Dell U2413 24" LED Backlit IPS Monitor and Dell U2412M UltraSharp 24" LED Monitor

[Nicks Pics]

I got a lot of advise from this forum on monitors, and I have been doing quite a bit of research, I have found this monitor, http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2412m/pd, which seems to be somewhat popular, according to review sites, and this one http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2413/pd, which an agent recommended to me, but it's more expensive. I notice the second one, supports more colors, which sounds like a good thing, and it has a slightly faster response time, but I don't know whether or not they would be much different in use.

As I said, I have received much advise about monitors in general (which was much appreciated) in another thread recently, so I'm not trying make people repeat all that, just wanting to ask some folks how these look to you. These are not probably the best monitors yet produced, but If I ever get a $600-$800 on a monitor, it probably won't be right now.
Thanks!

Nick

[ajohnw]

For the cheaper one you should be looking at this one 98% sRGB and pre calibrated

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Dell-Ult...item2a3d0118d7

If you want aRGB there will be one with a similar number that might have an m added to the end.

Those can be calibrated further by buying say an xrite colormunki.

The dearer monitor the agent mentioned uses hardware calibration that needs the Dell calibrator available as an option - check the price.

If I remember correctly you already have 2 decent monitors and a calibrator? If so I would have mentioned that in a reply - did I or didn't I ? If I did there is a FOC option you could try that may improve viewing.

I also probably suggest you choose a type from tftcentral uk as they only test monitors that would be suitable mentioning that say the one they tested has a 27 in it ie 27in you would be ok with the same model with a 24 in it but make sure that they are pre calibrated - these are Dell's better displays. Also to make sure that any warantee offered is the Dell one.

John
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[HaseebM]

This month I had bought Dell U2412M and its great for the price. Colours are good but the monitor needs tweaking manually as the presets were not to my liking. Lag for an 8ms monitor is hardly noticeable playing command and conquer or world in conflict did not exhibit any lag. Pictures look great and viewing angles are very good except when looking from above the monitor you see a greyish cast. Monitor can also be turned vertically but unless you have two of them, this would be of no use. Good looks and may have been an outstanding monitor if not for HDMI port missing.

[Nicks Pics]

Jhon,
Thank you for the thoughts. I thught I was looking at the cheapest one of the Dell ultrasharps, but the one you suggested is almost as cheap as the cheaper one I mentioned. It seems like I did not see it before. Can you point out some things that might be better about the one y0u suggested on e-bay? I thought they looked similar, though the u2412m has slightly higher resolution. I think it supports aRGB. It has an M in the end if it's name.


Thanks Haseeb,
Do you edit photos with your u2412m?

BTW, I haven't tried to say I already have two calibrated monitors, actually I'm only using one of two laptops available to me that are not my own, and are not calibrated. I think most or all Dell Ultrasharps are pre calibrated, at least that's my impression.

[Polar01]

Nik just be careful and read the specs. if it can not do 100%sRGB run very fast and go very far. Now if you only goal in life is view you images on a screen or on the web or print from your bookshelf printer (CMYK) than 100%sRGB is fine. However if you think that in the future you may want to do your own printer on a higher end printer say the Epson R2000, then a monitor that will give you at least 98% or better Adobe sRGB is what you would be better off looking for.

Cheers: Allan

[ajohnw]

Must have you mixed up with some one else.

Dell only mention pre calibration on 2 24in monitors and don't even mention sRGB on the U2412M, For some reason they mention 82% of some colour space and usual sRGB number of colours. aRGB monitors normally mention 1 billion.

The 2 that they do pre calibrate are these

http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2413/pd

http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2414h/pd

The 1st one is the one that can be hardware calibrated with the optional kit. The 2nd one can be calibrated with any calibrator / colorimeter.

It looks like they have dropped aRGB monitors that can be calibrated with an ordinary colorimeter even in the 27in range. From memory the aRGB,sRGB model in that range ended hm but now that one is purely sRGB.

Really for photography you should ideally buy a colorimeter. I'd suggest an xrite color muki display for use with the cheaper displays. Sounds like the dearer ones come with adequate calibration really. The others are ok is the best way to put it but not as good as they could be. They also leave the problem that to make the contrast ratio as high as possible they usually come set way too bright for photo editing. Sorting that out really needs a colorimeter but you could probably get away by setting the brightness via the grey scales in the CinC tutorial. I'd guess that the expensive displays will come to bright as well.

