The Dell U2415 offers exceptional color accuracy, high adjustability, decent responsiveness, and high resolution which, combined with its good overall picture quality makes it one of the best monitors for photo and media editing in this price range.
Having its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma and color accuracy on par with what the best monitors in this price range offer, the Dell U2415 makes one of the best-looking monitors in the sub $200 range.
It displays beautiful images with rich and well-balanced blacks, accurate and vivid colors, and realistic intermediate tones that give a picture some extra intensity. Dark scenes look deep as the monitor’s high-quality IPS panel offers the native contrast ratio of 1064:1, which combined with the monitor's overall color uniformity gives its blacks a good push towards some high-intensity levels. Colors pop and look beautiful thanks to the monitor’s high peak brightness of 275 nits, which combined with the panel’s low average color inaccuracy allows the Dell U2415 to display crisp and life-like colors. The monitor’s mid-tones look realistic as it’s gamma response is only 1% away from its perfect value.
Moreover, the monitor’s average color inaccuracy dE of 0.45 ensures that only the professional photosensors can spot its color inconsistencies as those are very minor.
In a dark room, you can notice some minor backlight bleeding that occurs towards the lower part of the screen. Backlight bleeding appears when the panel can’t absorb the 100% of the monitor’s backlight and limits the monitor’s use in a dark environment. However, this is a widespread issue for the IPS panels in this price range.
To get the most out of the monitor’s performance, you need to calibrate it. The procedure will take you 5-10 minutes as the monitor’s optimized ICC profile is available on the Internet.
Unlike some overly aggressive and toy-like gaming monitors, the Dell U2415 looks somewhat professional because of its clean and simple design that will allow the monitor to blend in almost any working environment.
The Dell U2415 does a great job in bright rooms, where its 275 nits of peak brightness and the light-matte screen finish diffuse reflections and fights glare efficiently.
The Dell U2415 has 11% more pixels than a regular FHD monitor which will come in handy while working with some large photos taken by the high-end cameras.
Setting the monitor according to your workspace needs is simple because the stand of the Dell U2415 supports all the key ergonomic regulations, including height, tilt, pivot, and swivel adjustment.
Additionally, you can mount the Dell U2415 on a VESA 100x100 compliant monitor stand.
The monitor’s integrated USB hub consists of four downstream USB 3.0 ports that you can use to charge some peripheral USB devices or connect them to your computer. The single upstream port offers high data transfer rate, that is typical to the USB 3.0.
The Dell U2415 is an excellent tool for the photography professionals who work in the sRGB color space, as not only it supports the entire palette of the sRGB colorshh, it also can display those colors with high accuracy since it’s average color error dE is measured at only 0.45. Even the highest-class media professionals will not be capable of perceiving such minor color error.
The Dell U2415 does an excellent job even when used in the portrait mode because of its superb vertical viewing angles that are superior to what the overwhelming majority of the competitors in this price range offer. When used in the portrait mode, the monitor’s colors and shadows start to shift only when the viewing angle becomes greater than 25 degrees.
The Dell U2415 offers exceptional color accuracy, high adjustability, decent responsiveness, and high resolution which, combined with its good overall picture quality makes it one of the best monitors in this price range.
The Dell U2415 is an excellent companion for those enjoying a casual round of CS: GO or LOL in between of their working hours because the monitor offers reasonably high responsiveness and well-handled motion.
You won't feel disconnected even while playing some fast FPS games as the monitor’s input lag of 9.1 ms can be barely noticed by an unprofessional player.
Furthermore, the Dell U2415 makes the motion appear clean from the artificial effect of motion blur thanks to its full pixel response time of 6 milliseconds which allows each pixel of the Dell U2415 to change their color within only six milliseconds.
The Dell U2415 doesn’t put the additional strain on your eyes since it’s backlight doesn’t flicker. Monitor flickering can cause severe eye fatigue over the extensive use.
Not only the LG 25UM58-P is one of the best photo-editing monitors in its price range, but it is also one of the most versatile budget displays available on the market thanks to its good picture quality, a massive amount of on-screen workspace, and the near-cinematic aspect ratio of 21:9.
Additionally, the monitor is suitable for casual gaming.
To pull the monitor's maximum color accuracy, you need to get it calibrated because the LG 25UM58-P lacks factory calibration. The calibration is required only if are going to do some color-critical work in the sRGB color space.
The calibration procedure is not complicated as the optimal ICC profiles are available on the Internet.
The monitor is suitable for media editing applications in the sRGB color space because the 25UM58-P can accurately display 99% the sRGB color gamut. You can use this monitor, for example, to edit the high-quality photos captured by a camera.
Priced just a bit above $150, this 25-inch ultra-wide monitor offers a generous amount of on-screen workspace, good picture quality, decent gaming performance, and some premium functions, like LG's On Screen Control and the Split Screen feature. You’ll struggle to find the LG 25UM58-P a matching competitor in its price range.
This monitor has enough workspace for you to edit two Word documents side by side - something you could never do on a 25-inch FHD monitor comfortably.
Additionally, the large workspace does not come at the cost of resolution as the LG 25UM58-P offers 20% higher pixel density compared to the regular 25-inch FHD panel.
You won't see the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen while watching media filmed in the widescreen cinema standard because of the monitor's near-cinematic resolution of 2560x1080.
