Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor, Black

A few weeks ago an old ASUS 19-inch 16:10 Aspect Ratio monitor I had was dying so I decided to start looking for another monitor. I use my computer for work, audio-recording, general web browsing, and some gaming. The pros of this monitor are basically that it is a 16:10 monitor in a sea of 16:9 monitors. It had a good better than hd resolution at 1920x1200, and it was HUGE. The colors were very in-your-face making photos clear. Some of the cons are that it has only USB 2.0 ports in a hub on the monitor, a yellow tinting along the side that would not go away, and the glow (or backlight bleed whatever you want to call it). The glow is a big one. The previous monitor I had was a TN monitor. After considerable research I decided to buy this one since many of the reviews said it had good colors and good viewing angles because it is an IPS Panel. It did have good colors in the areas where the color wasnt tinted yellow. The left side had a strip of about one inch that was coloring everything yellow no matter what angle I moved to. However the biggest issue was the glow, which was present during the day (bright lights are in my home office so I can reduce eyestrain), but worse at night when everything was darker. Before I continue I will have to give a little background on myself. I suffer from Migraines with Aura, if you dont know what that is I urge you to look it up. Then look up a visual demonstration. I am extremely photosensitive and suffer from frequent headaches. All these issues are unrelated to my eyesight and I do get my eyesight tested regularly and have perfect vision. The major issue pointed out in the pictures is the Corner Glow. Reading the descriptions of other monitors and some input on forums I discovered that IPS glow is something that you have to live with. The problem is that I cannot live with it. At a distance the glow disappears...somewhat (the one with minimal bleed is the one taken furthest away from the monitor). I could place it further from my face, but in order to read the screen at a further distance I would need either computer glasses with a magnification or to set the text size a bit bigger. Setting the text size bigger somewhat defeats the purpose of having 1920x1200 monitor resolution as the enalrged text causes pages to take up just about as much space as a 1920x1080 monitor. Another issue is that I dont have a large enough desk to set my monitor more than 3 feet from my eyes. This edge glow was strange as I dont recall it ever being present on any of my previous monitors. If you research Migraine with Aura you will see that it causes a blind spot in the field of vision, the glow on the bottom edges triggered that as it washed out the colors on the lower corners. I can understand how some users can live with it if they dont have this issue, but I could not. Constantly seeing lighter spots in the corners of the screen was unacceptable. Another thing I must point out is that the monitor was bright as can be and lowering the brightness below around 90% caused this thing I learned to be called: PWM Flicker, which explains why I ended up getting a headache after using it for a while at 50% brightness. I dont recall where but it was noted that this monitor begins the PWM flickering at anything below 100%, if this is so I didnt really notice it until I hit 89% brightness. Also, I must note that lowering the brightness DOES NOT get rid of the glow. Some research on IPS Glow uncovered that pretty much the only way to avoid it is to shell out some cash for a high quality IPS Monitor with an A-TW Polarizer. So while the color was nice, Id rather have poorer colors in exchange for something that wont give me a migraine whenever I use it. I eventually went with a high-refresh rate, flicker free monitor that doesnt hurt my eyes or head. Overall: Your Mileage May Vary.

After months of careful research, I ordered the Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24 display. Thanks to Amazon Prime, it shipped within two days. The Dell UltraSharp is connected to my Mac Pro and serves as one of two displays on my computer. Image quality is uniformly sharp and bright (you may want to adjust it as the picture is REALLY bright out of the box). There were no dead pixels on my display and the packaging was excellent. The box includes everything you need: DVI cables, VGA cables, the display, and its base. Instructions are included as well. This monitor was a breeze to set up. This monitor has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and can be easily adjusted to landscape or portrait mode. There are USB ports underneath the monitor and on the left side of the unit as well. The accompanying base is rock solid and sturdy. Tilt adjustments are a breeze. Overall, the workmanship of this unit is first class. Furthermore, the Dell display has a very intuitive onscreen menu that lets you quickly adjust settings like contrast, brightness gamma (theres even a Mac gamma setting!), among other options. I work with graphics day in and day out as part of my job. Im very picky about my display because I spend an obscene amount of time on my computer each day. I have no quibble with my Dell display. This is my first Dell product, and I am very pleased with it so far. And it works great on the Mac!

