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

This review is for people who are trying to decide between the Dell UltraSharp U2412M vs Asus PA248Q. I was really stuck when it came to picking between the two as they are very similar and in the end I ordered both of them and was able to compare them side by side. The following reviews are from my personal experience comparing them side by side, not from any of the specs. Hopefully this helps someone make the right choice for them. The Dell: The picture quality is slightly better than the Asus. Colors are a little bit more rich and the contrast is a bit better on the Dell. Refresh rate seemed to be about equal on both monitors. The monitor I had did not have any back light bleed either although it did have a bit of IPS glow (a little less than the Asus) but thats expected. The anti glare coating was not a problem for me at all. The Dell also is missing several features that are nice to have. It only has DVI and VGA and the USB ports on the side are 2.0. One complaint I had with the Dell is the menu system. Your choices for calibrating the monitor are fairly limited and the menu system is not the easiest to use. The stand feels good and it is spring loaded so the monitor slides up and down very easily. The Asus: This monitor seems to me to be superior is every way except for the picture quality. The picture quality, while very good, is slightly worse than the Dell as mentioned above. A lot of people complain about back light bleed with this monitor but the one I received had no back light bleed. It did have a little bit more IPS glow than the Dell however. One nice part is that the Asus has tons of nice features such as USB 3.0, 1:1 picture scaling, it comes calibrated, has HDMI, has picture in picture and has measurement overlays on the screen. The menu system on the Asus is better than the Dell because it gives you a lot more options for adjusting the image and the buttons on the side include a little joystick that makes operating the menu very easy and nice. The Stand is very sturdy and nice although I think I preferred the Dell simply because of the spring. The anti glare coating on the Asus did not bother me at all and is basically the same as on the Dell. One other thing is that even though the Asus is shown with a red line on the bottom, it doesnt actually have it, its just black. Conclusion: The Dell has slightly better picture quality and the Asus has better everything else.

Very nice quality monitor for the price. Color calibration appears straight on, great wide viewing angles typical of IPS panels, with no dead or stuck pixels whatsoever and absolutely no backlight bleed on the one I received. Refresh rate is low at 8ms, so Id expect some slight ghosting on fast FPS games - absolute hard core gamers probably need to look at another brand or model. Dells base is the best designed I have ever owned. The landscape to portrait pivot function of the base is very nice and allows you use the monitor vertically instead of horizontally - very useful when proofing documents. The only thing I dont like about it is that it is very easy to scratch the base when pivoting if you dont remember to tilt the bottom of the monitor outwards as you pivot it (a minor quibble, and more user error on my part than an actual design fault). Packaging from Amazon was great - Dells box (which itself was built like a tank and held the monitor screen securely within cardboard and not foam restraints) was packaged securely within a second Amazon box padded with paper. Cant ask for much more than that. All in all, a great monitor for the price.

After shopping for a new monitor, this is my third that Ive ordered from different places, second of this model. Finally! Ive found something I can keep. The model I received from amazon is in 96% perfect condition. Stable base (which was actually why I had to return the previous model), no backlight bleeding, the monitor is very bright, so I have the brightness turned down to 30 or so, which is great. The IPS viewing angles are fantastic compared to other IPS displays Ive seen. The only problem is that when I have totally black screens, like end credits or something, there is the slightest vertical streak on far right side of the screen. its very thin, less than 4mm across, and the pixels are good, just slightly slightly greyed out? I never actually see this error unless its a totally black screen. Also, its so far to the right, Im never really looking over there. 24 is a pretty big screen! Other than that, its perfect. No issues in my 4 days of ownership. Oh, but I would advise to just go to the Dell site to get the drivers for the monitor, the disk didnt find the monitor when I put it in. Downloading the drivers works perfectly.

