Hmm, I wasn't trying to say otherwise, nor dispute calibration can be useful for those things. My point was more related to the accuracy of some of these lower end calibration devices (lower end in terms of the $25,000 type equipment Dell is using), the relevance of this sort of thing to the average end user, and the accuracy of the U2410 out of the box.
Out of the box I really couldn't find any major issue with the U2410 in terms of accuracy under sRGB mode. There was the "dither" effect as seen below square 6 on Lagom's black level test in Adobe/sRGB mode, and there was still more wide gamut red tone than I'd have liked. But there wasn't really anything that could've been tweaked a lot better on my U2410 under sRGB mode. The reviewer over on the Flatpanels.dk site appears (it's going via google translation) to have reached exactly the same opinion with his U2410, in terms of satisfactory colour performance out of the box, with no further need to tweak. That also causes me to wonder about some of these cheaper calibration devices and their accuracy, not least when measuring screens that are rated as having a 110%+ gamut..
I have a suspicion some of the reason they went for that specific dE number is because, if they went for a slightly stricter value, there's a risk some of their panels - which display more severe tinting problems on white backgrounds - could actually start failing the tests due to the tint!
You're also right to point out the lack of calibration in other modes, although (unless you've got regular uses for a colorimeter) the average end user could just switch between custom mode and sRGB/Adobe mode, tweaking the picture to more accurately match the calibrated values. In custom mode you can also more fully compensate for the wide gamut issues manually, meaning you've calibrated the screen to the best calibration device of all - your own eyes and personal tastes. It's worth remembering that, whilst calibration devices can provide valuable reference points, in most consumer scenarios what ultimately matters to more people is how a screen looks to their eyes, not what a device (sometimes with questionable accuracy) thinks will match your printer best
Although that can sound dismissive of the value of calibration devices, it's not meant to be. It's rather me just taking a more realistic view about the actual requirements of many end users, and taking into account that, in my experience, the Dell factory calibration was reasonably decent..