I just purchased my 3rd one of these, to round out the display capability of my laptop/docking station. Theres a lot to like about this monitor: 1. IPS display. After having bought a traditional LCD and seeing how the colors skew across the screen, I knew IPS was worth the extra cost. Frankly, I dont have a real need for it, but its just nice to have a display with consistency. 2. LED backlighting. The market is flooded with these now, but when I first bought one of these a year ago, it wasnt the case and the premium for them was steep (except with this one). LED saves energy, which saves both money both from the wall outlet and from the A/C not having to evacuate the heat from the room. It also supposedly has truer whites, but I must admit I cant see the difference. 3. 16:10 resolution. Frankly, I think 4:3 is even better, but those days are sadly gone for good. I had a 1600x1200 21 tube monitor for years and it was great. Since most of what we do on the computer is vertically oriented, losing 120 vertical lines for a 1920x1080 / 16:9 display (the vast majority of displays these day) really stinks. By going 16:10, this is 1920:1200, so I didnt lose pixels in either direction. 4. Dell speaker accessories. I guess a monitor with built-in speakers would be OK too, but often the sound quality is pretty weak. With Dells AS501 (or newer AS510) speakers, they snap right onto the monitor and get their power from the monitor. No wall wart to deal with and the speakers go to sleep when the monitor does. They sounding pretty good to boot. 5. The built-in USB hub is nice too I guess. About the only warning Id give about this monitor, is that its dot-pitch is a bit low. The defacto standard is about 100 pixels per inch and this one is about 90 ppi. One could both consider this a plus (its a large display) and a minus if youre putting it next to other monitors. Originally I had this next to a laptop display which had one on the higher side of the defacto standard (I forget now but Im thinking about 110 ppi). Let me tell you, the difference made things cumbersome. When you dragged windows between screens, they physically change size, the text gets smaller/larger, etc. It was more disconcerting than I expected. It wasnt long before I managed to squeeze another $300 out of the budget to get a second one. So, if youre planning on setting up multiple monitors, be aware of the pixel densities and try to match them as well as possible. If youre buying all new ones, make sure theyre the same... and 2 of these is as good a choice as you can find in this size/resolution range. So I really like this monitor, and now that my new laptop supports 3 displays... Im adding another one. :)

Most PC monitors these days are 16:9, because manufacturers can steal the panels from HDTV makers for cheap. The problem is 16:9 is a terrible aspect ratio for computing - reading a web page or writing a Word doc is not the same as watching a widescreen movie. The Dell U2412M is a 16:10 monitor - a much more usable aspect ratio for general computing. Those 120 extra pixels really do make a BIG difference. But you usually only see this in more expensive professional monitors because these panels are not used in any other industry. The volume is lower, hence the prices are higher - and that means theyre usually relegated to high-end displays. This is one of the few ~$300 16:10 PC displays, and its a good one. No, its not perfect - no monitor is, and let me dispense with the monitors bad points first. Like the (16:9) ASUS PB238Q I traded in for this, mine doesnt have perfect uniformity - one side of the screen is ever so slightly brighter (and bluer) than the other. This is a common problem for LCDs, but most people would never notice it, and even a nitpicker like me only ever really sees it on a solid white or light grey background. The physical look of the monitor is pretty basic and isnt going to win any beauty awards - it has that mid-90s Dell style, with the rounded edges and silver accents they used to use. I actually liked the physical look of my ASUS monitor better, with its industrial style sharp edges and corners and darker black plastic and panel. The Dell doesnt look quite as professional. But this consideration goes away as soon as you turn the monitor on and start using it. Most of these seem to have a little bit of corner light bleed and mine is no exception, though its not noticeable at all except on a totally black screen. The only time I ever actually see it at all is