When comparing Planar Helium PCT2785 vs Dell Ultrasharp U2415, the Slant community recommends Dell Ultrasharp U2415 for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” Dell Ultrasharp U2415 is ranked 4th while Planar Helium PCT2785 is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Dell Ultrasharp U2415 is:
The Dell U2415 is an excellent solution for those who use display daisy chaining since it has a dedicated DisplayPort Out.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Decent black levels, good contrast ratio
The black levels are respectively low at 0.16cd/m², which helps the contrast ratio achieve 1100:1 which is much lower than the advertised 5000:1, but still quite good.
Pro Pretty fast response times make the system feel quick
The response time is 12ms, which isn't lightning fast, but it's still quick enough to make the system feel more responsive than cheaper monitors. While not fast enough for high-level gaming, this monitor won't make your system feel slow or unresponsive.
Pro 'Massive tablet' design is unique, and versitile
It really does look like a massive tablet with a kickstand - but that's not a bad thing. There's no stand visible, leaving the front looking very clean. The stand can angle anywhere from 15-70 degrees which allows for flexible use, or it can be folded in and used flat on the desk or even mounted using the VESA mounting holes.
Pro Built-in speakers, webcam, and mic
This monitor has many peripherals built-in, and unless you use them heavily they will do the job just fine. Unless you feel the need for dedicated hardware, the built-in stereo speakers work well enough, and the webcam and mic are acceptable quality for occasional recreational use (for business calls or other uses where quality is important, you'll want to upgrade to dedicated hardware).
Pro Supports daisy chaining
The Dell U2415 is an excellent solution for those who use display daisy chaining since it has a dedicated DisplayPort Out.
Pro Has a USB hub
The monitor’s integrated USB hub consists of four downstream USB 3.0 ports that you can use to charge peripheral USB devices or connect them to your computer. The single upstream port offers high data transfer rate typical of USB 3.0.
Pro Looks good
While other gaming monitors tend to look overly aggressive, the Dell U2415 looks somewhat professional because of its clean and simple design that allows the monitor to blend in almost any working environment.
Pro No signs of image retention
The Dell U2415 was tested to be free of image burn-in problems that are common among monitors in this price range.
Pro Can be used in portrait mode
The Dell U2415 does an excellent job even when used in portrait mode because of its superb vertical viewing angles that are superior to what the overwhelming majority of competitors in this price range offer. When used in portrait mode, the monitor’s colors and shadows start to shift only when the viewing angle becomes greater than 25 degrees.
Pro Adjustable
Setting the monitor according to your workspace needs is simple because the stand supports all the key ergonomic adjustments, including height, tilt, pivot, and swivel.
Additionally, you can mount the Dell U2415 on a VESA 100x100 compliant monitor stand.
Pro Factory calibrated
Out of the box, the Dell U2415 displays 99% of the sRGB colors, which is an extremely rare feature for a monitor in this price range.
Pro Flicker-free
The Dell U2415 doesn’t put additional strain on your eyes since its backlight doesn’t flicker. Monitor flickering can cause severe eye fatigue over extensive use.
Pro Good for occasional gaming
The Dell U2415 is an excellent companion for those enjoying a casual round of CS: GO or LOL in between working hours because the monitor offers reasonably high responsiveness and well-handled motion.
It's works good even while playing fast FPS games as the monitor’s input lag of 9.1 ms is barely noticeable by most players.
Furthermore, the Dell U2415 makes motion appear free from artificial 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.
Pro Good for bright rooms
The Dell U2415 does a great job in bright rooms, where its 275 nits of peak brightness and light matte screen finish diffuse reflections and fights glare efficiently.
Pro Suitable for professional photo editing
The Dell U2415 is an excellent tool for the photography professionals who work in the sRGB color space. Not only does it support the entire palette of sRGB colors, 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.
Pro Decent picture quality
The Dell U2415 is among the best monitors in the sub-$200 range since its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma and color accuracy are on par with what the best monitors in this price range offer.
It displays beautiful images with rich and well-balanced blacks, accurate colors, and realistic intermediate tones that gives the picture some extra intensity. Dark scenes look deep as the monitor’s high-quality IPS panel offers a native contrast ratio of 1064:1, which combined with the monitor's overall color uniformity gives its blacks a good push towards 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 its gamma response is only 1% away from its perfect value.
Moreover, the monitor’s average color inaccuracy dE of 0.45 ensures that only professional photosensors can spot its color inconsistencies as those are very minor.
Pro Good for mixed-use
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.
Pro Higher resolution than FHD
The Dell U2415 has 11% more pixels than a regular FHD monitor which will come in handy when working with large, high-resolution photos.
Cons
Con Disappointing color accuracy
The MVA panel (multi-domain vertical alignment: in-between of TN and IPS technologies) doesn't reproduce colors very accurately. It scores just 82% of the sRGB color gamut, while other panels offer high 80s and even above 90%. This display's weakest points are with the green and cyan shades, while reds and blues appeared just fine.
Con Dim display
The display doesn't get very bright - at just 172cd/m² this panel is very dim. Many monitors can achieve 300cd/m² or higher brightnesses.
Con Takes much more power than similar monitors
Without using the ECO mode, this monitor requires about 50 watts to power it. This is double than other monitors. There are different levels of ECO modes, however these dim the display and barely get down to the power level of other monitors when they are all enabled.
Con Requires calibration
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.
Con Lacks speakers
Not a huge dealbreaker, but it's something to consider.
Con Not suitable for Adobe RGB content
This monitor is not the right tool for those who work with Adobe RGB as it supports only 70% of the Adobe RGB colors.
Con Doesn’t look good in a dark room
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.