UPDATE: 07.30.2014 So I wanted to do a quick update on my review. I work for a new company now and we recently ordered 13 Dell U2412M monitors for the office. Yep thats right, 13 of them. Strangely enough all of them now say REV A01 on the back and are manufactured in 2014. They also do not have the weird yellow tint issue that I was getting on the REV A00 models that were manufactured in late 2013. My company ordered these directly from Dell. This could be a fluke or Dell might have fixed the yellow tint issue. I am still kind of scared to try to order another one for home use. I have updated my review title. ------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE: 01.22.2014 Well my replacement U2412M came in from Dell today and guess what! It has the same yellow tint issue as well! So far I am 3 out of 3, all having the yellow tint issue. I was hopeful that this one would be better considering it said Manufactured December 2013 while the other two said Manufactured November 2013, but nope it didnt matter. Like I said, they must either have changed the panel they put in them at the manufacturing plant in China, or they are selling their old defective stock and relabeling them to look new. So the one I ordered from Amazon had the yellow tint issue and the two I ordered directly from Dell. I AM DONE. I am returning this one as well and just getting my money back. FYI: If you only have one of these hooked up then you might not notice the yellow tint as bad, but if you compare it to a close by laptop screen or other monitor that has normal colors you will notice how jacked up it is. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ORIGINAL REVIEW I highly recommend staying away from purchasing a Dell U2412M, mainly because all vendors including Amazon, Newegg, TigerDirect and even Dell themselves are selling a version of this monitor that has a horrible yellow tint to the screen. There is nothing you can do about the yellow tint. Even the most advanced screen calibration can not make the colors right. Obviously Dell is either selling an old recalled version of this now trying to get rid of old stock, OR they are now putting a cheaper screen in these monitors. Its such a shame because I already own one of these and use two more at work and they are perfect. I would totally give them a five star rating. But NOT the current one getting sent out to customers! Here is a little back story. I purchased a Dell U2412M for home use back in late 2012 directly from Dell. I opened her up and it was one of the best monitors I have ever used. I mainly use it for Web Design and Development. I even recommended this monitor to others at work and my company ordered over 10 over them for everyone in my design team to use. All 10+ of the U2412M monitors were perfect and all ordered in late 2012. Fast forward to today. I have been using dual U2412M monitors at work for over a year now and had been using a single one at home, so I decided to upgrade my home workstation to dual U2412M monitors as well. So I ordered one from Amazon (shipped and sold by Amazon) and when it arrived I noticed that it had a HORRIBLE yellow tint to the screen compared to the one I already owned and compared to all of the ones I use at my company. I checked the back and it said REV A00 and it was manufactured in November 2013. The U2412M that I have owned since 2012 which is perfect, says it was manufactured in May 2012 and is REV A03. I checked all of the ones at my company and they all say REV A03. I did a little research and come to find out, when this monitor first released all of them said REV A00 and that revision of them got recalled for yellow tint issues. So I ended up returning my new U2412M back to Amazon who promptly gave me a refund. I then contacted Dell and asked them what revisions number they were selling, and if it was REV A03 or higher. Dell could not give me a straight answer, but they said the REV A00 version of the U2412M was recalled and revised. They also assured me that if I ordered a U2412M directly from Dell that I would get the latest version/revision. So like an idiot I ordered one directly from Dell and guess what? Its another REV A00 and has the horrible yellow tint issue!! I immediately called up Dell and after talking to five different people they are now sending me out a replacement. My fingers are crossed that I get a good work version this time. Maybe third time will be the charm! Oh yeah, and its just not Amazon and Dell that is sending out the REV A00 versions with the yellow tint issue. There are people reporting that the same thing is happening with U2412M ordered from Newegg, TigerDirect and everywhere else. So like I said earlier, either Dell is trying to get rid of their old stock of REV A00 versions of this monitor, or they have completely changed the screen they are putting in these to a cheaper and very yellow screen. I will update this review when I get in my third U2412M. PROS: -If you get a good one, it is an awesome monitor! -16:10 aspect ratio for a full 1920x1200 resolution -LED lit so the brightness will stay bright for a very long time -Great colors and viewing angles -Text looks great for writing code or documents -Nice sturdy and adjustable stand -Rotatable screen -Easy to use menu -USB 2.0 hub built-in -Decent warranty from Dell CONS: -HIGH chance you will get a defective one with a yellow tint issue (If you get one this monitor is horrid) -IPS glow/bleed when on dark screens (however this is common with IPS technology) -No HDMI port

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.