If this is getting too rich my 1st step to a decent monitor was to pick one out from tftcentral uk and also buy a colorimeter. It was a 23in Viewsonic 1080p type that the site showed calibrated well. The colormunki seems to have gone up in price. The cheaper one is now the Smile. I also calibrated an old TN screen before that. Not an option I would recommend as colours vary too much according to the angle of the screen. You could calibrate your laptop but bear that aspect in mind. You could test that yourself now. The problem gets very very apparent when editing.

John
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[ajohnw]

I wouldn't worry to much about 100% sRGB coverage as the only way you are likely to get it is via an aRGB monitor and that in many cases wont be 100% covered.

Look for say 95% or more sRGB coverage in the tests and don't be concerned if your colorimeter reckons it's a different number within reason as it take a high end spectrometer to even measure it. What usually happens is < sRGB in one corner and >sRGB in another. Visual differences will be nil in real terms.

John
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[ajohnw]

Daft comment - the ones that can be hardware calibrated could be calibrated further with any colorimeter

Just seems to be an odd thing to do as the hardware way is likely to be better,

John
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[Manfred M]

I'm with Allan on this one; the very least your screen should cover is 100% sRGB. If you are primarily looking at this as a screen to do photo editing; I would look for at least 95%+ AdobeRGB compliance.

The "pre-calibrated" is of course unmitigated optimism; as you will want to turn down the brightness of your screen and any precalibration will fly out the window. Most screens have the brightness turned up for general use. You will likely turn that way down for photoediting. Likewise, there the screen manufacturer has no idea as to what video card is driving your display. These simply is no substitute for profiling / calibrating your screen properly.

Laptops tend to have awful displays; these units are built to minimize weight and maximize battery life. Colour fidelity is going to be so-so at best.

[Polar01]

John in your reply post #7, "I wouldn't worry to much about 100% sRGB coverage as the only way you are likely to get it is via an aRGB monitor and that in many cases wont be 100% covered." Do you not mean 100% AdobeRGB as very few can give 100%, however a number can give 97-99% Adobe RGB, as the Adobe RGB colour space is larger than that of the sRGB colour space than if a monitor can cover 97% of the Adobe RGB colour space than it can cover the sRGB space with ease.
The two machines talked about in this thread the U2413 can do 100%sRGB and 99% Adobe RGB where as the U2414 is only able to do 96% of the sRGB colour space. If I needed to choose between the two and the difference was approx.: $180.00 US, I would go with the U2413, why would someone wanting to process images want a monitor that is so to speak below code, it can not even cover all of the lowest standard set.

Cheers: Allan

[Abitconfused]

I use Spyder4 Elite with Windows 8.1 and have been very happy with it.

[ajohnw]

There is one other option Nick. Tftcentral maintain a database on the monitors that they have tested. This includes a calibrated icc profile for the monitor. Some users post them as well. Another option, Select a monitor from the list, download the icc file and copy the settings.

I should have stressed that tftcentral give calibration results and the brightness and contrast settings that they used, These settings are fairly important. I have actually used these settings on a Dell pre calibrated display and also measure the performance before and after calibration. I also used the monitor as it came with the new settings for a couple of months before calibrating it to compare shots I had taken and also new ones after editing and again when the monitor was calibrated.

Laptop screens vary. I'm sitting in front of a Dell one that must be about 14 years old now. Curiously it's viewing angle is rather large but if I move my head about too much I can see some brightness variation but it's no where near as bad as some TN screens and I am sure I could edit images on it. Calibrating a laptop is an option but might also cause some disappointment but you would still have the colorimeter.

I'm a little dismayed at times about some of the responses to queries on subjects like this as I reckon that they could put people of anything like serious photography for life. If these people feel so strongly about some of the aspects mentioned forget Dell they should go buy an Eizo coloredge. Few do as they often have to be more realistic as far as their own funds are concerned.