when watching letterboxed movies. The bottom right (coincidentally where the power LED is) is the worst offender on mine, although oddly it goes away completely if I look at that corner dead straight-on. But then Im looking at the rest of the monitor askew. Of course, as cheap as it is and unlike previous Dell UltraSharp monitors, this one is a 6 bit panel that uses interpolation to manage 16.7 million colors, and its only got an SRGB color gamut. Thats by design and not really a criticism, but just be aware of it if youre a photographer. Dell still makes other UltraSharp monitors intended for professionals - this isnt one of them, although its good enough for me and it should be good enough for anyone not doing critical photo editing. Now for the good stuff. As mentioned, theres the aspect ratio. Already explained that. This monitors also got an e-IPS panel and has basically plasma-like viewing angles - you can turn it any which way and it looks pretty much the same (except for the corner bleed on dark scenes). Its also *capable* of very accurate colors, although youll need to calibrate it to get them. Matte screen, and the anti-glare coating is not grainy or otherwise noticeable. Its perfect. No glare, no reflections, no cross-hatch, no graininess. Insist on nothing less than matte! The stand, while not the prettiest, is functionally among the best Ive ever seen. Its got height adjustment, tilt, side to side rotation and portrait/landscape rotation - you can basically move it on any axis! My ASUS PB238Q did this too (and so does the PA248Q), but theyre some of the only monitors thatll do all this in the lower price ranges. It also feels solid and doesnt wobble, although it does sometimes get a little off-axis on its own, and you have to sort of re-center it. Its BRIGHT! IPS panels are often a little dark - my ASUS actually looked dim at 100% brightness with my blinds open on a sunny day. This Dell ships set to 75% brightness and its already brighter than that. Most calibrated settings Ive seen for this monitor end up with a brightness setting of around 35%. Its DARK! The black level is pretty amazing for an LCD monitor. Granted, the corner bleed kind of screws up the consistency a little bit, but I tested the black level side by side with my ASUS and it was really no contest. The ASUS did have a more consistent black, with no corner bleed at all, but it was really more of a dark grey across the whole panel. The Dell does have corner bleed where some light comes through, but most of the panel is BLACK. That includes the area where youd be watching movies or TV shows. Overall Im cursing Amazon yet again for not letting me give half stars, because this is a 4 1/2 star monitor. Its not perfect and it doesnt have the wide gamut of the 2410 that preceded it, but then its also about half the price so its easier to overlook its flaws given all you get for the money. Find me a better 24 16:10 monitor at this price and Ill buy it.

Amazing monitor! It came down to this or an Asus 144hz gaming monitor, and i chose this because I wanted the superior picture quality. Im glad I did. Out of the box, uncalibrated, its a sight to behold coming from an old TN panel. I calibrated it based on some recommendations from tech sites more knowledgable than me and its even more breathtaking. I was worried about ghosting but havent noticed any at all playing TF2 and CS:GO. Diablo 3 looks so vibrant, its crazy. Purchased mid-late November 2013 and I got the A00 model for those who are wondering. The stand rocks (smooth articulation but very sturdy) and the monitor feels huge infront of you (1920x1200 makes a big difference). For the price, i dont think you can go wrong. No dead or stuck pixels. Everything is gravy. Id love to have atleast 1 or 2 more. The only negative think I can say about the entire experience was the packaging. Amazon boxed the dell box inside a fairly bigger box and didnt put enough cushioning material in the outer box to keep the dell box secure so when i opened amazons box, i immediate saw that the dell box had been beaten up and the actual power cord to the monitor had found its way out of the dell box (box packing tape had ripped). I couldnt refuse the delivery because ups had already left, so i quickly set everything up to test and luckily everything was fine. Cant really ding the monitor a star for bad 3rd party packaging. TLDR: Unbelievable bang for your buck, beautiful picture, if youre on the fence like I was, dont be. Games look great.