An aspect ratio of 21:9 is currently the de facto standard in the film making industry.
The LG 25UM58-P does look good from an angle because of its high-quality IPS panels. While the exact numbers for the 25UM58-P are still not available, the entire line-up of the LG’s ultrawide monitors from 2016 and 2017 suggests that the maximum, horizontal viewing angle of this monitor should be higher than 40 degrees.
The monitor's contrast ratio, brightness, and color gamut are on par with what the vast majority of competitors in this price range offer.
The LG 25UM58-P can display rich images, with eye-catching and vivid colors and deep dark spots. The colors look good because of the monitor's peak brightness of 250 nits and the full support of the sRGB color gamut. Dark scenes appear deep thanks to the native contrast ratio of 1000:1, which pushes the monitor's blacks to reasonably intense levels.
Moreover, the LG 25UM58-P produces sharper and more saturated images than the corresponding 25-inch FHD competitors because it has 20% higher pixel density.
High responsiveness and proper motion handling make the LG 25UM58-P a suitable companion for enjoying an occasional CS:GO or Overwatch round.
The monitor feels responsive because of its 9 ms input lag. Only a handful of other general purpose monitors in this price range can match such high responsiveness.
The motion appears clear and almost free from the artificial motion blur effect because even the most rapidly-moving objects leave just some minor trails as the panel's pixels need only 5 ms to change their colors.
The monitor doesn't look good in dark rooms because its panel can't absorb all the light emitted by the backlight. Such effect is called backlight bleeding. Note that this is a widespread problem for most monitors in this price range.
Setting up an ergonomically correct workspace might cause you a bit of a hassle because the monitor does not have a height or swivel angle adjustment.
Also, there is no way to use this monitor in a portrait mode since its stand does not support it.
You can access the monitor's setting using your keyboard and a mouse because the monitor supports LG's On Screen Control software.
Moreover, the software features the Screen Split function which lets you organize the real estate of your monitor according to your needs.
The monitor's extended field of view can give you some actual advantage in games such as Battlefield 1 and Team Fortress 2 which offer a broader field of view for those running 21:9 monitors.
The monitor doesn't look good in overly bright rooms with lots of windows as its backlight can't get bright enough to fight glare and heavy reflections.
The VA panel is produced by Samsung and offers a couple of advantages compared to TN-panels. The image quality is excellent with vibrant colors due to the VA's panel natural higher color reproduction and a good contrast ratio of 3000:1.
The C24F390FHU is curved and is angled similar to the curves of the human eye. Points on the screen are spread more evenly across your eyes, which increases your visual workspace at a normal distance and can reduce eyestrain.
An advantage of the VA-panel is the maximum range of the viewing angles. The monitor looks great from every horizontal and vertical viewing angle and color shifting (distortion of colors) doesn't occur.
The C23F390FHU features an anti-glare panel, which significantly reduces or eliminates reflections, loss of clarity due to light, fingerprints and smudges.
Samsung has used its own measures to filter out and eliminate the amount of blue light emitted from the screen if needed and requested. Blue light has been proven to decrease sleep quality; this feature is especially helpful when used during the night.
The C24390FHU doesn't have a DisplayPort input, a relatively new connection standard that's widespread among recent graphical cards. The older, digital DVI-port isn't supported either. It's saving grace is its lone HDMI port, which is quite adequate for anything else than gaming.
Although Samsung hasn't chosen cheap plastic materials, the monitor does feel a bit wobbly around the neck-area, which may result in accidental sliding.
The maximum refresh rate of this display is 60 Hertz, or 60 frames per second. Some other display offer a much faster refresh rate of 120 or even 144 Hz, which increases overall fluidity and responsiveness of the display, especially in gaming situations.
The response time for the screen is limited at 4 ms, which is significantly slower than some other monitors. This makes the C24390FHU less ideal for gaming situations that require fast-paced input.
This monitor's ultrawide screen has advantages for all uses. When it comes to movie watching or gaming, the screen size contributes to a truly engaging experience. As far as general productivity goes, the ultrawide screen makes it easy to have different applications or documents open side by side.
The fact that a monitor of this price range has a 5M:1 contrast ratio is simply astonishing. This means users get cinema-like picture quality right at their desk.
The 21:9 aspect ratio comes in handy when watching movies. This is the default aspect ratio at which almost all of the films are shot. Hence, you can watch your movies without having two black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
The 2560x1080 resolution creates an immersive setup. This applies even for work tasks: multiple documents can be displayed side-by-side with no legibility sacrifice. It's equivalent to having two monitors with 1280x1080 screens.
A response time of 5 ms on a gaming monitor is pretty awful. Considering its refresh rate, it is understandable but not acceptable. Note that this response time is from gray-to-gray.
A handful of games do not support 21:9 aspect ratio by default. Some examples are Overwatch, Fallout 3, and Starcraft 2. If this is important for you, it is recommended you test this issue before getting this monitor. But there are solutions: you can either install fixes (only available for some games) or play in windowed mode, using a different aspect ratio.
This monitor has two HMDI ports, which is pretty good. However, it misses other display inputs such as DVI or Display Port, making incompatible with older computers.
This monitor's aspect ratio means that many online videos, such as those from Netflix or YouTube, will have black spaces on the sides, which can be annoying.