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

I purchased this monitor after hearing positive feedback from a couple of my friends who have this monitor as well as my own positive experience when testing this monitor on their PCs. The primarily glowing reviews here and elsewhere online confirmed the positive impressions that I had already developed for this monitor. So my expectations were high. Im going to begin this review with a problem that I had and end with the good stuff. If it wasnt for the flaw described below I would have given this monitor a solid 5 star rating. I cant recall reading any other reviews detailing the flaw that Im about to describe so I thought it wise to mention it in the event that anyone reading these reviews may encounter it themselves. The monitor it had a subtle flaw. A portion of the right hand 1/3 of the screen was slightly dimmer than the rest of the screen. It looked like a very subtle gray tint. It was probably an uneven distribution of brightness / luminance, possibly a backlighting problem. I understand that some unevenness in brightness / luminance can be expected but it should only be noticeable when testing / measuring with calibration software and not to the naked eye. The dimmer area of this monitor was visible to the naked eye. There was no way to adjust the problem away. It was most noticeable on a white background. I spend most of my time in Excel, Word, etc. so I always saw that slightly dimmer right hand 1/3 of the screen. I also use a live real-time stock quotation system that has numerous charts with white backgrounds so the charts on the right portion of the screen always appeared slightly dimmer with that grayish tint compared to the other charts. The problem was also noticeable on light colors. For example, if a light yellow or pink color filled the screen, the section of the monitor on the right 1/3 of the screen that was dimmer gave the light yellow and pink colors a slightly very subtle grayish tint. If the screen was filled with a fluorescent green, the same portion of the monitor with the problem had a slightly duller less bright fluorescent green color. The problem was not as obvious on really dark colors or video, but colors were less vibrant and rich. However, I played a couple of videos where there was a white background and paused the image and if the image was paused you could see the dimmer right hand portion of the screen even with a video. If it wasnt for this problem of a slightly very subtle dimmer section of the monitor, the positives were everything that I had experienced when testing this at my friends house and everything positive that I have read in all of these reviews. But since I hadnt read anything negative in these comments about the particular problem that I had experienced I decided that hopefully it was simply a flaw in this particular monitor that had been shipped to me. So I returned the monitor. I was willing to give this monitor another chance and simply wanted to exchange the flawed monitor for the exact same model. Well, upon receiving the replacement monitor I found that it had an uneven distribution of brightness / luminance on both sides of the screen. Less so than the original monitor on the right side but now the left side of the replacement had a touch of the same problem. I decided the original looked better and decided to keep it and return the replacement. Now the good stuff. If it wasnt for the flaw that I just described, the following comments would have warranted a solid 5 star rating for this monitor. I have not made any adjustments to the image at all because everything looks perfect to me right out of the box, at least to my naked eye. The colors are vibrant, rich, and natural. There is no greenish or bluish tint or any other color tint that some people seem to have noticed with their monitors (when using the color setting Standard preset mode). The movie mode setting gave the screen a bluish tint and the multimedia mode setting gave the screen a slightly yellowish tint. The text mode setting was much too dark for my personal liking. Text is crisp and sharp. I have no dead or stuck pixels. There is no backlight leakage visible to my naked eye. And there is no color bleeding. I quickly decided the Standard mode setting configuration was best for me. I made absolutely no adjustments and even video looks stunning in Standard mode. In fact, I prefer videos in the Standard mode rather than the movie or multimedia modes. Unlike most of the reviewers here who turn the brightness down to about 35, Im one of those people who like a nice bright screen and find the factory pre-set 75 level to be just perfect for my eyes. The anti-glare hard coating is typical of what you would find on most anti-glare monitors and does what its supposed to do without degrading the image quality. You can see a touch of the anti-glare coating on an all white screen background, but otherwise it is unnoticeable. If you spend all day in Excel with a white background like I do you will slightly notice it if you stare hard at the screen and think about it. But if you have previously used anti-glare monitors you wont consciously be aware of it or notice it. If you are currently a glossy screen user, you may be slightly conscious of it on a white background, but as I said it wont degrade or diminish the quality of your screen image. The stand is excellent. Very sturdy and offers a full range of height, tilt and swivel adjustments. As previously mentioned, I use this monitor primarily for business applications. If I were to use this for professional photography or video editing I would probably want to be sure I had the most accurate settings possible and would have the monitor calibrated or at least use one of the ICC Profiles for this monitor on the TFT Central web site. I did look at the test images on the lagom.nl/lcd-test/ web site and this monitor tested very well on most of the images. The only images that showed possible adjustments are necessary were the white saturation images and the gamma calibration. But this Dell monitor tested extremely close to those images