I finally decided to replace my aging Samsung 205BW. Given my growing interest in photography and video editing since I purchased the 205BW almost five years ago, I decided to get a professional monitor, one with an IPS panel and 1920×1200 resolution. The two big contenders for me were the HP ZR24w and the Dell U2410.

Over on [H]ard|Forum a lot of the people who picked up the U2410 had tinting issues and/or did not like the aggressive anti-glare coating on the monitor. But looking at the wide gamut (The Dell has 100% Adobe RGB coverage and 100% sRGB as well, while the ZR24W only has 100% sRGB coverage) and the assorted inputs, I felt like I should take my chances once the price dropped to $450.

It arrived the Monday after I ordered it, and I was really impressed! The colors are impressive, with excellent color reproduction in both the sRGB and Adobe RGB colorspaces. I really enjoy the flexibility I now have, not only with color, but also with inputs. I can finally hook up my Wii again! This thing has 2 DVI inputs, 1 VGA input, 1 composite video input, 1 YPrPb component input, and HDMI and DisplayPort inputs. It also sports 4 USB ports and an SD card reader. It’s really a dream to work on. And Planet Earth and Life never looked so good at 1080p! As for the anti-glare coating, I am used to the aggressive anti-glare coating on my Thinkpad X200 Tablet, so it was not a very big deal.

Photos and more after the jump!

First image is the new U2410 with a Windows 7 background. Second image is the 205BW with the same exposure settings. Notice how much dimmer it is! Third image is the U2410 on a white background. The image is kind of misleading, though – it really doesn’t look that tinted.

The only problem was that there was a stuck green and blue subpixel, and a lazy red subpixel that would sometimes get stuck. Fortunately, the U2410 comes with Dell’s premium panel guarantee with advance replacement! Dell shipped out a replacement panel immediately. Unfortunately, the second panel wouldn’t go into power save mode and had a very noticeable blue tint on the right side. So I called them up again, and they were really helpful again!  After I’d shipped the first unit with the dead pixels back, they sent me a third U2410. So far, it looks like the third one’s the charm. So far no dead pixels have developed during burn-in, and there is no visible tinting! Way to go, Dell!

A few more pros about the monitor: It comes factory calibrated for ARGB and sRGB colorspaces, and it has capacitive touch menu buttons that light up when your finger gets close. Yeah, it’s a little gimmick, but it’s a really cool one. And, it’s the little things that count.

Hopefully I’ll be doing another shoot with Marissa in the next month or so, after my Neuroanatomy block is over. I’ll see then how much of a difference this monitor makes in my postprocessing workflow then!