Which Dell Ultrasharp

maninsuitcase

maninsuitcase

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Chris
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I am in the market for a new monitor for editing. I have a colormunki display so I will be calibrating this.

I have had a Dell UltraSharp U2412M (£204 atm) in my Amazon watch list for months (maybe years?) which I was going to get but it's a rather old unit now. For example it still only has a USB 2 hub not 3.

Having looked at the dell site I have seen the U2414H which is a 23.8 1080p model (not 1200p like the other) but it's newer has USB 3, more cable input options like the ability to do pass through to a 2nd external. The reviews seem mostly favourable, with a bit of criticism of the bezel.

I am used to 1080 monitors at work and it will be to join my 13in MBP which is only 800 ish so I doubt I'll miss the 120px, and the USB 3 will be more beneficial to me.

Question is, has anyone heard of this monitor before and will it be any good for editing?
 
I believe they are both pretty good but the newer U2414H does have a more accurate panel as I recall.
The best place to check is this site:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews_index.htm

However I got the U2412M on cost factors and have been happy with the accuracy once calibrated against printed output. I also prefer the higher vertical resolution - it makes more difference than you expect!
 
I considered this for quite a while and eventually went with the U2412M.
It calibrates fine with my ColorMunki Display, and surprisingly, the 1200 vertical pixels make a noticeable difference over a 1080 display.
In the tftcentral review of the U2412M they found that once adjusted, it showed 0% deviation from their reference standard.
My USB connections are easily accessible on the front of my computer, so I don't use the ones on the monitor anyway, although maybe if they were USB 3 I might use them.
 
Why not the Dell U2413? 16:10. IPS-H, and is hardware calibration capable... but not with your Color Munki I'm afraid... but still utterly superb when software calibrated.

4x USB3.0 too. It's a proper 8bit panel with dithering to give a display capable of 10bit colour.

Superb screen all round. It comes pre-calibrated, but use it in custom colour mode, and calibrate yourself, as A) It's pretty poorly calibrated from the factory, and B) it's a marketing gimmick.... monitors drift over time so pre-calibrating is pointless. We've got a few of these screens at work, and I measured their factory calibration at around >4 Delta E which is shockingly bad. Once calibrated, they're beautiful screens however.

They're around £330 or so. No idea if that's out of your budget, but it's far superior to the other 2 mentioned here (even though they're also great screens for for different reasons). The 2412 and 2414 are standard gamut screens, whereas the 2413 is a very wide gamut screen. However... unless you fully understand colour management that can cause issues. Games, TV and video can appear horribly over-saturated on wide gamut screens, so use it in sRGB mode for media like that. Most web browsers honour colour profiles these days though... assuming people remember to tag their images with sRGB.
 
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Didn't look at the U2413 as last time I looked it was much more expensive (£450 odd sounds about right). Budget is basically my bonus from work (which will be around £200 after the tax man helps himself) but then again if £130 more will mean a much better screen I could probably top it up.

Basically I want good results, I am no colour expert this evening was spent out of my depth trying to understand soft proofing for a print which I gave up on and just figured well it looks okay and exported in aRGB and hoped for the best. USB 3.0 is also a high on the want list as I use a laptop so only get 2 ports. If I am not going to notice the betterness I'd rather get the 2414H an have the £130 for something else.
 
maninsuitcase said:
If I am not going to notice the betterness I'd rather get the 2414H an have the £130 for something else.
Click to expand...

It's debatable... and subjective. If you're not hardware profiling it (you'll need a X-rite i1Display Pro) then that's a major advantage lost right away. If you also don't really engage with colour management at the moment, then in reality, the 2414 may be all you need, thus saving 130 quid. The 2413 is a better screen though, and a proper 1920x1200 display.
 
Pookeyhead said:
It's debatable... and subjective. If you're not hardware profiling it (you'll need a X-rite i1Display Pro) then that's a major advantage lost right away. If you also don't really engage with colour management at the moment, then in reality, the 2414 may be all you need, thus saving 130 quid. The 2413 is a better screen though, and a proper 1920x1200 display.
Click to expand...
Sounds like for my needs I will be better off with the 2414 and a new desk.
 
I've been hovering over the buy button for a couple of 2713 dell's for a while now. I'd like the real estate of the larger screens as I use a lot of spreadsheets and moving data between workbooks.

Plus for editing/manipulation the extra size would be a benefit.
 
Quick update. I went with the U2414H and I am pretty happy. The 1st one had a well known issue where it turned on and off at random. Spoke with dell who replaced it having only seen a PDF of the invoice. New unit works fine. In fact Dell still haven't collected the old one yet (after a week) and the UPS man seems to have given up and given us a 3 tries letter after 1 day... Who knows maybe if they don't collect it I'll get it back out of the box and daisy chain it to the other one and just live with the random restarts.

In all it's a pretty decent monitor for the money and certainly better than the macbook pro screen I was using.
 
You can't fault Dell's after sales service either, which is another strong point in their favour.
 
just to jump on the thread, on amazon there is a 2412M LCD and LED version. Which would be the better one? Only a couple quid difference.
 
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1. Is black
2. Is silver
3. Is 2nd hand- despite being more expensive
4. Is overpriced

They're all the same model though as far as I can see.

I'd go with Aria and get a proper 3 year warranty.
 
I suspect that the first is incorrectly titled as the product description says LED. And as Dan says - Aria have the best price.
 
Lol - I did wonder, but didn't realise they had made one of those. I have the one with the silver bezel :)
 
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essexash said:
just to jump on the thread, on amazon there is a 2412M LCD and LED version. Which would be the better one? Only a couple quid difference.
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That's just retailers being silly. There is no LED version. All computer monitors are LCD. The LED refers to the backlighting. It's like when you go into Curry's or other electrical retailers and look at TVs... they're often referred to as "LED" TVs.. they're not.. they're LED BACKLIT, but the panels are LCD. There is only one Dell U2412M and it's a LCD panel with LED backlighting. Ignore the LED blurb... it's not LED.

Repeat.. there's no LED version of the U2412M.. they're all the same.
 
fair do's :) I did see they had a second hand Dell U2413 going for a pretty low price which you rated quite well so i went for that. Its got a 30 day returns thing so its worth the risk. Ive a spyder pro 4 to calibrate it so fingers crossed it works out well.

Be prepared for the inevitable " my prints are too dark" post in the next few days :)
 
Well.. calibrating your monitor, doesn't mean your prints will be right. For that, you need to calibrate your print media :) Calibrating your monior just ensures your displayed images are accurate.

2413 was a great choice BTW. If it's working as it should you'll be pleased.
 
Well i did the test print thing and sent it off to permajet for them to do a profile for me and i got that back today, i also downloaded all their generic paper profiles, should get the monitor tomorrow. This probably needs another thread as its calibration, but the thing that i dont get is the start point. If your monitor is just too bright at the start then its just going to give too bright an image at the end. I ran the spyder on my current monitor and the first step was to adjust the brightness to a point where the calibration device was happy and i had to adjust it upwards, i did that and it just seemed too bright to me. It could just mean my current monitor is crap though :) Its all black magic and pixie dust to me tbh
 
Does the software not actually tell you the luminance levels it's calibrated to? It should be between 90 and 120 cd/m2.. 90 is very dim or no lighting, and 120 to subdued lighting, but still enough to read by.
 
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