I had wanted to purchase a larger monitor. My vision isnt as good as it was years ago (Im getting more and more far sighted). Im now using TWO monitors on my computer which gives me screen real estate. I had a 19 1440x900 monitor and a 22 1680x1050. I intended to replace the smaller one with a 24-27. Actually, I was drooling over those 1440P or 1600P displays. The Korean 1440P 27 units can be had for about $300, but just how GOOD are they? I did some research found many rave reviews for the Dell U2412M. At about $275 shipped its a reasonable buy. Yes you can get a 24 1080P TN monitor for about half the price. What you will end up with is a stripped down TV set panel. In fact, you could probably just go to Costco and buy a Visio full HD TV and use the darn thing as a monitor for even fewer bucks. A computer wide screen monitor should be in a 16:10 format, not 16:9 IMHO. That extra height makes working on text documents in MS word (or Libre Office) easier as you can see more of the page. I was too used to the computer based screen ratio to put a TV set on my desk. The Dell U2412 is about the most affordable monitor in this format. If you read the reviews you might come across with the idea that this unit isnt perfect. Well nothing is. Technically it doesnt have the fullest color rendition, and if you need PERFECT color you might find fault here. Ive viewed photos taken with my Panasonic G3 on this monitor and flesh tones are correct with good contrast. I havent tried to set the color balance yet, all Ive done is fool around with the contrast and brightness settings. Im not a professional photographer though, so take this with a grain of salt. After ordering this monitor I found out about a controversy involving panel version numbers. Yes, mine is version A00 with a recent 2013 date code. I dont know what Dell is doing with the version codes, it may reflect where they are buying the panels, and they may have changed suppliers many times in recent history, only to go back to the original source. Who knows? I cant see any dead or stuck pixels, there is no yellow tint or any other kind of defect visible to my eyes. The unit was packed in a very ingeniously designed cardboard insert. Some reviewers have complained about this, preferring the older method of molded white foam packing. Well the cardboard is greener and made of renewable material. That foam is made from petrochemicals, in other words OIL. I prefer the cardboard. So far Ive had this monitor for under a week. Its brighter and crisper than the 22 AOC that is now sitting to the left of it as my secondary screen. If I had an extra $275 to spend, Id buy a second U2412M to replace the AOC in a heartbeat. Cons? Well it came with a single link DVI cable that is a bit too short for my setup and Ill probably end up buying an after market 8 cable. Some would call the lack of built in speakers or an HDMI input a con. Really? If you want those, then go get an HDTV and use THAT as a monitor. This is a COMPUTER monitor. DVI and Display Port connections are what are in vogue here. Yeah some computers DO come with HDMI outputs, but those are probably intended for HTPC use. I have a good pair of full range wall mount speakers hooked up to a 30 watt per channel amp for my computer sound system. I dont need a pair of two by nothing speakers in the monitor!

Very sturdy monitor with well designed stand. In the era of cheap shiny plastics that belong in a discotheque this monitor has a nice, professional matte finish, plastics on this monitor simply have a better look and feel, you immediately understand why you paid more for this monitor. Now I would like to comment on this occasionally mentioned here yellow tint problem. First of all majority of monitors have some tint one way or another - a perfect white may exist only on a printed white paper. My iMacs screen doesnt give me a perfect white either. Second I would not call it yellow, it is more like an ivory. Third the monitor comes with the Standard pre-set mode, if you select some other available mode from the menu say Game or Movie the tint becomes even more white. You can also play directly with the colour temperature setting and make your tint for example blue if this is your fancy. In other words this yellow tint issue is in my opinion a phony problem that stems from ignorance. And playing with settings in this monitor is super easy, no manual needed, I was doing it within few seconds of unpacking, it is so intuitive. Having said all of the above I do allow for a possibility that some of those who reported this yellow tint might have indeed got a defective unit. Thanks for reading and good luck with your purchase.

