Nice coincidence. I spent the last few nights racking my brains which 24" display to buy to replace my cheap but disappointing TN-panel BenQ. I was leaning towards the Dell -- mostly because it looks the nicest (but see below), and this review reinforces the notion.
It's an odd situation though. The HP LP247w and the U2410 are VERY similar. It's the same panel from LG.Display, the only difference in terms of image quality being the control logic. The Dell apparently is a bit better in that regard. However, LG.Display apparently has some QA problems, and from what I can tell, both the Dell and the HP sometimes have tinting issues, where a white screen has a light touch of different colors in different regions of the display. It's hard to tell how many of the displays are affected by the tinting, I assume it's fairly low, anyway.
The dithering problem the review mentions pops up frequently and seems to be a bug in the Dell firmware. It's fixed in the A01 revision, which so far is only shipping in the US. The firmware update somehow got on the net though, and many people have flashed their A00 displays to get rid of the dithering. Flashing a *display* (with a leaked upgrade, no less) is not everyone's cup of tea though, and if you brick your display in the progress your on your own.
Here in Germany, both the HP and the Dell are virtually the same price. Dell itself charges a hefty premium (at the moment, with Dell you never know when they suddenly put in on special at a 20% discount). Official Dell re-distributors sell it for about the same price as the HP. There's also a display by Philips, the 240PW9ES, which apparently *also* uses the same LG.Display panel and is quite a bit cheaper, at the cost of having fewer inputs.
Looking forward to seeing the display in person, I've had just about enough of this TN display.
Before considering shelling out such a large amount of money, I would strongly suggest browsing the following forum thread which details a significant issue that many of the people who have bought the monitor have suffered; http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18049798
The issue is a colour uniformity problem, with a noticeable pink or green tint towards one of the corners of the monitor. It is not correctable via tweaking settings, as the problem is only apparent in a limited area of the screen, and any change applies to the entire screen.
I realise that the above thread is rather long, but it is certainly worth browsing through it and looking at the images people have posted of the tint issues.
Interestingly none of the sites that have reviewed the monitor seem to have encountered the tint issue, which suggests that Dell (or other supplier) have been cherry picking the monitors they send out for review.
There are a large number of posts on dells own forums, and HardOCP about the issue. The Dell team responded saying that the manufacturer claims that even though the tint is present it is still "within specification tolerances".
There have been some reports that the tinting issue seems to be significantly reduced with the new A01 revisions of the monitor (in some cases). Can you report which revision the one you have for testing is?
Anyway, just thought it was worth letting people know before they splashed ~£450
Thanks to morsch and dustofnations, this is why I like the internet, helpful information from intelligent, conscientious sources.
I'm not in the market for a new monitor just yet but like to keep an eye out and these kinds of quality issues (and manufacturer's response) trouble me greatly.
It's telling what Dell's reaction has been to this seemingly very wide spread issue (arguing the tinting's within tolerances and they won't exchange monitors displaying this issue). In comparison, HP seem to be the one to go for as it's said they will change the screen should it exhibit the tint issue. I'm going by post no. 601 of dustofnation's overclocker's forum thread so don't know if they actually do:
Hearing about this problem really puts me off buying anything. I don't want to have to be some kind of genius boning up on every technical issue just so I can argue my point more effectively should I need to deal with defective gear - it's situations like this that you wish consumer legislation would grow some teeth so proper quality control was carried out.
Yes, thanks for bringing up the tinting issues, and pointing out the fact that Dell shrugs it off with a "within manufacturer specifications".
Also of course, thanks to Ardjuna for a well written review, but the tinting discussion makes me wonder: Where do you guys at TrustedReviews get your review samples from?
With most of the hardware being reviewed here it won't matter, a Nokia N97 is a Nokia N97 is a NokiaN97. However, LCD panel manufacturers apparently continue to struggle with QA issues, so allowing the manufacturer to cherry pick the sample does reduce the value of the review somewhat.
(Yes I bought the LP2475w and was less than impressed)
If your TFT shows the tinting issue, send it back within the cooling-off period (I think that's what it's called in the UK?). That's what I'll do; it's why such a thing exists in the first place.
Dell have by far and away the best return policies of all the mid-range display manufacturers. Any kind of fault you describe they effectively offer you a swap from what I've read.
I doubt my next screen will be a Dell as they don't have the perfect fit screen for my needs but I wish they did...
@all: Dunno whats the proper technical term for it so I'm gonna describe what I believe might be one of the culprits causing "colour bleeding" that you all describe can happen; I've learned what it seems now ages ago during the rule of CRT monitors from more than one repairman that it's actually useful to leave a newly bought appliance to "settle down" or "warm up" a bit before plugging it to the electricity, especially during winter times. It has something to do with liquid capacitors used in them that can perform out of specified range if they were shaken and/or cooled too much then heated up rapidly. Unless you're using heavy-duty equipment made for harsh environments and components in it carefully selected to withstand that, switching it on too soon after it was transported in the back of your car (and in cold of winter) can cause liquid capacitors to "misalign", or whatever the word is. This could by why some experience this problem, while others don't. Just a thought as I'm pretty sure those type of capacitors are still widely used instead of ceramic (solid?) ones, and please don't be too harsh on my choice of words to describe it, I'm not an engineer ;)
Some interesting and productive comments so far, thanks everyone. No, we didn't notice colour tinting on our review sample, otherwise we would obviously have mentioned it. Our samples come from various sources but in this case it was from Dell direct.
As to the A01 firmware, we were aware of it but could not get any official details before publishing. I am currently in communication with Dell about it and will get the details to you as soon as I can - it would be great if it did solve the dithering issue.
@Ebbesen:
Sorry to hear about the LP2475w - did you end up getting a replacement that worked?
@PoisonJam:
What kind of screen ARE you looking for, out of interest?
Well in Cnet they talk about the pink issue, i was hoping that manufacturers start producing 2,35:1 cinema widescreens by now instead 16/9 or 16/10 aspect ratio, also 120Hz capables for 3D and so on, appears that manufacturers take a time to start changing their schedules to update what costumers want...
@smodd: I don't think web browsing would work very well on a 2.35:1 screen if they follow the current trend of cutting down 16:10 resolutions.
Anyone looking at this bear in mind that screens based on LG's 27" 2560x1440 IPS panel are coming and if they make it sub-£600 they'll be a tempting alternative.
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