right out of the box. The other test images showed the monitor was very well tuned. But as I said, to my naked eyes, colors look accurate and the image is absolutely beautiful right out of the box! Photos that Ive taken are displayed with accurate colors on the monitor and look just as they should. However, if youre a professional photographer the higher end Dell U2410 offers better color management with the color space having a wide gamut (102% NTSC) and this Dell U2412M having the standard gamut / sRGB (71% NTSC). Essentially, I was actually shocked that the image looked so good right out of the box and had fully expected to spend time calibrating or doing some sort of minimal tweaking to perfect the image. Thankfully, that was not necessary. Its almost as if the monitor was factory calibrated. Of course your monitor image is only going to be as good as your graphics card allows so be sure that you have a reasonably high end video/graphics card installed in your PC with the most current drivers. Since I use this monitor primarily for business, I run my stock quotation system and Excel all day long. One of the primary considerations in buying this monitor was the higher screen resolution of 1920 x 1200 since I need to maximize and make the most efficient use of my screen real estate space in order to display as much data and as many charts as possible at the same time. This monitor is perfect for providing that additional screen space. Most of my Excel spreadsheets are zoomed down to 80% with font sizes averaging 8 to 10 points. Even with worksheets zoomed down to 80%, the 8-10 point font sizes are crisp, clear, and sharp. I did make one change to how Windows handles font displays however. I was previously using windows font smoothing set to standard, which is probably the default setting. At this setting the text is crisp and sharp but I found it a little thin. So I changed the smoothing to ClearType, which made the text look a little fuller and darker, but still sharp and crisp. I prefer this setting on this higher resolution monitor. Its a matter of personal preference. So this monitor is perfect for investment managers, traders, technical chart analysts, or financial analysts in general. Its also great for people who spend considerable time in database applications. If you think you need a 27 monitor for these purposes plan on spending a minimum of $1,000 for the same specifications or better, and the features and customization capability of this 24 Dell U2412M. Do the extra 3 inches justify the big jump in price? But one distinct advantage of a larger monitor would be the ability to run at an even higher resolution than this Dell thus providing even more screen real estate space. When playing a video on this monitor either on YouTube or from any other source, a HD video will fill the screen width but you will see black bands on the top and bottom of the screen since it is a higher resolution than a standard HD monitor with a resolution of only 1920 x 1080. If you watch a movie shot with anamorphic widescreen lenses (usually Panavision) at a 2.39:1 aspect ratio or a movie shot with spherical lenses and cropped to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio (Super 35), you will notice much larger black bands on the top and bottom of the screen than you would see on a lower resolution monitor. The letterboxing effect is more noticeable on this higher resolution monitor. Thats not a negative; its just the result of a higher resolution. Movies shot with the best equipment (Panavision cameras and lenses) look stunning and sharp. Videos shot with a RED digital cinema camera and lenses, or even better with Panavision lenses, also look stunning and sharp. Movies shot anamorphically look the most stunning when Panavision anamorphic lenses were used. Other anamorphic widescreen lenses dont seem quite as sharp and can display a few moderate visual distortions, but then that is most likely the quality of the lens and not the fault of the Dell monitor. YouTube videos shot with reasonably high end HD cameras also look fairly sharp. Of course most of them are not professionally shot so YouTube videos are not the best judge of video images on this monitor. But for those YouTubers who take a professional approach and know what theyre doing and use high end software for editing and color correction, such as Final Cut Pro X, the images look great on this monitor. Of course the video quality for DVD and Blu-ray will also depend on the quality of the mastering of those disks. Im not a big gamer so I havent yet tested any video games on this monitor. I would definitely recommend this monitor. If youre looking for a reasonably priced IPS panel LED LCD 24 monitor with good viewing angles this monitor fits the bill. If you need extra screen real estate space, the higher resolution 1920 x 1200 gives you much more extra space. If you want a monitor with a slightly higher brightness capability of 300 cd/m2 versus the average 250 cd/m2 for this price range or lower, then this monitor will give it to you. If HDMI is a requirement for you, this monitor does not have that connection. It was not an issue for me so I cant give this monitor a reduced rating for its lack of HDMI. If you must have it, splurge for the higher end, higher priced Dell U2410. And hopefully if you buy this monitor you will end up receiving one with an even distribution of brightness / luminance. Bottom line, the Dell U2412M monitor provides a beautiful display for a moderately priced IPS monitor with many easy options for adjusting the OSD should you find it necessary to tweak the image more to your own liking. Finally, the actual vendor for this monitor was WeSellForLess, through Amazon. They were a great vendor. I simply sent an e-mail explaining the problem with the monitor and they immediately shipped a replacement monitor and e-mailed a UPS return label for the original monitor. Everything was handled smoothly and quickly without any hassles. Ive purchased products online for years and have never actually had to return anything for a refund or exchange until now. I guess Ive been lucky.

