Dell U2412M - 16:10 IPS without Breaking the Bank
by Chris Heinonen on February 28, 2012 9:00 AM ESTDell U2412M Design, OSD, and Viewing Angles
The look of the Dell is certainly utilitarian and not sexy. Unless you kept posters of 1980s-era minivans on your wall as a kid instead of a Porsche or Corvette, you are not going to find the U2412M to be an attractive display. But as we noted on the previous page, like those minivans, what it lacks in looks, it makes up for in utility.
Dell continues the menu system with four unlabeled buttons that control the OSD, and manages to make it fairly easy to navigate overall. I did hit the wrong button a couple times, so perhaps they could space them out a little more than they do, but overall the menu is easy to use and navigate. There is no switching between horizontal and vertical movements with the same set of buttons, which is a peeve of mine.
In our forums some users expressed concern about the anti-glare coating of the U2412M so I decided to pay extra attention to it. I have to say that I wasn’t bothered by it at all, and didn’t see anything to be concerned about. It certainly was nothing like the patterned retarder on passive 3D displays that drives me crazy from a close distance. If no one had mentioned the anti-glare coating to me then I wouldn’t have even noticed it was there. Perhaps I’m just not that sensitive to it yet and will become more so going forward.
Viewing angles are always a good area of performance for IPS panels, and you can see that in the included gallery. Overall the angles were good, with a loss of contrast at the extreme angles but nothing that you would notice in a normal working position, or even if someone was looking at your monitor for a presentation. Overall from a physical perspective the Dell was unexciting but didn’t cause any areas of concern that some other models have for me.
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Touche - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
+1000cheinonen - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
Measuring the refresh rate of the backlight is on the list of things to try to do going forward. It should be added soon, though I'm not certain if it will be in the next couple of reviews or not.Zolcos - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
It's reassuring to see this product, not just because of 16:10 but other good-yet-all-too-rare choices like anti-glare, displayport, and a relatively non-shiny bezel.Personally, I'm still holding out for 120hz at any resolution better than 1080p. If a monitor with the exact same feature set and resolution as the one in this review came out with 120hz, I'd literally buy it today, even if it was TN and cost twice as much.
That's my realistic side anyway. I still have dreams of 1920x1440 since widescreen (while great on its own) is an inefficient use of space for multi-monitor setups, but that's another debate entirely.
Zds - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
The main advantage of the HP unit is not S- but 8bit colors. IPS vs. S-IPS is not crucial, 16.7M real colors can be.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
6-bit vs. 8-bit isn't the whole story, either.The other part of the story is how wide a gamut the backlight can provide.
James5mith - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
"I can criticize the black uniformity as the corners were a bit bad, though being a lot better in this area will likely require going to an LED backlighting system or the emergence of OLED displays for the desktop, both of which are very expensive compared to this."http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.a...
First line of the information: "Enjoy widescreen performance, any way you want it. With a 24" 16:10 panel, IPS technology and LED backlight, the U2412M provides a brilliant view, plus amazing adjustability to suit any style."
So the LED backlight isn't helping it to get any better. It's already there, and apparently not very good.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
The point was to use something other than edge LED backlighting, though that's not entirely clear from the wording. I'll see if I can fix that...Zoomer - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
How about reviewing this or a similar monitor? Now that is real bare bones, and real cheap. $400 or $250 for a 27" H-IPS if AT has some friends in Korea.http://www.overclock.net/t/1215866/reviewed-400-25...
frombauer - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
Would this be better in lag and response time compared to the Dell 2209WA? I own this one, and it's good enough for gaming to me. But I wanted more resolution.Touche - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
Get a Sony GDM-FW900 :)