Dell U2410

Some people see the Dell U2410 as a 24'' version of the excellent 2209WA.  It's true that the two monitors have a lot in common.  Both have the same response time  of 6 ms and a similar design with a screen that is both height-adjustable and pivots.  The monitors also both work as four-port USB hubs, with two at the back and two on the sides.

UPDATE 27/07/2011: some users have spotted uneven levels of brightness across the screen of this monitor, with the sides looking darker than the middle of the display. The members of our team who bought this monitor haven't noticed any such problems, and we didn't spot anything like that in the model we were sent to test. However, it seems that some of our readers haven't been so lucky. We've therefore removed a star from this monitor's score while we investigate the problem further.

UPDATE 22/09/2011: Dell has failed to acknowledge the problems some of our readers have noticed with the U2410. In light of the manufacturer's lack of response, we've knocked another two stars off the U2410 as buying this monitor is just too much of a gamble. 

However, there are a few changes.  The e-IPS panel found in the 2209WA is now a plain IPS on the U2410.  The new model now has a HDMI input, two DVI inputs, one VGA, one component video input and a Display Port, while the 2209WA only had DVI and VGA.  A card reader (SD, MS and xD) has also appeared next to the two USB ports on the side of the screen.

Gaming

Coloured    Transparent
Average ghosting over ten frames

This is a monitor responsive enough for any gamer, and even rivals the best 2 ms TN screens.  Only screens that run at 120 Hz can do better.  As a result, the U2410 is at home with any kind of game.

The screen isn't far from being perfect, but it doe have an input lag, a delay compared to a CRT-based monitor, of two frames.  Don't worry, though, it's hardly problematic.  As long as you don't plan on playing a lot of FPS games like Unreal or Quake online, then you won't notice it.

Default Colours

Ideal Colours

By default, the U2410 is configured with an extended colour palette.  As is often the case on screens of this type, these default colours aren't accurate.  Because of that, we measured a default deltaE of 6.8.  It's easy to get that value down to 2.3, by changing the colour profile on the menu from 'Standard' to 'sRGB'.

Movies

Contrast (xxx:1)	Black (cd/m²)
100 cd/m²  200 cd/m²	100 cd/m²  200 cd/m²

Contrast is the main weakness of IPS technology.  At 200 cd/m², the screen has as ratio of around 670:1, compared to 2800:1 on the Samsung SyncMaster F2380, which uses a C-PVA panel.  As a result, black areas tend toward dark grey.  Equally, as we're used to another monitors, there is noticeable clouding, and poor upscaling, because there is no real image correction chip.