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

I waited a couple months to allow me to make an honest evaluation of this unit. I can honestly say that after a great deal of research on competitive monitors, I am very satisfied with my DELL U2412M. My unit was a refurbished unit that arrived well-packaged and exactly as described (Excellent condition). I could find no external or cosmetic problems on the unit. The one minor disappointment I had was that it did not come with a DVI cable. The U2412M was very easy to set up and easy to operate. Once installed, I typically leave it on and simply let it go into sleep mode when my computer is off. One of the most important features of the monitor was the way graphics and text looked and on this one, both are excellent. (I tried a less expensive Dell unit before the U2412M and the color was all wrong even to my untrained eyes.) I have not attempted to perform a full calibration of the monitor yet as for now it looks fine for my daily use (mostly office work and video games), but I may look into calibrating the unit later. One thing prospective buyers should be aware of is that this monitor is very bright! As others have noted in the reviews, you should expect to turn this monitors brightness way down if you expect to use it for any amount of time. I think I have mine cranked down to about 40% at the moment and that still seems bright at times. The controls on the U2412M are a little tricky to get used to as they are on the lower right corner of the screen. This means they are out of the way (which is both a plus and a minus on my setup). It is sometimes awkward to manipulate the buttons on the bezel edge and I find myself tempted to push the screen based arrows (but as this screen is not touch-sensitive, that doesnt do anything). Other than that minor thing to get used to, I could not be more satisfied with the monitor, so far. My last monitor (an Acer X214W) lasted nearly 4 years and I am hoping this Dell U2412M will last me at least that long. If I had it to do over, I would still buy one of these again and recommend the U2412M to others looking for a reasonably priced monitor with great performance.

After 8 years of use, Ive tried to replace it three times, and keep putting it back on my desk. The main feature that I find indispensible is that its a 16:10 ratio monitor. With most of the design experts at my favorite multibillion dollar transnational corporations insisting on shoving controls into the top and bottom of their windows that would be otherwise buried in dialog boxes three deep, the horizontal space it provides is essential. Aside from its endurance, the other feature Ive found most useful is the port selection. I use mine as a mechanical KVM between Linux/Mac/FreeBSD/Windows all week- the USB hub and selection of video ports really come in handy. VGA is still a thing on servers, and the DVI port is easily converted to HDMI with a dongle.

My vintage 2005-ish Samsung 213t (21.3) monitor quit abruptly on me a month ago, so I had to scramble to get a replacement. I had been very pleased with the Samsung, even though it was a TN type display. The IPS-panel Dell U2412M doesnt disappoint. My, how the technology has changed! Im a photography hobbyist, and I fuss a fair amount over color fidelity, sharpness, detail and the like. However, I cant afford more than a basic investment in digital photography. I use a pretty ordinary Canon photo printer, and Ive been fairly satisfied with the look of my images on the Samsung and in print. With the U2412M, images are represented even more accurately on the display while maintaining quality output from my printer. The U2412M is designed to be highly compliant with the sRGB color space, which is appropriate for my purposes. It doesnt even attempt to handle the much wider Adobe RGB color space, but that range of colors isnt supported online anyway. In fact, unless I were to output my photos primarily to a high-end printer with an Adobe RGB gamut, that capability would be wasted (and so would my money). Heres what else I like about the Dell U2412M: * It has a full 1200 pixels of vertical, like my Samsung. I find vertical screen space to be exceptionally valuable, and was shocked to discover that few reasonably priced monitors these days have more than 1080 pixels. I dont need a wide movie screen on my desk; thats what my TV is for. * Its EPEAT Gold Energy Star compliant. This is hard to find in any large monitor. * Its screen is anti-glare. I dont understand the current obsession with glossy surfaces; the reflections on such monitors are incredibly distracting and make photo editing difficult. And no, the anti-glare surface doesnt bother me at all. * Its amazingly lightweight. Maybe this is normal these days, but the old Samsung weighs three times as much. * It has all the positioning adjustments you could want (tilt, swivel, height, and landscape/portrait pivot). Especially useful is the height adjustment: I can push it down to 1 from the desktop, so I dont have to tilt my head back to see through my progressive lens glasses. And my one caveat: The U2412M claims to have a 178° viewing angle both vertically and horizontally, but in practice, it doesnt seem to be even as wide as my old monitor. Outside a cone of about 90°, the brightness falls off significantly. This hasnt really been a issue as I sit pretty well centered when I use it. Your mileage may vary. Update: Upon further consideration, I think I overstated the viewing angle issue. The display exhibits some minor brightness variation when I move well off-center, but it remains quite impressive. Practically speaking, I dont think youre likely to find this a problem.

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.