John
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[Richard Lundberg]

I recently bought U2413 brand new direct from Dell full warranty at far below street price through a combination of fortuitous circumstances that could not be repeated unless you're the kind of person who hits the lottery more than once. It has excellent ergonomics. The unit is perfectly balanced to be able to slide up and down over a 4.5 inch range, allowing it to be placed at the correct viewing height, the angles can be adjusted and it can be rotated as well. The viewing angle spec is actually met. There is very little color and contrast change when changing the your position. This lis one of the outstanding benefits of an IPS panel.The factory cal for Adobe RGB shows delta Es that I don't think I can beat, all but three of the values are significantly below 2, and the three that aren't are only slightly over 2. The color is lovely in aRGB. I had to buy a mini display port to DVI adapter to drive it from my 2011 MAC Mini because the HDMI port on the mini (and any other HDMI port) only allows the HD-709A color space. HD-709A is a YCbCr signal limited to 16 to 235 dynamic range and has a nonstandard green primary, thus it is not even the full sRGB. Using the adapter I am probably able to get the full 98% aRGB advertised for this box. I say probably because I have not been able to google anything that tells me whether the Thunderbolt port on a mini has any restrictions in its YCbCr output other than that the dynamic range is limited to 14 to 254, or whether the monitor's DVI input is limited in any way. The displayed colors and dynamic range appear to be ok. The monitor is extremely bright out of the box. An ergonomic detail that I absolutely revel in is that the OSD button is proximity sensitive and lights when your finger approaches. There are a large number of OSD controls , most of which you will not need. You less fortunate can buy this beauty for less than 450 and it is well worth it for editing RAW and printing to your six color and up printer. It offers 8bit dithered to 10 color capability. No one can see more than six million, and Macs only output 8 bit anyway, so it's moot. I have CS5 which can be set for 10 bit but I don't believe it would be worthwhile. Some day Apple might realize that displays have moved on. Microsoft has. Don't buy anything with an M suffix.
The XRite Display Pro can be bought for 164 after the mail in discount, and I may go ahead and get one to do the internal LUT tweak, but I have to think about what the real benefit would be given the 8 bitness of everything.

[HaseebM]

Jhon,
Thanks Haseeb,
Do you edit photos with your u2412m?

BTW, I haven't tried to say I already have two calibrated monitors, actually I'm only using one of two laptops available to me that are not my own, and are not calibrated. I think most or all Dell Ultrasharps are pre calibrated, at least that's my impression.

Yes I use it for editing and viewing purposes, though mind you, its just a hobby for me. Ultrasharp comes pre-calibrated but the brightness and contrast is way too high for my senses, in fact I reduce that to more than half with brightness to 35. The e-IPS screen is lovely though.

[ajohnw]

I sometime think it's not worth giving people links to look at

The review of the u2412M, showing that it uses a 6bit panel

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2412m.htm

The tftcentral settings and icc file are here

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm

The other one's review is shown here which it turns out is also a 6bit panel

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2414h.htm

Settings and icc profiles are available for both They usually provide 2. One when the monitor is in it's custom settings and the r,g and b channels are set as shown in the review and another when the monitor is in it's standard sRGB mode. They also give the contrast and brightness settings that should be used. Some monitors disable contrast when in sRGB mode as it can have a distinct bearing on performance but brightness in general doesn't unless some one is trying to do a very precise calibration.

So which to buy if some one doesn't want to buy a calibrator. I'd say the one with the largest screen area and to use the tftcentral icc profile and settings.

The 2413 review is here. Very interesting read as it looks like software calibration is still very viable with any colorimeter. When hardware calibrated there seems to be a problem actually checking results unless other software is available.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2413.htm

Sounds to me like Richard should take a good look at this review - no mac software for instance unless this has been updated now but some other aspects are interesting.

Looking at these I'm a bit niffed. Could be that as I wont buy an n+2bit panel the only option I will have is to buy an aRGB to get an 8 bit panel. If that is the case bye bye Dell as far as I am concerned.

The cheapest decent 27in monitor is likely to be the ViewSonic VP2770-LED. Factory calibrated and it seems a zero dead pixel guarantee. The review for that one is here. They are good at giving missleading blurb so do read decent reviews but on the other had do make some decent monitors.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/...vp2770-led.htm

Another one is the Samsung S27A850. Samsung are the other high end panel manufacturers along with LG
Review here
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/...g_s27a850d.htm

There are also Asus reviews linked to of the icc page. For Asus read HP but often the prices on the better stuff reflects this but cheaper than HP.

John
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[ajohnw]

One thing that is worth noting is the use of hdmi cables and the limitation in dynamic range these give. Details in the 2414 review - how to obtain the full 0-255 rather than 16-235.

John
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[Nicks Pics]

Thank you all folks. Sorry not to reply faster, but Iv'e been trying to do some research.

I have gotten a positive report about each of them.

I gather that Adobe RGB, more color variations, but is useful just for printing on a quality home printer, mostly at least.

