Dell U2412M, U2312HM and U2212HM on their way!

Here's the blacklight bleed from my U2412M unit:

Low-light:


Lights off:


What do you guys reckon? It's fine in Windows and games, but movies with dark scenes really show up the bleed I'm afraid :/ What are the chances of getting a better unit if I ask for a swap?

Oops. Should have said, those pics were taken with on 10% brightness. I should really have upped the brightness before taking the pics. Will do that tonight, at say... 50%?

Anyway, you can see that the bleed is bad even on nearly the lowest brightness setting. Do you think Dell will replace the screen for this reason?

Do those shots accurately represent how the screen looks to your eyes?

fish99 said:

Do those shots accurately represent how the screen looks to your eyes?

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In reality it's worse than those pictures show. The bottom right especially is never black when depicting a black background. It's almost silver.

How does it look if you move back to a metre or so from the screen?

Money is burning a hole in my pocket! Must resist until I see a review! (of the U2312HM)

PCM2 said:

How does it look if you move back to a metre or so from the screen?

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It clears up a *lot*. The brightness is pretty uniform from that distance.

But how can this be "IPS glow"... my 20" Philips was an S-IPS and did not exhibit this awful effect.

I know the Dell is an e-IPS, and hence not as good, but it's still £280 worth of screen. It's really not good enough.

I've submitted a ticket to Dell's online system. I'll wait to hear what they say. Otherwise I might phone them.

My next screen will probably be a VA... this e-IPS glow is horrid. Totally unacceptable for watching movies.

The difference in size and aspect ratio can make the IPS glow a lot more noticeable compared to a 20" 'square' model. Having said that the colour (silver-orange-blue depending on angle) is often a more unsightly colour. I know it is difficult to judge, but from the pictures it looks like there is more to it than just IPS glow. I reckon the issues together make for a bit of a messy situation. Referring back to a post I made previously there is certainly a fair bit of variability with these monitors when it comes to excess backlight bleedthrough - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20028807&postcount=165.

sb89 said:

Money is burning a hole in my pocket! Must resist until I see a review! (of the U2312HM)

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I couldn't, got my U2312HM today and its my first ips monitor (came from a hannspree). So far, I'm pretty underwhelmed. But then again I'm using factory settings, also I haven't played around with it much. I'm waiting for the tftcentral review to use their calibrated settings

I'll be calibrating a U2312HM tomorrow if you'd like me to send over some settings you could try out. If it's anything like the U2412M different units will have vastly different default settings. Some are too weak in blues, some too weak in greens (for example).

I did read somewhere that they're leaving some component out of IPS screens these days, something like a polarizing filter, to reduce costs and it means the viewing angles aren't as good as the IPS screens from 5 years ago.

Certainly the 4 IPS screens I've owned fit that theory - I had a Dell 2007WFP (my Dad uses it now, still going strong) and an LG 32LC2D 32" HDTV (again still working) which both had awesome viewing angles and were bought around 5 years ago, but the Dell U2312HM I just bought and the Panasonic 37" TX-L37S20BA I've bought last year, while cheaper, can't quite match those old screens for viewing angles.

Maybe Baddass and PCM2 would know more about this, it's just something I read on AV Forums.

Trouble with going VA, they don't seem to be quick enough for gaming.

Btw that U2412M backlight doesn't look right to me. Ok mines the smaller model, but there's nothing anywhere near that bad.

fish99 said:

I did read somewhere that they're leaving some component out of IPS screens these days, something like a polarizing filter, to reduce costs and it means the viewing angles aren't as good as the IPS screens from 5 years ago.

Certainly the 4 IPS screens I've owned fit that theory - I had a Dell 2007WFP (my Dad uses it now, still going strong) and an LG 32LC2D 32" HDTV (again still working) which both had awesome viewing angles and were bought around 5 years ago, but the Dell U2312HM I just bought and the Panasonic 37" TX-L37S20BA I've bought last year, while cheaper, can't quite match those old screens for viewing angles.

Maybe Baddass and PCM2 would know more about this, it's just something I read on AV Forums.

Trouble with going VA, they don't seem to be quick enough for gaming.

Btw that U2412M backlight doesn't look right to me. Ok mines the smaller model, but there's nothing anywhere near that bad.

Click to expand...

You must be referring to A-TW (Advanced True White) polarisers. These reduce IPS glow off-angle. They don't eliminate it and can actually make it more noticeable head-on as the glow becomes somewhat more metallic-looking. Whether for economic reasons or other practicalities these are very rare and don't seem to have a place on the cheaper IPS monitors. There are also other reasons governing the relatively poor vieiwng angles of the cheaper 'E-IPS' panels. I'm not exactly too hot on the specifics of this but there is something different about the way light behaves in these ones. The same can be said about the different behaviour of light in TN panels and VA panels vs. your typical IPS too.

I'd have to agree with you regarding FoxEye's pictures (as I did above ). That looks like more than a bit of IPS glow at play! I would also agree that it's a damn shame about VA panel monitors regarding the response times. The surfaces tend to be a much lighter haze and coupled with the high static contrast ratios it gives great 'pop' to the light colours. Blacks meanwhile are really lovely and deep which is great for films and just looking at text. Unfortunately when things start moving (especially during 'high contrast' transitions) things can get pretty messy.

Thanks, I'd appreciate a calibrated setting. It also seems that my monitor has some sort of glow, might the ips glow mentioned

Temi_D said:

Thanks, I'd appreciate a calibrated setting. It also seems that my monitor has some sort of glow, might the ips glow mentioned

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The good news is that the default contrast setting is good and gamma is spot on at 2.2. The bad news is that, at least with our test unit, greens were far too dominant and blues relativley weak. I can't help thinking Dell might have over-compensated for the usual blue tint of the LED backlight. LG panels show a lot of variation so if your monitor looks like crap with these settings you'll just have to go by your eye:

R= 95
G= 91
B= 100

If you can get away with it try to make even smaller adjustments (especially on the green channel) as you will be upsetting the contrast a bit by making such adjustments.

Would it be worth upgrading my 2209WA with one of these of the ASUS PA238Q which is on offer today???
I mainly do photo editing and movies so colors are quite important... (got the calibrator btw).

Thanks for the calibrated settings, I'm getting used to the screen now and there is quite a noticable difference between the previous one I had

Surprised no one posted this:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2312hm.htm

0.6ms input lag! Incredible!

I still can't get my head round that, it's insane <_>

Kreeeee said:

Surprised no one posted this:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2312hm.htm

0.6ms input lag! Incredible!

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yep incredibly low input lag from that model. Prad.de also measured it at 1.1ms average so it wasnt a one off result

Also to quickly verify this I recorded an average of around 2ms with most results being impossible to distinguish from '0'. Whichever way you look at it - input lag is not an issue on this monitor at all.