Budget? There are heaps of 24" monitors better than the Dell.
I don't agree (at least in its price range
) It's my opinion that, as long as you're ok with a screen having wide gamut colours, the U2410 is amongst the best screens in terms of image quality at its price. Dells UK pricing policies and its attitude towards its customers is a different matter though
The "tint" problems haven't been fixed - However these problems are NOT unique to the U2410 but are, in fact, related to LG's panel production methods, and appears to affect most of LG's IPS panels to some degree. (Pretty much all the IPS computer monitors you see are using LG panels).
Part of the reason tint problems are reported more with the U2410 is probably down to the fact that the screen has a very wide colour gamut. This means any colour gradation (tint patterns which produce too much red, green or blue in certain sections of the screen, which are especially visible when viewing white or grey backgrounds) is probably magnified because a wide gamut means those colours are more vivid than on a normal screen. Tint is also partly related to viewing angles (perhaps not helped by the anti glare coating) and it's easy to verify this by viewing the Lagom viewing angle test (
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php ) because even on U2410's which don't have any real tint issues you may notice some small amounts of tint which will change slightly as you change viewing angles (kind of like IPS black glow for anyone familiar with that).
At least a little bit is also down to greater awareness of the issue amongst U2410 users. EG screens like the HP LP2475W carry exactly the same risks, but there were many less reports even though probably just as many of those screens suffer tint as the U2410. That's because a lot of people simply don't notice any tint unless you point it out to them (For anyone who doubts this, consider how many people don't notice TN panel colour shifting unless you point it out to them!)
That said, tint issues are something to keep in mind. But this was a long way of saying it's not something you can do a lot about unless you're prepared to pay a lot more money and buy a screen like the NEC PA241W, which comes with a technology called Colorcomp which can compensate for panel uniformity problems. Otherwise you ARE in a panel lottery with pretty much ANY IPS screen you choose.. That's the unfortunate reality with LCD screens right now.
Even if you had the money for the PA241W, its performance isn't that great if you're a gamer..
Another thing to be aware of is IPS panels use 2 transistors per pixel. This means IPS panels are more likely to suffer dead pixels than the cheaper TN panel alternatives, because there's simply more transistors to go wrong. Once you get to a 24" screen it's pretty common for IPS screens to have at least 1 dead pixel. Dell deliberately cloud things here by advertising a pixel guarantee on their monitors. However the guarantee only allows for no lit pixels, but up to 6 dead ones, so it isn't as good as it might appear. Fortunately the policy is too complex even for Dells own staff to understand, so you can usually swap for 1 dead pixel too. However their policy of replacing screens for a pool of rejected refurbs isn't so good.. But I doubt the likes of HP are much better in this regard..
The other thing about the U2410 is the wide colour gamut means that reds are literally a more vivid red, greens are more green etc. In comparison an ordinary gamut screen (also called sRGB) has reds which look a bit orange, its greens look more yellow, and its blues look a tiny bit more purple (It's hard to see a difference in blue but green and red differences are easy to spot). This is good in terms of the U2410 producing better colours than normal screens. However it's bad, in that content providers expect those colours and make content with that expectation. It's probably the main thing (other than the mentioned tint risks) you need to be aware of with the U2410 since, without using sRGB mode or adjusting Custom Colour mode, a U2410 will produce very vivid colours, and this isn't always a good thing
That said, Dell did a really excellent job of their latest ICM file for the U2410. An ICM file allows programs which use colour management, like Firefox, to display the correct colours without the need for an sRGB mode. But if you don't want to be annoyed by this stuff the best thing is not to buy a wide gamut screen.
In the UK the new HP ZR24w is significantly cheaper than the U2410, however I've seen enough to know that some percentage of these screens definitely have tint/uniformity problems. My impression is also that it seems to suffer more lighting issues, in terms of back light bleed, may have slightly more IPS glow than the U2410, and seems like it gives some users a more difficult time than some screens when you attempt to calibrate it. I've only seen one briefly, and not in a valid side to side comparison either (so..... ) , but my impression was the U2410's image quality may be slightly better.
Both the U2410 and ZR24W appear to offer pretty decent gaming performance. The U2410 has to be switched to "Game Mode" to get good performance, and this is a full gamut colour mode. However, if you then switch to sRGB mode without confirming it, the U2410 appears to stay in game mode, but with sRGB colours. So U2410 users can have good gaming performance as well as good colours if they want it
If I was in the USA I'd maybe say that the U2410 was a decent bet. But, given the larger price difference in the UK, I'd say you should probably try the HP ZR24w for now.. Just don't expect it to be free of issues either.