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.

Okay, whats lacking - there is no HDMI input. Does that matter? Not really, I discovered. I had an Amazon basics HDMI to DVI adapter cable - and thats all it took - and since there are no speakers in the Monitor, an HDMI input would be misleading. I absolutely love having the extra 120 pixels vertical the 1920x1200 offers over the usual 1920x1080 of an HD screen. I can slide show HD pictures without losing the menus at top or bottom - same for movies. I can put two pages side by side on MSWord, and the whole text of both shows up. The anti-glare surface is like the other Dell AG screens Ive seen - and to my eyes, works as it should - I dont have to dim the lights to see what I want to see. The easy access menu allows me quick changes for brightness and contrast if Im in bright room. Did I mention the premium screen standard? Mine had no pixel problems whatsoever - but if it did, I think that even a single bright pixel qualifies for a replacement with the Dell Premium Screen policy. (Of course, you should double check to see if thats still in effect.) The stand - that is another premium feature missing from many other units - it slides up, down, pivots left and right, and will reposition to vertical as well as horizontal - all without having to release any catches or buttons. You just move it, and it goes. Theres actual metal in the stand, too! (Not just plastic.) Of course, the extra pixels and sweet stand wouldnt mean much if the image werent so gorgeous - but it is. I can see colors and details never before visible on my 17.3 laptop screen - and from angles that make it possible for others to see them as well. It even comes with VGA and DVI cables bundled. But, as I said, I use my HDMI to DVI adapter (which I did have to get separately), and it works without a hitch. I plug it into my laptop HDMI output, and the laptop has learned to turn off the built-in screen and automatically switch to the Dell. This is a model that has been tried and tested - and nothing is lacking, unless you want speakers.

When I was deciding on a monitor, the whole Dell UltraSharp line was brought up again and again. Its safe to say they have a reputation for quality monitors. Of course, they come at a premium. Id imagine some people wonder what that premium gets. Well, to be fair, I dont necessarily think this will be worth it versus lower-priced competitors for everyone, but it was for me. Here are the things that sold me on this monitor, (and that it delivers in use), in order of importance to me: 1) The wide viewing angle. I can be a bit of a slouch at the computer. My old 23 inch monitor, a fairly inexpensive one, had a smaller viewing angle, so that if I slouched, it appeared darker. No such issue with this Dell. You dont have to get yourself in just the right spot. This is really nice for practical reasons, but of course encourages bad posture on my part! 2) Great Stand The stand on this thing is awesome. It goes way up and way down. It tilts to vertical. Its stable as can be. On my cheap Ikea desk, my typing would cause my old monitor on its flimsy stand to jiggle a bit. No such issue here. 3) Aspect Ratio The monitor is 1920x1200, instead of the now more-common 1920x1080. This gives some more pixels of height to the screen. If your focus is movies, perhaps this isnt the best thing (although its a minor issue at worst). For my personal uses of gaming, browsing the web, and working, that is great extra space, plain and simple. 4) Colors! Pretty simple, the Dell delivers rich, accurate colors. A lot of this depends on ones calibrations, but the Dell makes my old monitor, side-by-side, look much more washed out than I ever realized it was. So those were my key points. The Dell has delivered flawlessly on them. Is it worth it for everyone? Not necessarily. Is my older 23 inch monitor still capable of delivering a perfectly nice experience? Sure. In the end, though, you are getting what you pay for with this monitor. Thats not in question.