First Impressions I use the monitor for business applications (MS Office mostly Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint, plus Internet browsing, etc... Id like to have a larger screen with higher resolution such as the Dell 27 inches, but I think that at the present time, this is where the sweet spot for performance vs value is (24 inches). Ive been using a Dell UltraSharp 2405 monitor, which I got from Dell as a replacement when the original died one month or so short from the expiration date of its 3 years warranty, and which is working quite well after about 3+ years, but I had read positive comments about the U2412M in CNET and other web sites, and was considering upgrading. However, I had also read conflicting comments here in Amazon about the anti-glare coating, and about color accuracy. Ive always thought that the anti-glare screen of the DELL 2405 was perfect for me and Im not very concerned with color accuracy (within reason) as Im not into photography, graphic arts or anything like that... But when you read reviews like that, it makes you pause. In any case, I decided to try it and decide for myself, and I am glad I did. For what I do, and at this price point, this monitor is just fine. No issue at all with the anti-glare coating. I cant tell if theres a difference or not versus the coating on the Dell 2405. In fact, had I not read about it, I would not even known anything about that. And for my business application, the default factory-set color calibration is also OK. I do not plan to tweak it. The images are very sharp. Fine and/or small text is easy to ready. I also like the new base and support arm better, and the fact that its so much lighter. Congratulations DELL! Having said that, it does not have some of the connections available in the Dell 2405 (i.e. SD card ports), but it has others such as DisplayPort. An HDMI port would have been nice to have, but since I use a Dell E Latitude docking station, I am using the DisplayPort and/or DVI port. It comes with a power cable (of course) and also a USB cable, a VGA cable and a DVI cable. At this point in time, Id rather had seen a DVI and a DisplayPort cable inside the box, and not the legacy VGA cable, but it may be helpful for other users. Not an issue anyway. A few days after having received the new monitor, I decided that for this price it was worth having a dual set, so I ordered another one. Now my EXCEL spreadsheets can finally stretch as wide as necessary, or I can work in two applications side-by-side. Nice and worth it.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this monitor. I was stupid before this and bought a cheap monitor. It hurt my eyes. I have an HP Pavilition with an excellent monitor, but this year, bought a Microsoft Surface, which also has an excellent monitor, just too small for my puny eyes. I bought a cheap large monitor and it was almost worse than the tiny screen. Finally ponied up for this monitor and its AWESOME Not only is it great quality and crisp clear text (I do mostly reading, writing, database work and programming) but its SOOOO adjustable and I didnt realize how cool that would be. This monitor SLIDES up down AND TILTS forward back AND ROTATES left right, great for when moving around in my chair. I do wish the base would move towards and back from me a little easier - it has a SOLID dependable base, but I do tend to drag it towards and away from me. Maybe Ill put a piece of felt or something to let it slide easier. This monitor can also go vertical which is very cool, but I find a little disconcerting just on orientation. If I were doing mostly writing, say like a lawyer, the vertical (portrait) mode might be how I keep it all the time, or if I had a second jack for a monitor, I might get another one of these - one for my desktop in horizontal mode and one for my writing in vertical mode. All in all, I have NOTHING Bad to say about this monitor. Oh, some people have commented that it doesnt have speakers and thats true. While that would be nice, it doesnt really take away from it and I think you can buy a speaker bar to attach, but dont quote me on that. Overall, this monitor has a high quality feel to it, sharp performance and flexible. LOVE IT!

We have been exceedingly impressed with the U2412M monitor thus far. Without rehashing (too much) what other reviews have said, heres what we like: 1) Aspect ratio: the screen size is perfect for working with documents, excel files, email and presentations. Yes a smaller screen will do the job but the extra vertical resolution is nice to have. 2) Highly adjustable: Dell UltraSharp panels have always been great in this regard, and this monitor is no exception. We love that the swivel (both left to right and horizontal to vertical) is effortless, and that its easy to adjust the vertical height and pitch of the monitor to help you achieve the best ergonomic viewing angle. This has really helped to reduce neck strain for both of us who use this monitor. 3) Great colors and image clarity: Im sure there are professional photographers and others who need nothing but the highest levels of color accuracy, but for normal office/web/photo use this monitor produces crisp, clear, pleasing images which are more than good enough for us. 4) USB side ports: USB ports on the bottom and side of the monitor have been a feature on various Dell monitors over the years. While this feature is easy to overlook, the convenience of being able to quickly access USB ports to pop in and out a flash drive has become a luxury that I dont want to live without. No more having to reach behind the PC, or twisting to reach strangely angled ports that manufactures put on their computers for some reason. Its also great if you keep your CPU on the floor and dont want to have to get down on your knees just to plug in a USB device. As always, Amazon customer service is great. The first display we received had a dead (dark) pixel. Amazon quickly shipped out a replacement and the new one was perfect. I highly recommend thoroughly checking out the pixels right after you receive it. There are helpful test patterns that you can play on YouTube and similar sites that make dead and stuck pixels easier to spot.

