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

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 they're usually relegated to high-end displays. This is one of the few ~$300 16:10 PC displays, and it's a good one. No, it's not perfect - no monitor is, and let me dispense with the monitor's bad points first. Like the (16:9) ASUS PB238Q I traded in for this, mine doesn't have perfect uniformity - one side of the screen is ever so slightly brighter (and bluer) than the other. This is a common problem for LCD's, 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 isn't going to win any beauty awards - it has that mid-90's 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 doesn't 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 it's 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 I'm 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 it's only got an SRGB color gamut. That's by design and not really a criticism, but just be aware of it if you're a photographer. Dell still makes other UltraSharp monitors intended for professionals - this isn't one of them, although it's good enough for me and it should be good enough for anyone not doing critical photo editing. Now for the good stuff. As mentioned, there's the aspect ratio. Already explained that. This monitor's 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). It's also *capable* of very accurate colors, although you'll need to calibrate it to get them. Matte screen, and the anti-glare coating is not grainy or otherwise noticeable. It's 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 I've ever seen. It's 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 they're some of the only monitors that'll do all this in the lower price ranges. It also feels solid and doesn't wobble, although it does sometimes get a little off-axis on its own, and you have to sort of re-center it. It's 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 it's already brighter than that. Most calibrated settings I've seen for this monitor end up with a brightness setting of around 35%. It's 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 you'd be watching movies or TV shows. Overall I'm cursing Amazon yet again for not letting me give half stars, because this is a 4 1/2 star monitor. It's not perfect and it doesn't have the wide gamut of the 2410 that preceded it, but then it's also about half the price so it's easier to overlook its flaws given all you get for the money. Find me a better 24" 16:10 monitor at this price and I'll buy it.

I specifically targeted a 16:10 monitor to get the extra 120 pixels of height that the 1080p does not give (1920 wide x 1080 high for the 1080p vs. 1920 wide x 1200 high for the 24" class 16:10); because I had used the Dell 2410 at work for 9 months and became very attached to the vast expanse of working area and the high image quality. I've been waiting for the prices to come out of the stratosphere, and was pleasantly surprised that it was the Dell U2412M which was the first I could find to dip below the $300 mark. An extra $150 for only an extra 120 pixels in height (as compared to the $150 23" 1080p)? You bet'cha! I work with and proofread documents and engineering drawings; and my wife is a consulting nurse who juggles dozens of tasks on her screens. We both LOVE our 24" monitors with the extra pixel real estate. We bought THREE (3). My wife was more than a bit skeptical about the value for such an outlay of money; but after she got set up with her 24" I've heard no complaints. I intended to use two at work, but made the mistake of setting up one on my home computer to test it out. I hasn't moved since. Looks like I will be getting a fourth U2412M to replace the 23" 1080p at work, which sits alongside my other U2412M. The latter makes my nice 23" seem like a piece of junk: The difference in working real estate between the two seems like a lot more than the numbers (1080 vs 1200) would make you think. Setup was easy. Colors are nicer than my other monitors and are easily adjustable. Instructions for setup and adjustment were clear and simple. I am not a "dead pixel hunter," so cannot comment on that aspect, other than to say I don't see anything amiss and the display looks GREAT! The monitor is a few pounds heavier than the featherweight 23-inchers I have been buying lately. This could be a blessing or a curse: The U2412M is more stable, but you need both hands to lift it or adjust height (speaking of which, the height is very easy to instantly adjust). The only downside comment I can muster is that there is no HDMI connection, so DVI-D is the only way to get the excellent quality video this monitor was built to deliver. If there was a 4.5 star rating, I would downgrade to that for the missing HDMI, but it is not enough to downgrade to 4 stars. My wife and I are both using Sapphire Radeon HD video cards (one an HD6850 and one an HD7850) to run dual monitors. Either card has (among other connections) two DVI-D ports, and will run two large monitors in "clone view" or "extended desktop" modes beautifully. This is a great monitor, and now you can get it at a great price!

I had wanted to purchase a larger monitor. My vision isn't as good as it was years ago (I'm getting more and more far sighted). I'm 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 it's 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 isn't perfect. Well nothing is. Technically it doesn't have the fullest color rendition, and if you need PERFECT color you might find fault here. I've viewed photos taken with my Panasonic G3 on this monitor and flesh tones are correct with good contrast. I haven't tried to set the color balance yet, all I've done is fool around with the contrast and brightness settings. I'm 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 don't 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 can't 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 I've had this monitor for under a week. It's 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, I'd 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 I'll 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 don't need a pair of two by nothing speakers in the monitor!