Lets start out by describing what I do with this thing: I use CAD software and play games from the same machine. Im not a pro video or photo editor; please understand that Im not. I do not/have not owned dozens of expensive monitors, although I have worked with a few! This things got everything that counts: 1920x1200 resolution at a true 60hz, not 59.754hz. Its got a decent response time; actually, its slower than my last monitor, but I cant tell the difference, even when gaming online. My mouse and internet connection are by far more damaging to my gaming experience, which is to say not much. Games and pictures look very nice on this, and the resolution is a nice break from my laptops cheap 1366x768 gloss screen. The screen itself is good - not incredible, but very nice. The anti-glare coating produces a funny effect that I notice when staring blankly at my screen... In other words, I dont notice it too much. Despite the coating, I find myself turning the brightness all the way up when faced with computers mortal enemy: sunlight. Still, it does a much better job (and is WAY brighter) than my old monitor. The colors are true - by true, I mean I dont have to tweak my nvidia driver settings as much. The blacks and whites will impress anyone whos used to a normal monitor, and probably wont disappoint anyone whos used to a good IPS. Stand quality is good, much better than a cheap monitor. The vertical riser is nice - it travels about eight inches up and down. I really like the stands ability to turn the monitor without moving the base! Very nice if you want to turn the screen and show someone what youre looking at, range is about 120 degrees. The up-down screen tilt is very good, with a powerful spring to keep it from drooping. The good: + Good picture, very nice in this price range. + Well built stand. + Functional, still looks good. + 16:10 aspect ratio (mostly a personal thing). The not good: - Might be too expensive to justify versus a regular monitor. - Not 2560x1600 resolution. Asking too much? Probably. - No HDMI input. Conclusion (TL;DR): If youre looking at this monitor from the average persons point of view: Im happy with this monitor, though I think it cost a bit too much for what I got. Im cautiously going to say that Id buy it again, just because of the 16:10 aspect ratio and the good colors and contrast. If you are actually in the market for a professional IPS panel, please consider reading more reviews first, but do consider this panel.

When I first turned this monitor on I was disappointed in its performance. The colors were rather dull. It needs to be adjusted correctly. I first used Liquid Color which made things better. Then I made manual adjustments based on my subjective preferences. These adjustments were made to Game Mode. Here are the settings I like: Brightness 76 Contrast 76 Hue 50 Saturation 70 Sharpness 50 Dynamic cont. On Using these, the display looks beautiful. I liked it so much, I bought another one of these monitors and I now have a dual monitor setup. For this I bought the Planar 997-5253-00 Dual Monitor Stand which works very well and is of high quality. I use dual displays on the Game setting mostly for Flight Simulator X, which looks great. (For routine everyday use I shut one of the monitors off and set the other to Standard.) So I suspect that some of the ho-hum reviews are based on sub-optimal adjustments. Admittedly, adjusting it is somewhat of a hassle, and my settings are subjective, but if one is willing to do some tweaking youll get a nice looking display. You also get 1920 x 1200 resolution which is becoming less common for some reason, but it is what I prefer.

This is the 3rd U2412M Ive ordered. The previous two were ordered 11 and 13 months ago, and were REV A03. This is a REV A01 (model U2412Mb). It does have the yellow tint that others have talked about, and is very noticeable compared to the two previous A03 monitors. However I was able to adjust it so the difference is less noticeable by changing the preset to color temp and selecting 7500k (as opposed to standard and 6500k) - its still noticeable, but now mostly for blues instead of whites. Since Im not doing graphic design this is acceptable for me. I will be keeping this model, even with the yellow tint, but have to return this specific one as it has a loose part inside that rattles whenever I move it. I would have rated this monitor a 5 previously, but its dropped a star because of the color uniformity issues and the loose part inside (there is no damage to the monitor or the box, and it works). Update: Amazon shipped me a replacement, and this monitor works great. It is also a REV A01 (model U2412Mb). It does have a yellow hue compared to the REV A03 monitors, but this monitor isnt nearly as bad as the previous one, which stuck out very obviously when the monitors were next to each other. This one is much less obvious, enough that I may not even bother to adjust it. This monitor Ill be keeping.

