Dell U2412M - 16:10 IPS without Breaking the Bank
by Chris Heinonen on February 28, 2012 9:00 AM ESTDell U2412M Brightness and Contrast
Despite the larger size of the display compared to recent 23” monitors I have reviewed, the U2412M says it can produce 300 nits of light at maximum output, which should certainly be bright enough for anyone to use. It’s worth noting that I usually set the display around 5 nits too high before calibration, to allow for a little headroom when ColorEyes generates the curves. However this also means that maximum light output, once calibrated, might be around 5% lower than maximum due to the curves inside the ICC profile.
Despite this possible limitation, the Dell still put out 294 nits at maximum brightness after calibration, and 39 nits at minimum brightness. This was plenty bright for my work area, even with bright overhead lights, and the combination of the high brightness and anti-glare coating made it easy to see the screen.
The weak area for IPS screens has always been the black levels, with them being much higher than those from VA based displays. The U2412M did well here, out performing all recent non-VA displays with a nice, low black level.
With this combination of black level and a very bright screen, we would expect to see a decent contrast ratio to come out as well, and the Dell delivers here.
Beating the specified number by over 10% is always nice to see, and the contrast on the Dell is very nice. It easily outperforms most TN displays, though it's not able to compete with the combination of LED lighting and a VA panel from BenQ. It was also very stable across the spectrum, with virtually identical ratios at maximum and minimum brightness.
While the center stayed nice and bright, the edges showed a good amount of fall off in comparison, and an overall variance of around 6%. The areas with higher brightness uniformity issues were also the areas with higher dE values on the uniformity testing, just as we expected. Looking at black uniformity, thanks to the bright corners this wound up even worse, with a variance of around 14%.
Taken as a whole, the contrast ratios are good, and while there is light fall-off at the edges of the display, it does not seem to have a noticeable effect on color quality.
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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 :)