Cutting to the Chase (Value vs product & purpose): I was upgrading from a Dell 20 16:10 ratio (1680x1050) 2007 LCD Monitor which had no actual problems with it, but I wanted more real-estate and a higher res image. I wanted colors, and was willing to pay for them, because I do do layouts and basic photo-editing from time to time, but I ultimately chose this over the 2413 and Im glad I pocketed the extra $200. For about $300, its a great buy and $50 cheaper than directly from Dell. I did some research in the way-back machine and it seems like I paid close to $500 7 years ago when I got my old 20, so paying 300 for a larger, higher res and more vibrant screen, is really quite a good deal... especially since 2007 dollars are about 50% + more valuable than our inflated monopoly money today. (Side lesson kids: so long as we print money, dont bother saving any in your mattress!) My work is Architecture, so added area for CAD or REVIT drafting is important- and 24 certainly feels like a lot to me. Most firms Ive worked at provide 20 screens. Ive used big 30 in apple screens, back when they had the clunky plastic frames. Frankly I feel like 24 is a nice compromise between size and working my neck muscles searching for the tool bars at the extremes of the screen. I also play games like Fallout3 and Bioshock Infinite, Civ franchise and SupCom, so I was worried about all this talk of lag (more later). The first thing my wife noticed when I plugged in the monitor was that the colors in the desktop background were more vibrant than the old monitor: three people had distinctly different lip and skin tones which didnt show nearly as clearly before. This is revealing, since when emursing myself in reviews for monitors, I started to feel like the 2412M would be a compromise.... Performance: Even from people who professed their love for the 2413, I kept reading about ghosting problems, about cyan color trails and input lag and gaming modes, and other things which sounded either REALLY irritating or complicated. I dont feel like flipping through settings menus to make an experience fluid feeling or good looking - I constantly flip back and forth between games, work, web browsing, or videos, and dont want to have to sort out the menu every time. I cant compare this model with another model because I only bought one of them! So heres a list of items about THIS monitor Ive found to be true in my experience: Q:Anti-Glare coating? A:It looks great. Supposedly its an advancement over the 2410, and not as good as the 2413. Well It is certainly an advancement over the 2007 I had, and way better than anything Ive been provided on the job. It looks smooth and clear to me, although it does not have the almost glossed look that the 2413 claims to have. Since I have to stare at the screen professionally for 8 hours a day, and then i come home and feel like playing a videogame or watching netflix for a few hours... this screen seems perfect, and I wouldnt want it any glossier. Q: Input Lag, or total lag, or transmission lag... that sort of thing? A: All kinds of fears about 6ms vs 8ms vs 1ms vs 2 ms got me really wound me up for NO REASON. Finally one of the reviews I read linked me to a reflex-reaction website, and I found that from click-to-click, although I could at times be quite fast, generally speaking, my fastest clicks could easily vary 10-20ms. So worrying about 2ms or a 6ms on-paper difference between this monitor and another monitor, even a TN fast gaming monitor, starts to seem really silly, at least to a non-pro gamer who isnt hopped up on a dozen energy drinks, who isnt nitrogen-cooling his CPU to eek out another dozen frames per-sec on his first person shooter. No noticeable response time problems here, which is why I suppose Ive heard that a lot of Gamers choose this monitor. Q: Color? A: Colors look great. It is supposed to cover most of the sRGB Gamut. I can tell you its a lot more vibrant than what Im used to. getting all wound up about color calibration is another thing most people just not need to worry about. I plug and play and havent had a problem. No weird color shifts here. The white looks white, the reds are red. Snozberries taste like Snozberries. Maybe the 2413 would have been all of my graphic dreams come true, but really I wouldnt have used it to its fullest, and unless your profession is colors, you probably wouldnt either. Read Fuzzy Wuzzys review for details about how in order to use the monitor to its fullest, you need to have an unbroken line of image processing from beginning to end optimized for that level of quality. Q: Backlight Bleed / glowing/ pixles? A: I dont see any bright light-leaks at the edges or anything, but when the screen is black, it isnt quite as black as Id like it. This is my first IPS monitor, and it seems like standard fare to have a bit of glowing, but its nothing I notice regularly. While gaming or web browsing or watching videos its something I dont notice at all. The pixles are fine, although I checked for dead pixles, I didnt find any. Q: Overall build quality/ customer service? A: Good, no defects, and I am sensitive since I once ordered a DELL laptop which came with a popped up piece of plastic trim. The monitor was Surprisingly light, although its larger than my old one. Seems sturdy. Not knocking it around or anything, so its not wobbling. The action for moving or rotating the monitor is very smooth and efficient. Aesthetically I like its clean lines. Well worth the value, no regrets. Cheers!