So after weeks of watching, I went ahead and bought two of these monitors for 265 when a resaler (Triplenet pricing) was having a sale. First impressions were good, the monitors had a simplistic, utilitarian design I especially liked and the stands seemed solid (Im using a monitor stand so I cant comment on those). Upon installation I was blown away by the display quality and viewing angles. The rumors are really true about these monitors; even though its only a 78% gamut display, you wont know the difference unless you are a professional who relies on color accuracy. The display will blow you away if you are coming from a TN panel. I spent the afternoon looking at photos, admiring the quality of the color reproduction. Its actually much similar to getting a new pair of glasses. Also Id like to add that the input lag is minimal and I was able to play FPS games with no ill effect. However, a month into the purchase I noticed a small plastic plate in the rear had popped out. I had to use a knife to lift the plastic to pop it back in. It hasnt set properly and still pops out slightly. Now, I dont know if this was a defect or a shipping problem, but it is an issue that I believe has to do with the cheap plastic construction used on the monitor. On a related note, the (Amazing) panel feels cheaply constructed on a physical level. When you push in the panel, it has way too much play, going a few millimeters past its point. Now I know these seem like trivial, superficial problems, but I expected much more from such a highly regarded monitor that costs about $280 average (at the time). Overall, Im happy with the monitor, but just beware of what it really is before you dive in. An entry-level monitor with cheap materials with a great display. The construction is really just a minor gripe, and monitor does its job well, so Im giving this 4 stars. Pros: Great colors and viewing angle (The 178 degree viewing angle makes portrait orientation a possibility) Intuitive menu makes for easy, quick adjustments USB hub is very useful Comes with most cables, but not DisplayPort Clean, modern design Cons: Flimsy construction, a lot of play in the display Cheap materials used Anti glare causes some discoloration at certain angles (very, very minimal) EDIT: Just noticed the damaged/defected monitor also has a yellowish tint compared to the other one. I never really noticed until now, dropping a star for that. For me, the color wasnt such a big issue, but for many others, it might be huge. Again, take this monitor for what it is: an upgrade for the average consumer, not for professional creatives who rely on color accuracy. Update from 9/13/2014: Got a chance to use the stand, and I can certainly say that this monitor is rugged where it matters, although there is some shaking if you are typing really hard. But, for 99% of the time, you wont even notice it. Aside from the stand, everything is working as it should, and Ive had no problems except for this tiny bright dot that only shows when there is a white background. Not a huge issue but its there... so I stand by my original rating of 3 stars. The value is there, but Dells QA could use some work.

I bought two of the Dell u2412m monitors that Im using on a Mac Mini for software development. Since I look at a lot of code all day long, text clarity is very important to me. I also use the monitors for graphics design and editing, so color performance and contrast is important as well. I also work in an environment where I have a lot of outside light coming in (including a window behind my chair), so an anti-glare coating was critical for me. Based upon the reviews I read here, I was a little concerned about the anti-glare coating on the u2412m and how that would effect my ability to read text. At times my eyes have had a little bit of a problem focusing on the text, but my brain seems to be adjusting to them after a day or so. Its a little hard to describe, but its like my eyes initially focused on the anti-glare coating instead of the image behind the coating. When I have a problem focusing, if I blink my eyes, they seem to refocus. In any case, after a couple of days, the text appears to be easier to read and I seem to have less eyestrain after a long day of coding on these than I did with my old monitors (Acer AL2216W). The color performance and contrast of the u2412m is significantly better than my old monitors, these look very rich compared to the old screens. Out of the box I did notice that one of the monitors had a slightly warmer white color than the other. This appears to be due to how they are calibrated for the Standard setting at the factory. I found that if I switched the color settings on the monitors from Standard to Custom Color and set the R,G,B levels to 100 on both monitors, then the colors appeared to be nearly identical. I am running with the colors at 100, contrast at 75, and brightness at 20 which seems to be about perfect for me. I now have 3 monitors connected (two of the Dells, and one of the old monitors) and I can say that overall I am very pleased with the improvement. The new monitors draw less power too, about 18 watts each with my settings vs 31 watts each for the old monitors. So now I am thinking about buying a third u2412m... This may not be the perfect monitor for my needs, but at this price point it does seem like a good choice and Im happy with the purchase. The stands also have great adjustability and the extra usb ports are very nice with my Mac.