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Dell U2412M LCD Monitor - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2014

History

We have tested a number of Dell monitors over the years and have usually only been moderately impressed even though the Ultrasharps were often the best in the price class at the time. The U3011, tested in August 2012, had a 24% luminance variation from one side of the screen to the other. Other issues have included the inability to reduce the screen luminance to the desired 80 cd/m2 without the colours posterising due to bit-depth reduction.

Against this background the initial testing of the U2412 came as a pleasant surprise. The average error was a miserly 0.46ΔE00 with a worst value of 1.22 ΔE00. This was a test involving the more stringent Fogra certification patch set of more than 1,700 swatches and was obtained at the preferred 80cd/m2 without any sign of posterisation.

We did note that the gamut volume was lower than our Eizo CG243W, being closer to sRGB than Adobe RGB. In order to make our examination more stringent for the outer reaches of the gamut we changed to our standard print test target with its HiGAM set of patches. Once again, though, this barely troubled the Dell with all the errors in the HiGAM patch set lying at less than 0.6ΔE00.

Just when we thought we had a monitor coming close to our Eizo we carried out the ISO 3663 uniformity test. This turned out to be the Achilles Heel of the Dell and it failed on an 84% value in the lower right sector. Despite this we remain highly impressed with the Dell, especially at its price. Considering the low cost you could afford to buy a decent calibrator and audit your output as well. The variation in luminance you can cope with by keeping away from the edges for critical judgements. The one thing you cannot do is compensate for the lack of gamut when compared with the Eizo. The Eizo is up with the Adobe RGB gamut and has almost 30% more gamut volume even though this does not seem to show in the HiGAM errors; those patches are matched to the output of the High Dynamic Range Epson K3 ink set.

We have pulled out the data from the iMac review in this issue and collated it with both the Dell and the Eizo.

Monitor	Avg Error ΔE00	Worst 10% ΔE00	Gamut Volume
iMac	1.96	14.39	1,049,138
Dell U2412M	0.51	1.13	1,029,600
Eizo CG243W	0.59	1.52	1,336,728

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1st Published 01/02/2014
last update 09/12/2022 14:53:09

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