There are some key difference between Dell and Samsung monitors from my experience.
- Dell have a very professional (bland) look while samsungs often look a bit more fancy.
- Dell stands are almost always excellent. Nice swivel and tilt, plus it is easy to remove the monitor from the stand. Many samsungs have nice looking stands, but don't offer these features and if they do can be annoying to adjust.
- As for the panels themselves - this needs to be judged on case-by-case basis. The vast majority of Samsung branded monitors use basic TN panels. Meanwhile, many dells use these same TN panels - but a large number use higher quality VA and IPS panels. These panels are made by a variety of companies including Samsung and LG, but the monitors are branded Dell.
- Look out for the Dell "Ultrasharp" model range. These monitors almost always use non-TN (ie high quality) panels and are covered by a policy called "Premium Pixel Guarantee" which has a lower threshold of pixel defects than is standard. This means you have a much higer chance of getting a replacement screen if your current one has dead or stuck pixels. There are samsung-branded non-TN monitors, but these are much more expensive than the equivalent Dells.
If you are looking for a nice new monitor, I would strongly suggest looking at
this dell 2209wa monitor. it is a member of the "ultrasharp" range, uses a high quality e-ips panel - this gives it much better image quality and viewing angles compared to similarly priced monitors.
Here is a very interesting review.
