team. Our verdict on the service? Really not too bad. After ordering the screen through the company's Web site, which didn't try to sell us as many add-ons as it usually does, a Dell operative rang us up fairly quickly to arrange delivery. It wasn't the clearest line, and theirs wasn't the clearest accent to understand, yet a delivery time was arranged of a Friday afternoon.

Fast forward to Friday morning and a courier rings up our mobile, finding that we're not there to accept the delivery. We politely pointed out that delivery was arranged for the afternoon, but the delivery person wasn't going to be in the area then. Well we would be, we enforced, and suggested they find a way to deliver the screen at the agreed time. Which, to be fair, they did.

That initial bump was one of the few problems we had, because when it comes to the product proper, Dell is a firm that does know what it's doing. Granted, we too have read the scare stories of desperately poor technical support, and in the course of this review we had no opportunity to test that side of things. Yet judged solely on the hardware, the 2007WFP offers an impressively strong combination of value and performance.

From the moment we took the unit out of the box, installation was a breeze. A detailed, clear instruction sheet guides you through the process of attaching the stand and the various cable connections (all of which are provided, including a DVI cable), while a protective cover sheet on the display itself advises you of the screen's native resolution and the need to run the installed software to achieve it, should it not be supported by your graphics card.

And given that this is a 20.1-inch widescreen display, whose native resolution is 1,680 x 1,050 pixels, there's a good chance your graphics card's drivers may not automatically support it. If that's the case, Dell's software will be invaluable.

The screen itself is easily adjustable and we had little trouble fixing it in a comfortable viewing position. We warmed to the healthy range of connectivity options that include composite, D-Sub, DVI and S-video inputs. Also, there's the option to attach a not-included speaker bar (which Dell, naturally, will happily sell you), while two USB 2.0 ports are built in too, should you want to use the screen as a hub. Hardly innovative, but certainly thoughtful.

When it gets down to business, the display performs well, especially for the price. While the response time of 16ms may seem a little slothful, the display nonetheless breezed our 3D gaming and DVD tests and the output was consistently vibrant and accurate. Just the occasional sign of ghosting on fast-moving images let the side down.

While we suspect that there are a few widescreen panels that could beat the output of this one, we'd wager they don't come anywhere near to matching this price. In short, the 2700WFP is a strong reason to brave that infamous order-line.

Striking performance, a well thought-through package, and a very good value price. You'll be hard pressed to find a better value widescreen monitor of this size.