I have also gathered some other helpful info about monitors that has helped me to identify what is essential for a photo monitor.

I looked up the Dell u2413 on tft central, and it says it has 1.07 billion color depth and 8 bit. It also says it has 100% sGB, and 99% Adobe RGB.

Basically, I am not at a pro level of expertise in photography. However, a screen sounds like an important thing in photography.

Thanks again to everyone for sharing their knowledge.

John,

I do look at your some of your links. I have found the tftcentral site, to which you referred me to be useful. I also think that sounds like something worth looking into when I get a monitor, if you say that you can get the right settings for calibrating your monitor there, instead of having to buy a calibrator.

[ajohnw]

Yes. There will be a significant improvement gained by using their settings and their icc file. If you buy a colorimeter depending one the software used with it you can also gain by using their contrast and brightness settings.

I still feel that in the longer term you should buy a colorimeter and that will probably improve on the calibration obtained using their files and settings. Using those you may or may not get the very low delta E's they show in the reviews. The ones you will get are still very highly likely to be acceptable. This is something people do even going as far as asking for info in forums etc. It's a strange area. a certain number of higher colour fidelity errors are acceptable. It's also true that some colorimeters and spectrometers do not take enough readings to really get a truly accurate idea of what a monitor is really doing. Even rather expensive ones actually, It would take some time to check all of those millions of colours so most only use a few. Too few in my view but I don't use the software that came with my colorimeter.

One thing for sure if you buy the 2414 and use an hdmi lead I feel that arranging for that to carry the full 0 -255 bit depth is essential for photo work, It's a critical area. If you adjusted the dark end based on the usual clamp at 16 bits on hdmi I haven't a clue what it would look like on the more usual values in this area but suspect it would be hopeless. Same at the bright end. The review mentions this and the effect it has but I haven't looked to see what connectors the monitor has.

John
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[ajohnw]

Maybe the way I went might help you Nick. I started a little different to you. Years of adjusting shots out of compacts using the GIMP on a rather old LCD panel. A TN type. Other people liked them, lots saw them at times and wanted to know what camera I used. Got fed up with compacts and decided to try m 4/3 and found CinC while looking for info for some one else. I decided to calibrate the TN. Bought a used calibrator. At the time Apple had upgraded and lots of people were selling them. When I edited on the TN display I soon noticed that I had to keep it dead square to my line of view. I sometimes post shots in the comps. One off this display won. Others gained some votes. I decided I had to do something about the TN problem so bout a 23in 1080p ViewSonic and calibrated it. Taking the wining shot and others no really difference in colours - there shouldn't be if a display has even been approximately well calibrated. The main difference I noted was that the winning shot was way over sharpened. Stupidly so, it didn't need it. Then I found out that older calibrators might not be suitable for LED monitors. I was also curious about what effect ambient light levels have - I still am. So bought the Display ColorMunki as it will calibrate and measure ambient light. I found the 1080p rather cramped for height so went for the Dell 27in. The calibration is better than the viewsonic but I can't really see any differences - hardly surprising as the delta E differences are below what we can sense.

What I am saying really is that calibration is probably the most important aspect. You could calibrate your laptop. If you look through the reviews you will see all monitors will calibrate to very low colour error levels. The main difference really is just how square the monitor needs to be to the eyes. The other thing I noticed switching from the TN was a sort of increased clarity. This is probably down to switching from a 6+2 bit display to a true 8 and other technological improvements. You can check out your laptop display yourself in terms of viewing angles.

The next thing you will be wondering about is software. Your laptop may have some implications there as well. Some others run laptops. I don't for this purpose so can't comment. I'd be concerned about memory on the one I am using here now.

On the other hand you could follow the other routes I have mentioned. Many do, probably not many on here but it can work out. In fact some one followed the tftcentral links and found the icc files themselves and were pleased with the results of using them. An easy test is the grey scales that can be found all over the place. If a monitor passes that it's a long way there. A calibration generally insures that. Tftcentral's icc and settings are likely too. There are some unusually severe visual monitor checks here, It has to be admitted that my Dell does a better job of one of them than the TN screen would but they are very extreme and I would normally push the blacks up over the worst levels in this grey scale grid to be sure others could see them. The viewsonic didn't show some of the dark end so not such a problem. If I remember correctly the grid is the 2nd one in the series of tests.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

John
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[Nicks Pics]

Thanks, looks like a useful website. Thanks for your experience.