The U2711 achieved a brightness score of 333cd/m2 -- less than the U2410's 434. While this may seem like a disadvantage at first glance, the U2410's higher brightness levels strained our eyes during prolonged use. With the U2711's lower base brightness, our eyes were spared such fatigue.
We looked at Kill Bill: Vol 1 on DVD and several 1080p movie files from Microsoft's WMV HD Content Showcase. Movies looked great, thanks to the display's deep blacks and colours that look full and natural under the movie preset.
Unreal Tournament 3 and World of Warcraft both looked great running at 2,560x1,440 pixels and showed no signs of ghosting or input lag. Compared with the U2410, the U2711 exhibited deeper and richer colours in both games. Its colour saturation is among the best we've seen, ranking as highly as the HP LP3065 in this regard.
We also looked at some high-resolution photos with the U2711 and found that it produced natural and vibrant colours, proving that the two aren't mutually exclusive.
With the U2410, when viewing dark grey under the sRGB and Adobe RGB presets, we noticed apparent static dithering. We didn't see this dithering at all on the U2711 in either RGB mode or under any of the other presets. This should come as a relief to those that viewed this flaw as a major sticking point with the U2410.
The optimal viewing angle for a monitor is usually directly in front, about a quarter of the screen's distance down from the top. At this angle, you're viewing the colours and gamma correction as they were intended to be seen. Most monitors are made to be viewed only at that angle. Depending on the panel type, picture quality at non-optimal angles varies. The H-IPS panel on the U2711 shows only minimal colour shifts with angle changes.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Conclusion
The Dell UltraSharp U2711 is the monitor to buy if you have the money. Even if you don't, you should probably start pinching pennies, because it really is spiffing.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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Ben Bracken 17 January 2011
Good: Resolution
Bad: Colour Uniformity
Comment: I've had two of these monitors from Dell now, and both show problems with colour uniformity. I'm really disappointed, because there's a lot to like about the resolution, clarity, and depth of colours, and there are loads of reviewers and owners raving about it. But being a graphic designer I require colours to appear consistently over the whole panel, not just on one side, or in one corner. And no amount of calibrating can correct such a problem.
My 2.5 star rating may appear a bit harsh, but now that I've looked through some forums, I've seen quite a few similar comments from other professionals. A couple of people have pointed out that IPS panels actually appear to perform worse when it comes to colour uniformity than far cheaper TN panels. And unfortunately, that's certainly been my experience here.
For playing games and watching movies, I'd certainly recommend this monitor, but for professional use it simply doesn't perform well enough. So, for the price, it really starts to feel like a white elephant.
To get this into perspective, my previous monitor was a Formac 'Gallery' which cost £180, 3 years ago, and I'm now having to seriously consider going back to that until I find a better replacement!
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