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.

I was a bit hesitant at first (I am a student and have a limited budget), but decided my laptop screen alone was too small for what I needed to do (simultaneously webcasting, typing notes, and having reference material up). Since the monitor was on sale, I decided to give it a go. As my first IPS monitor, after about a weeks use at 8+ hours/day, I must say it is fantastic. The colors are rich, images and text are clear, and there is a certain vibrancy/clarity that is not apparent in other monitors I have used. The stand enables the height to be easily adjusted, and there are a variety of ports to connect your computer (refer to the description - this monitor does not have HDMI). I do not notice any of the abnormalities referred to by other reviewers such as significant yellowing or distortions due to the anti glare screen. Not to mention my desk is right next to a window, yet I can comfortably use this screen without glare problems. As a long time computer user (over 15 years), I must say this is the best monitor I have ever used and I would agree its probably the best in this price range. Also realize that this monitor has a 1900x1200 native resolution which is a plus (better vertical viewing space than the more common 1900x1080 monitors).

I purchased two of these. One of them had a stuck pixel cluster and a pea sized bright spot near the center of the screen. I returned that one and the replacement arrived with two dark pixel clusters. On any background but a black background the dark pixel clusters look like the monitor is dirty or has a smudge....tried to clean the screen multiple times but the dark spots are still there. Evidently Dell doesnt consider it an issue unless you have 6 or more of these spots but an ultrasharp monitor should be better than this. I can understand one bad monitor but now the replacement has issues too. Very annoying. The 2nd of the first two I purchased doesnt have any issues. Other than the pixel cluster issue the colors are great and the monitors perform as expected. UPDATE: After more research the dark spots on the replacement monitor are actually smudges/fingerprints/dust etc. between the layers of the monitor. That is why it looks like a smudge but you cant clean it. It is behind the top layer. This has to be a quality control issue during assembly. Pros: Great color and excellent picture Cons: Quality control issues/stuck pixels/smudges between layers My Settings: I have used both the standard and color temp control. My favorite settings are the color temp mode set to 5700K, brightness at 35 and contrast at 75. I have also used the same brightness and contrast with the standard preset mode and like that too. The brightness comes set at 75 which is way too high in my opinion. Great color reproduction and no eye strain with these settings. I did find the 6500K color temp setting too red for some colors and that is why I settled on the 5700K.

I bought this to replace a hand-me-down Dell monitor that had a band of discoloration. I looked online for magazine reviews of monitors and this one got high marks; after comparing several of the highest-scoring ones, I decided on another Dell because of the extra height. I didnt want to move from a 1920x1200 monitor to a 1920x1080 one and lose that extra inch or so after having been used to it for years. The colors look great, the resolution and size are what Im used to, and the anti-glare coating on this one seems better than the previous one. I sit with my back to a window and I cant see any reflections from all that light. I was concerned at first that there was not a button for switching between inputs because I have two computers hooked up to this monitor, but the buttons are customizable, so I was able to make one of them an input-switch button. Even if I hadnt done that, I could have gotten to that function fairly easily through the menus. Its slightly less convenient to not have the buttons labeled, but not enough to be annoying. I like the energy-saving features of the monitor as well. I have installed the PowerNap program that came with it on my main computer, and the screen-dimming when the screen saver goes on works just fine; there is a noticeable time for the screen to go back to full brightness after the mouse is moved/key is pressed to end the screensaver, but its worth it to me to save energy.

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.

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.