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Duels: Battle of the Five Star Products >

Samsung F2380M vs Dell U2311H

Alexandre Botella
Updated: August 9, 2010

In the left corner, the Samsung F2380M has been one of our most-read product reviews since its launch. It has a PVA panel, a seriously impressive contrast and it also got five stars in our product review. |
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| 		In the right corner, the Dell U2311H has a new-generation IPS panel which finally corrects the faults traditionally associated with this type of technology. It's also one of our five-star monitors.


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MARCHANDS €
 
 
Amazon.co.uk  225.00 
Compare prices
PVA | IPS
1920 x 1080 pixels | 1920 x 1080 pixels
8 ms | 6 ms
HDMI + DVI + VGA | Diplay Port + DVI + VGA
178° / 178° | 178° / 178°


THE BACKGROUND

Although it launched with very little hype, the F2380M quickly became one of our most-read LCD monitor reviews. It's an attractive package too, as it's much less expensive than previous PVA monitors while still offering all the design, handling and hardware features found in leading models. This is all thanks to a new generation of PVA panel, the C-PVA, which is much cheaper to produce but which has very similar qualities to the S-PVA technology it's designed to replace. |
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| 		Dell's monitor also features a new-generation panel, although this is an IPS- rather than a PVA-type display.

This new-gen panel finally corrects the problems we thought would forever plague IPS technology.
 


We've actually already published a duel between the F2380M and a Dell monitor, but the U2311H has two advantages over the U2410, featured in the original head-to-head. First, it has a new-gen IPS panel, and second, it has a much more affordable price tag. So how will the new-gen IPS panel get on against Samsung's C-PVA? Let battle commence!

 

HARDWARE: SAMSUNG SCORES


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Both monitors are excellent in this field, with high-end features such as height-adjustable stands, impeccable finishes, wide viewing angles and more. However, the Samsung does do slightly better than the Dell for a few key reasons.

Speaker and headphones socket: Samsung is the only of the two to have really bothered integrating audio features into its monitor. It has a pair of speakers and a headphones socket—features Dell has totally overlooked.

HDMI input: the U2311H has a Display Port connection but no HDMI port. It's therefore more straight forward to hook a set-top-box or games console to the Samsung F2380M than the Dell U2311H.

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| 		Tighter viewing angles: this is THE down side of the latest generation of IPS panels, as they actually have tighter viewing angles than previous versions of IPS display, as well as the F2380M.

4-port USB hub: the Dell U2311H does, however, have a 4-port USB hub whereas the Samsung doesn't.

 

RESPONSIVENESS: DELL WINS

Settings issues: with the factory settings, reverse ghosting can appear on top of the ghosting issues already present in the F2380M. You definitely need to avoid the Dynamic Contrast and Cinema modes. Games mode is your best bet, but make sure you turn off the accelerated overdrive.

Blurred movement: ghosting, or a blurred after-image, particularly appears after moving objects set against a background in the opposite colour (a black cursor moving across a white background, for example). Ghosting like this on a PVA panel is both surprising and unique. The previous Dell 2408WFP, for example, is much more responsive in spite of its PVA screen.



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| 		Faster: the figures speak for themselves. There are 0.7 frames of ghosting on the Dell compared with 0.95 on the Samsung.


COLOURS: DRAW

Exceptional quality: the Samsung's C-PVA panel does a great job, and could even surprise some users. We received reader feedback accusing us of having given five stars to a screen that displays defects in its black tones. However, it's actually one of the only screens that displays them correctly. Where others display a solid, black block, this screen can pick out different tones, which can highlight faults present in certain images, hence the confusion. It may take you a while to get used to an image with such accurate colours.

Adjusting the settings: settings are much easier to adjust in the Dell monitor than the Samsung. The colours can be quickly and easily corrected in the menu. The settings of the F2380M are more painstaking to adjust, but you'll need to persevere if you want to get rid of the posterization effects.

After adjustment: with the factory settings, both screens display colours fairly similarly. After correcting them in the  internal menus, the Dell 23-inch monitor definitely has the edge.




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| 		Depth of black: IPS technology may well have advanced, but the very good results of the U2311H still can't rival the F2380M in this field. The values below are measured with the brightness of the white set to 200 cd/m².



An even bigger gap: at 100 cd/m², the Dell's contrast remains unchanged, while the Samsung's is higher still at 3267:1!

POWER CONSUMPTION: DELL WINS BY A WHISKER

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 		Little difference: as you can see in the graph on the left, there's only 4 Watts difference between the Dell and the Samsung, which won't have a huge impact on your electricity bill.

VERDICT: DELL FOR GAMERS, SAMSUNG FOR PRICE (AND FOR THE DV OFFICE)

If you add up the scores in our duel the Dell U2311H wins. However, that doesn't necessarily make it the best choice, as it all depends on how you plan on using your monitor.

Office work: as both have the same number of pixels, the same screen size, and therefore the same resolution, neither model is better than the other for this type of use.

Video games: as the U2311H is more responsive than the F2380M it makes a better choice for gamers.

Multimedia: thanks to its HDMI port, the F2380M can be very easily hooked up to a set-top-box or a games console. For the U2311H, the absence of this popular connection makes connecting devices like this more complicated.		 |
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| 		Photos: even its spectacular contrast doesn't give the F2380M the edge over the U2311H. In fact, once its settings have been adjusted, the U2311H offers more accurate colours. We therefore think the Dell would be a better choice for anyone who's serious about photo editing with accuracy.

Value for money: although the U2311H is cheaper than the average Dell monitor, the F2380 is still more affordable.

At DigitalVersus: we were already using an F2380M in our office when the U2311H was released. However, even if both products had been available at the same time, we still would have chosen the Samsung due to the difference in price. 


 

 

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