Should I get a Dell 2408 over my Samsung - worth the extra?

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 20 Oct 2009, 16:45

Hey guys,

I'm not blown away by my recent Samsung purchase - the viewing angles, especially vertical, are poor - very noticeable fade if I'm not looking exactly at centre. With no height adjustment and my being tall, this is annoying.

I could purchase a Dell 2408 stateside for $450.

Is it worth the extra hassle?

TIA.

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 20 Oct 2009, 17:35

Just reading about the 2408's input lag issues. Not sure if the A02 revision fully solved them.

Should I spring for the 2410? IPS panel worth it?

Post by **Gilly** » 20 Oct 2009, 21:19

IPS is fantastic. IMO its worth it, but I have no job and my GF would KILL me if I went out and bought one :)

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 21 Oct 2009, 16:53

IPS is definitely worth it. :)

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 21 Oct 2009, 19:21

Thank you and curse you all! :D

Going to order a U2410 methinks...so much for my budget... :wink:

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 21 Oct 2009, 23:35

LOL, I know I just upgraded to 3x U2410's from 2407's and a 2408.

I had 2x Rev A04 2407's and a Rev A02 2408

I can say I noticed absolutely no lag at all on the 2408 and as a PVA panel it has good view angles, its black was nice and black, I say it was a perfect monitor and I got it under $400. I only upgraded because it was flanked by the 2407's and I could not color match them.

On ebay I can find 2408's for under $400 after cashback easy but I got mine directly from dell when they had the 15% bing cashback. I do not have the U2410's yet to say if its better and worth the money yet or not but I'll let you know when I get them.

I can say I expect to like the stands on the 2408 more, but the menu on the U2410 looks easier to use with the touch buttons and it has way more tweaks for color/contrast and it has lower input lag than the 2408 on paper.

Seems the U2410 is becoming a very popular monitor around here.

Edit: ETA for the U2410 is in like 3 days if you want to wait for my unbiased 2408 vs 2410 opinion.

One thing that is in the back of my mind is the 2408 had 2 revisions to fix any issues it may have had the U2410 has had none yet so its going to be more prone to having unresolved issues.

Anybody know what dell's policy is on monitor revisions if one comes out that is important and your under your 3yr warranty still?

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 22 Oct 2009, 01:11

Edit: ETA for the U2410 is in like 3 days if you want to wait for my unbiased 2408 vs 2410 opinion.

One thing that is in the back of my mind is the 2408 had 2 revisions to fix any issues it may have had the U2410 has had none yet so its going to be more prone to having unresolved issues.

Those are all really good points. I'd like to hear what you think of the 2410 vs the 2408, thank you. Since it will be a hassle for me to get either (will ship to a US address then send to Canada...sigh), I want to be sure I am getting the right monitor. If you don't notice a huge difference, I may go for the A02 2408. It's still $150 cheaper (unless I can find a valid coupon for the 2410, they're all expired currently).

Thanks again, and appreciate all the help/advice.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 22 Oct 2009, 04:36

Black Friday comes soon I imagine we may find some good deals. I should have waited till then but my time window to return the 2408 with no penalty was coming to a close so I went ahead and did the upgrade.

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 22 Oct 2009, 21:41

So, I couldn't wait...pulled the trigger on a new U2410. :wink:

I spoke with a Dell salesperson in Canada and was able to get $150 off and free shipping so I'm happy enough.

Officially excited now... :D

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 22 Oct 2009, 22:51

Sweet, write a review for the User Reviews section when it arrives? :?: 8)

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 22 Oct 2009, 23:10

Sweet, write a review for the User Reviews section when it arrives? :?: 8)

Sure, be happy to.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Oct 2009, 05:35

My three U2410's came in today but I was so tired from no sleep in the past 3 days that I put the boxes in my room and went to bed and slept all day till I had to get up for work.

I plan to unbox them and hook them up today, and will probably stay up late tonight (friday night) playing games and stuff on them.

I lost my Saturday off, I have to work so Friday is the only night I will have free and after sleeping all day I should be good to go for staying up most of the night having some game time.

Win 7 disk is due in today too, think I will save that for another day because I'll lose all my games and programs I have installed when I do the Win 7 upgrade and that is going to be a full 1 or 2 day job to get all that stuff back (if I can even find it all)

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 23 Oct 2009, 18:05

My three U2410's came in today but I was so tired from no sleep in the past 3 days that I put the boxes in my room and went to bed and slept all day till I had to get up for work.

I plan to unbox them and hook them up today, and will probably stay up late tonight (friday night) playing games and stuff on them.

I lost my Saturday off, I have to work so Friday is the only night I will have free and after sleeping all day I should be good to go for staying up most of the night having some game time.

Win 7 disk is due in today too, think I will save that for another day because I'll lose all my games and programs I have installed when I do the Win 7 upgrade and that is going to be a full 1 or 2 day job to get all that stuff back (if I can even find it all)

3! Sweet! Mine is due to arrive on Mon, Nov.2.

All-nighters...miss those days. Mind you, I could still easily pull an all-nighter, no problem.

Problem would be my two young sons waking me up around the time I would be going to bed the next morning. They'll be after my rig soon enough I expect, unless I get them a console first... :twisted: :shock:

Look forward to your input!

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Oct 2009, 18:25

Well I dont want to flood your thread with my stuff and take it off track but I got them hooked up today.