So I got the package, Excitedly I unwrapped it, plugged it in and pow, blue screen of... just kidding. Purpose for Purchase: Video Games, 3d Modeling, LED, Its a Dell Monitor (We have a bunch at work, and they are awesome) My Previous Monitor (which I am lending to my Girlfriend) is

Excited to get the new monitor I had it plugged in within the hour. Nicely stylish, and very sturdy I was sure I had made a good choice. I am a photographer and while on a budget I DO need something that is accurate that I can count on. This is my third IPS monitor and is replacing an excellent (expensive) 8 year old 16 X 10 24 HP that gave out. Here is how it fared. Turning it on I LOVED the extra real estate that a 16 X 10 monitor gives the viewer. I couldnt imagine editing photos with anything less. Viewing angles are great. When sitting at a dual monitor setup you are never really lined up to be square with either monitor. The wide viewing angles offered by IPS are fantastic. Plenty of ports on the back and side for anything you are doing. I just use the DVI so I didnt test anything else. Convenient control placement. But, I noticed (side by side) that the colors did not match my other smaller IPS monitor (LG). Not even close. The LG took a little tweaking to get it right so I began to set it up. The LG was close out of the box, in fact, all I had to do was turn down the brightness. Not so the Dell. The colors were all slightly off out of the box. First of all it comes too bright... this is common and a simple test to achieve the proper brightness is to peer at a gradient and adjust till it you see the differences between black blacks and white whites. You can accomplish this by visiting any number of sites or by using the Windows excellent Advanced Color Management tool in control panel. Once that was done I still had colors that were off and dull compared to what I was used to. Plugging in a Spyder 3 finally did the trick. It took the Spyder about 5 minutes and the screen colors matched (very close at least). Colors are bright and seem to be accurate. When something is printed at the lab I use it is right on so.... Here is the conclusion. While much better than any tn monitor it still falls short of the full IPS experience that I had from my previous IPS monitor (I assume that much of this is caused by the 6 bit panel instead of 8 bit). It will have to do for now as I cannot afford the $1000 replacement cost of the previous monitor. It is sturdy and built well. Controls are well thought out and easy to navigate. Lots of connectivity. All things that add to its value. Is it worth its price, absolutely. Does it it rate 5 stars unfortunately not. PROS 16 X 10 Native format (lots of extra real estate from a 16 X 9) Lots of ports- 1 DVI-D with HDCP, 1 DisplayPort 1 VGA,1 USB upstream port 4 USB downstream ports, Dell Sound bar Budget priced for an IPS Great wide viewing angles Accurate colors once calibrated CONS Factory Settings without hardware calibration are going to be disappointing. 6 bit color not 8 bit so to achieve 8 bit color it needs to dither. (I knew this before I ordered but if you didnt...) only standard RGB gamut not wide gamut. Even then falls a little short of the full RGB spectrum