I have been using the monitor for only a week, so I can say nothing about reliability. It is labeled with a manufacture date of November 2012. The colors are very nice, perhaps a bit better than my older LCD monitors, but nothing spectacular like others have reported. The 1920x1200 format is very nice for CAD (computer aided design) work. There is no problem with the antiglare coating, as others have reported. It has a smooth flat appearance just like my two older Samsung monitors. I work mostly with white backgrounds (CAD and word processing) and I see none of the glittery effect reported in earlier posts. I have noticed no stuck pixels or the backlight bleed that others have reported. Perhaps these were initial production problems. I see no blurring, streaking or other artifacts when playing DVD movies or with action games like Flight Simulator X (running with all options maximized, 30 frames per second and 1920x1200 pixels). Other comments about the 8 ms refresh causing blurring are pretty silly, since our nervous system cant distinguish events shorter than about 20-30 ms. It is connected to an Nvidia Quadro 2000 video card through a DisplayPort cable. Pros: Easy setup. Windows 7 found it and automatically installed a U2412M driver. Height, angle and rotation adjustments are easy. Cons: It doesnt include a DisplayPort (DP) cable. It has black buttons on a black bezel (if there are labels, they are black too). They are essentially invisible under normal room lighting. I know this is the current silly fad, but it is just stupid! When I first turned it on it reported that there was no VGA cable connected and that it would shut down in five minutes. This was silly since it was connected with a DisplayPort cable. I pushed on the buttons (not sure which one because it is black on black) and eventually an input selection menu appeared. When I selected the DisplayPort input it switched and has worked correctly ever since. This should have been unnecessary - with only one cable connected it should have auto detected the signal. A minor annoyance is the way the power, video and USB cables attach on the rear of the display panel. When you rotate the display the cables are dragged with it and may hang on nearby objects. It would have been much better to attach the cables to the base and make the connections to the display internally at the rotation point. The display has two USB ports on the left edge. If used these cables stick out several inches making it necessary to have a lot of clearance. These ports cant be used in a multi monitor system with another monitor sitting next to the U2412M (or anything else close by). Also, if the monitor is rotated these cables are dragged to the top of the display high above the desk top. The side of the display isnt a good location for cable connections. Other comments: This is not a problem with the monitor, but when I installed it Microsoft Office had to be activated a second time. Just for changing monitors on the machine! Thats nuts! I dont know if Microsoft does this for all monitors. I knocked off a star because of the black on black buttons without labels and the failure to auto detect the signal. Otherwise it is very nice.

This monitor is a replacement for my 8 year old Samsung 213t. I was very happy with that monitor, and it lasted me through four computer upgrades since I originally purchased it in 2004. However, recently I had been wanting to move up to 1920x1200 for a little more space for my documents and software development tools. After one day of use, the U2412M seems to be an excellent replacement. Its much lighter than the 213t, and it runs much cooler due to the more energy-efficient LED backlighting. I will have to let others speak to the color accuracy, which I understand is generally pretty good for most purposes. From my relatively novice perspective it feels colder than my old Samsung, which perhaps is a result of the new monitor having whiter whites and less actual heat radiating from the front of the display. In any case, it does have a slightly different feel... not better or worse, but different. Pros: * Full-height 1920x1200 * Anti-glare coating (comparable to other anti-glare screens Ive used) * Good colors, seems to be best at 35 brightness * VESA mount for use on standard monitor arms and stands * LED backlight runs cool and is very power-efficient Cons: * Would be nice to have an SD card reader (not a big deal) I purchased this item directly from Amazon and it has zero dead or bright pixels that I can see. For those who care about this, they didnt double-box for shipment, but with Prime shipping via UPS it arrived with no damage.

This is an excellent monitor with a sharp, clear picture. I like the 10:16 aspect ratio which gives a taller screen for the same nominal size. It is great for business applications. I worked in an office where we had at least 30 of this exact model and everyone really liked them. As far a I know, none had any issues with dead pixels or other failure and they were used every day. A super great feature is the very adjustable ergonomic stand. it is very solid and has very good range of height, tilt and swivel. I love the thin matt (non-shiny) edge boarder and the non-glare screen. A couple of reviewers have complained about the non-glare screen being grainy, but I have no idea what they are talking about. The picture and color are excellent. This has DVI and VGA inputs, but no HDMI which may be an issue to some. But the DVI will give you the same picture quality and if you want decent audio sound with any monitor you will need separate speakers and hook up any way. Very few monitors have built in speakers that could use the HDMI sound, and those that do are usually poor quality. I got the Dell AX510 sound bar to go with this and it fits great, looks good, took 5 minutes to easily install, and sounds good, (better than typical built in speakers). But if you want rich, high quality stereo sound youll need stand alone speakers.