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 I'm glad I pocketed the extra $200. For about $300, it's 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, don't 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 I've worked at provide 20" screens. I've 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 didn't 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 don't 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 don't want to have to sort out the menu every time. I can't compare this model with another model because I only bought one of them! So here's a list of items about THIS monitor I've 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 I've 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 wouldn't 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 isn't hopped up on a dozen energy drinks, who isn't 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 I've 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 it's a lot more vibrant than what I'm 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 haven't 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 wouldn't have used it to it's fullest, and unless your profession is colors, you probably wouldn't either. Read Fuzzy Wuzzy's review for details about how in order to use the monitor to it's 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 don't see any bright light-leaks at the edges or anything, but when the screen is 'black', it isn't quite as 'black' as I'd like it. This is my first IPS monitor, and it seems like standard fare to have a bit of glowing, but it's nothing I notice regularly. While gaming or web browsing or watching videos it's something I don't notice at all. The pixles are fine, although I checked for 'dead' pixles, I didn't 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 it's larger than my old one. Seems sturdy. Not knocking it around or anything, so it's 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!

I wanted to find a monitor to connect my MacBook Pro to in order to have a more ergonomic home office. I'm an engineering graduate student, so I spend a lot of time at my computer and wanted something that would make reading scientific articles, word processing, multiple monitor-managing, and coding more enjoyable and comfortable. I was directed to this monitor by the recommendation of a good friend who bought one for a similar purpose. This product immediately seemed like a great option; it was very large, had a display-port for connecting to Macs, had a reasonable price tag, and had several unique features that made it even more attractive. Still, as a broke grad student the price tag was a bit much - but I went ahead and found a refurbished unit through Amazon Warehouse (HIGHLY recommend going through them). I purchased the monitor along with a mini Display Port to Display Port adaptor (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TSTDI0/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_2), the unit arrived and I more or less effortlessly put it together and began experiencing the joys of owning a high definition and large screen monitor. I loved this monitor so much that I bought another through Amazon Warehouse to install in my lab office. It was just terrible trying to go back to using just my laptop screen! I will say though, that one of the pixels on the second refurbished unit i bought is dead, which was a bit annoying but I figure it will keep me from using it to watch too much TV in lab. So below I just wanted to speak in more detail about some of the features that were just super nice that make me love this monitor so much. ===Flexible Screen The screen is really, remarkably pliant. You can turn it any which way, angle it up and down, and just get it into whatever position you would possibly want. Perhaps the only thing you could complain about is that the height of the screen can't be altered. ===HD Screen The screen is great for watching any HD content, and the size of the thing makes it large enough to play to the role of a TV. I've also found the color representation to be high fidelity, which has been very useful in my endeavors as an amateur digital photographer. The screen beautifully renders my images during post-processing and helps me in making my adjustments to contrast and white balance. ===Rotating Screen This has been really nice for reading scientific journal articles, and it allows me to have a more natural reading experience. By more natural, I mean it makes it feel like I have a copy of the journal in front of me because I can see the whole page at once. It makes a big difference for those articles where you want to see the text and the figures at the same time. On another note, it has been really handy in editing portrait-oriented photographs. Normally with this orientation you have to deal with looking at a shrunken version of your picture since the height will be limited by the height of the screen. When you rotate the screen, you're able to see the picture at its full size and you will be able to edit it much more carefully. ===Other The screen is really super easy to calibrate following the instructions given by the Mac OS, so that's nice. Also, the fact that the monitor has its own USB ports are a big plus if you want to set up a permanent external hardrive without having to connect it directly to your Mac every time you get home or to the office. ===Environmental Impact On a more important note, I think it is great to support products (especially those that perform this well) that are conscious of their environmental impact. With this purchase you are getting a fantastic monitor while simultaneously supporting the environment. And seriously, the environment needs some major supporting right now.

So I'll get the big points out of the way first. No, it's not a 10 bit panel, and yes, it's an e-IPS panel (the low-end of IPS). If you don't know what either of those things mean, don't worry about it. This is far and away a better monitor than any TN panel out there (even the best TN panel won't match a low-end IPS panel for color reproduction, and it's likely what you'll get with any monitor under $200). So with that out of the way, I'll review this monitor as someone looking for a better than average LCD panel. That is, after all, what Dell's U2412M is designed to be. It's not aimed at professionals. It's aimed at consumers that aren't happy with how their TN LCD can't quite ever do white justice. It's aimed at the casual or enthusiast photographer that wants decent colors but doesn't have a job riding on it. It's aimed at the gamer that is disappointed by how hard it is to make out a dark room in their favorite game. It wasn't that long ago that TN panels in this size and resolution were going for the same kind of money (the Acer P241w sitting next to this Dell was $300 new). The fact that you can now get an IPS panel for under or around $300 is incredible. Compared to my old Acer (which I've never been able to get decently calibrated) the Dell is fantastic. Whites are so much whiter. Colors are richer. Details are sharper. The OSD is quite frankly brilliant (the softkey system makes fumbling for the right button in the dark a thing of the past). Then add features I never had with my Acer, like the height and swivel adjustments, rotation, and a USB hub. It's money well spent as far as I'm concerned, and I'm very happy with it. Now to address an issue I've seen in several reviews: yellow tinting. The display I got (model U2412Mb, rev A00) shows no signs of it. That's only a sample size of one, so I can't claim that it's gone, but it's definitely not present on the one I got. I ran the Windows 7 monitor calibration (which is a visual calibration, calibrated eyeballs required), and was generally pretty pleased with the results. I dialed out a bit of green and just a hint of red (the gamma was pretty much spot on), and if anything it makes it look like my old Acer has the yellow tinting problem. For sake of mentioning the competition (I know how much some people like to comparison shop), you might check out ASUS's PA248Q. I haven't seen one myself, but it seems to be the only real price to price direct competitor. The ASUS has USB 3.0 and HDMI if that's important to you. This Dell has neither (no HDMI at all, and the USB hub is 2.0). If you're like me and just can't stand how "average" TN paneled LCDs are these days, this Dell is a very good option. I'm very happy with mine. It arrived with no issues (no weird tints, no dead/hot pixels of any kind). While I can't say for sure that your Dell will be just as good (quality control being what it is these days), I can say it's worth it if you do get a good one. As always with Amazon, you're likely to have the best luck buying directly from Amazon (that's what I did).