I was pretty dissapointed to find one of the three (the one I picked as center) had a pretty bad pink tint too it.

I noticed it most when runing my eizo monitor test program and id did the grey scale testing.

My center monitor was the one hooked to display port so I thought maybe that was the reason why so I unplugged a side monitor and used its DVI connection and it was still there.

Did some google reasearch and found it to be a known problem with some people sending back 3+ units till they got a good one.

But I also read in that thread that they were told to do a factory reset on the monitor first.

So I first uninstalled my graphics drivers and installed the newest Cat 9.10s and then did a factor reset on all 3 monitors I also tried different preset modes.

It seems that something must have fixed it or it just needed time to "warm up" because the horrible pink tint went away after I did those things.

Colors are WAY better now on my 3x U2410's than it was my 2407/2408/2407 combo because I had to really mess up the colors to get those monitors to match. Now I can have things look as they should.

It was not my color management I tried that, it was not the presets, I think it was the reset to factory defaults that did it.

This also is good news the 9.10 drivers work on the 5870 so no more need for those 5870 only drivers I was using, this means I should be able to use my 4850 again in conjunction with the 5870 if I want to run all 4 of my monitors at once.

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 23 Oct 2009, 18:39

Cool, thanks. Don't worry about the thread, post whatever you want.

Glad to hear you fixed the pint tint issue, I had read about that as well. My heart sunk reading this until you mentioned the fix, good to know.

I'm hoping this monitor will live up to its rep and price!

I've been really happy with my previous Viewsonic vx2025wm, which had a P-MVA panel. The Samsung 2433 didn't perform as well as that old Viewsonic, which was a surprise. I'm hoping the IPS will outperform both!

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Oct 2009, 20:25

I see what I did to fix it I actually put the center monitor on a custom color setting rather than a preset, but even when I put it back on SRGB its not as bad as it was before.

My green is more of a match on srgb, but white is off

My custom color has white more on but green a tad off, I cant tell though unless I am using a monitor test pure green.

For white I can tell if I say drag a white window between two monitors and look for it.

I can probably tweak the color setting for a perfect match. I do not think its messed up and needs sending back just that its not a perfect match out of the box. I assume its normal for monitors to not all match with a preset like srgb? but now I am affraid if I use a custom color preset that I will not be using the dithering srgb does to reduce the color for proper photo work.

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 28 Oct 2009, 15:18

Ok, my U2410 just arrived this morning (nice fast shipping!) and I've just set it up.

Wow.

Really, wow.

It blows the Samsung 2433BW away in every aspect. Not even fair to compare them.

Viewing angles are amazing. Crispness is amazing. No tint issues thus far that I can see...

It looks great right out of the box. I set it to Adobe RGB.

I'll write a full review in a bit, going to tweak the settings a bit now.

VERY pleased so far.

Gecko · Post by **Gecko** » 31 Oct 2009, 00:41

Well, I found what I think is a 'bright' pixel. It is invisible on a true black background, can't really see it on white, but I can definitely see it on dark grey backgrounds. First noticed it gaming. Tiny, tiny little speck that is brighter, like a little star at night, lol.

Dell Customer Service has been polite and helpful, a replacement is on the way - they have a zero bright pixel warranty on this panel.

So we'll see what the replacement brings.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 31 Oct 2009, 11:47

I like Dell's new attitude to their Professional/Ultra panels. :D

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 31 Oct 2009, 13:31

I like Dell's new attitude to their Professional/Ultra panels. :D

I dont know what number you guys have or who you talked too. When I had to return the one monitor with really bad pink tint on one side. It was a 3.5hour phone call, getting transferred over 20+ times, nobody would help me and I was only offered the most bogus replacement methods for the few people that I talked too that would replace it.

One person a lady in customer care was trying to replace it with a cheaper refurbished monitor of a different model. Another person from tech support said since I bought all 3 in one order the only way to replace the bad one is to return all 3 and then have a new order of 3 sent to me.

When I finally did get some higher up person that was willing to replace it, they still made me get transfered to another department, to get a service number first, and do all of these bogus trouble shotting steps even though I already had done them all I had to do them again while on the phone.

My replacement monitor is here, and it ends up having the same issue! however not nearly as bad, the old monitor went from white to pink from left to right. If you took a internet browser window and scrolled it left to right you could see it change colors as it moved across the screen.

The replacement screen no longer has this issue, no color change, however the entire panel is not matching the color of the other two, it still has a much stronger pink/red tint to it.

They were supposed to include a return label with the replacement to send back the bad one and its not there...

Now I am going to have to jump into fire again and call these guys to try and get a return label! Then who knows what happens if I decide I am not happy with this monitor and want it replaced too so I can get a perfect set of 3.

I have seen people online that have returned 4 or 5 of these to get one that is right... but seriously I do not know who you guys are talking too. I got nothing but harassment, trouble, no help, tons of hold time, being transferred back and forth from one department to the next and then back again, nobody would come good on the warranty and everybody had a very strong indian accent so I was in an outsourced customer support making it even harder to understand what people were saying and for them to understand me.

If I had not gotten the monitor replaced finally after 3.5 hours of my life and lots of blood pressure later I would never buy anything Dell again.

I still may not because now I have to take up the slack to get this return label.

I posted the short nice version of my customer support nightmare in the Dell forum in the pink tint thread and my post was deleted.

Widescreen Gaming Forum