I've had the monitor a little over a month now. I appreciate the superior image quality, color, screen size and stand adjustment range compared to my old 22" TN 1680x1050 monitor. I use it mainly for internet use and RPG/MMO gaming. I do have a Spyder4 Elite colormeter and using that for calibration I have very clean, bright whites and deep blacks. Colors are vivid and true (99% sRBG after calibration). * Gaming response is great for the type of games I play. I see no abnormal ghosting (all LCDs have a little blur regardless of panel type or response time compared to a CRT). My RPGs and MMOs (like Skyrim and LotRO) look gorgeous. * The stand's adjustment range is awesome. I daily use the height adjustment, tilt and swivel depending on how I'm sitting in my chair. Its so nice to have an ergonomic monitor that accommodates me regardless how I slouch, tip back or sit upright. Every monitor should have such a stand, but sadly most don't * The screen is very close to perfect. There is a tiny bit of edge bleed, but it in general is the most uniform monitor I've ever own. The screen is almost completely smooth and dark when the PC first boots and there are no dead or stuck pixels. Great job there on quality control there. * Unlike a few who complain about the Anti-Glare coating I have no issue with it. Unless I have my nose very close to the screen with a light background its unnoticeable. At the usual 24" I sit from the screen I really can't see it. Whites are clean, colors are true, text is sharp (use the Windows 7 Clear Type adjustment tool) and there is no undue graininess to the screen. My previous monitor was a glossy screen, so if anyone should be sensitive to the anti-glare coating it should be me. The U2412M is just fine and I think some people are trying very hard to find a perceived flaw to obsess over. Basically, its a matte screen. If you don't like matte screens, get a glossy, but be aware you will then have to deal with reflections in bright environments. * 1920x1200 resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. This is a personal preference, but I like the greater height of a 16:10 monitor for internet and productivity use. If you really need to view 16:9 material without it being stretched you'll be better off with a 1920x1080 monitor since the Dell doesn't have 1:1 pixel mapping. You can set it to 16:9 in most video cards so the stretching isn't evident (my Nvidia GPU can using the Nvidia Control Panel). That brings me to one of the monitor's few cons. It can adjust to view 4:3 aspect material (older games)without stretching in the menu. It uses black bars on the left and right to do this, but the problem is it then shows widescreen material with black bars as well. Most monitors (including my three year old HP) can switch back and forth automatically when using a 4:3 setting in the menu. With the U2412M you have to go into the menu every time when playing old games or watching a 4:3 aspect TV show or movie. All in all this is an excellent monitor for general use and I'm very happy with my purchase. Amazon (as usual) delivered quickly and their excellent return policy during the 30 day window really put my mind at ease vs. buying from a local brick and mortar store. They double boxed the monitor for shipment and that's a rarity with most e-tailers (Newegg doesn't do that for monitors).

I must have purchased six or seven of these exact same monitors over the past couple of years. I can't remember when I bought the first one, but I remember thinking that it was SO much better than regular 1080 HD. The extra pixels really make a difference (this monitor is 1920x1200 versus a standard HD monitor's 1920x1080 pixels). In my last job, I had two of these monitors side by side along with my laptop screen. When I quit, I purchased one of these to go in my new office, and will be buying a second soon. I have bought these for employees, too, and they all love them. The monitor has several inputs, such as HDMI, VGA and DVI. It has a USB hub, and comes with the USB cable to connect to your computer. This is pretty convenient - I have my wireless keyboard and mouse plugged into the monitor, along with an external hard drive and other accessories. When I get to the office I just have to plug in one USB cable and I'm done. I've even thought about getting a USB audio adapter so I don't have to plug and unplug my speakers -- I know, I'm lazy. The image quality on the monitor is good too. Not that I'd really be able to tell, I'm practically blind. But blacks look black, and it gets pretty bright too. I just use it for email, programming, web browsing and taking the occasional phone order from a customer, so it does what I need. It will also pivot to 90 degrees too, my old boss used that a lot for editing spreadsheets and documents. I tried it with both one and two of these monitors, and I didn't really care for it. But it's a great option to have if you want it. Bottom line, these monitors are awesome. And since they keep coming down in price year after year, they become more and more of a value. I've paid almost $400 for these and they go for as little as $230 now. Keep your eye out for a deal, they go on sale all the time! Highly recommended.