Dell U2312HM

EXPERIMENTONGOD said:
I just got this monitor as a replacement for a 2209WA bought 32 months ago, although it took 4 exchanges before they finally sent it (they tried to dump some refurbished old models first and also a U2212HM). It's a Rev A06 Manufactured on June 2012.

I'm pretty happy with the upgrade:

22" -> 23"
1680x1050 -> 1920x1080
CCFL -> LED (lighter, thinner and more power efficient)
It has DisplayPort (never going to use it but it's a bonus)
The power LED is a lot less bright (although the previous one was dead anyway xD)

The only thing I don't like is the rounded edges, the 2209WA looked more aggressive xD.

I've seen a lot of people saying the 2209WA was better than the 16:9 23"s because of the 16:10 aspect ratio, which I find really funny since this is 1080p and displays more information vertically. The pixel pitch is a little smaller (about 6%) but it's not bad at all, it looks sharper and the wider AR is great for watching movies. I can finally watch my Blurays in all their 1080p glory ^^. Gaming performance will take a little hit though with the increased resolution.

I love the Premium Warranty from Dell, I don't think I would ever buy any other monitor brand.

By the way, I'm using the color profile "Dell U2312HM (Standard)" from TFT Central as I don't own a calibrator and it looks pretty damn good. I just had to lower the brightness from 75 to 20 and load this puppy up. It sure looks better than factory calibration. You can find it here:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm#d

Cheers,
EOG
Click to expand...

Congrats on the monitor!

Could you check if the lowest brightness levels are improved on your rev A06 unit? Mine is rev A05 and the display is awfully bright even at 0% OSD brightness setting. I cannot use this in a dark room at all.
 
pbtmn said:
Congrats on the monitor!

Could you check if the lowest brightness levels are improved on your rev A06 unit? Mine is rev A05 and the display is awfully bright even at 0% OSD brightness setting. I cannot use this in a dark room at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! ^^

I think that's subjective and some people are more sensitive than others. It's about as bright as my previous 2209WA. I've been using it at 20 brightness even in the dark and I personally dont think it's that bright. It's probably the same as the previous Rev though.

The thing is it also looks great at 0 brightness but TFT Central calibrated it for 20 so I'm using that.

Would lowering the brightness fuck up the calibration? I think 20 is a little on the high side for this monitor.
 
I've been thinking of getting this to replace my Samsung 226BW but I'm a little concerned about the anti glossy coating. How bad or noticeable is it really and are there any glossy IPS monitors comparable to the Dell?
 
svgtom said:
I've been thinking of getting this to replace my Samsung 226BW but I'm a little concerned about the anti glossy coating. How bad or noticeable is it really and are there any glossy IPS monitors comparable to the Dell?
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The angi-glare coating is pretty standard, in my opinion it's not too bad. I don't know of any similar models with glossy screens though ^^'
 
I've got the screen a couple of hours ago and i love it!
Mini reviwew
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039132842&postcount=8

Do I need to install anything or setup? I am just using factory defaults for now. That is 75brightness/contrast and standard preset.
The colours are very vibrant and bright, I like it :)

I've just ran windows7 update checker and it downloaded something for my screen. I don't have usb connected so it prolly download windows profile or something. Do I need to set anything or leave it as it is and only care about osd options?


ohh and on-topic
A06 july 2012
no buzzing. solid build with well placed bezel
 
HiCZoK said:
I've got the screen a couple of hours ago and i love it!
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Congratulations! It's a great display I love it too ^_^ also very affordable (although I didn't pay anything as it was a replacement under warranty for a 2209WA xD)
Do I need to install anything or setup? I am just using factory defaults for now. That is 75brightness/contrast and standard preset.
The colours are very vibrant and bright, I like it :)

I've just ran windows7 update checker and it downloaded something for my screen. I don't have usb connected so it prolly download windows profile or something. Do I need to set anything or leave it as it is and only care about osd options?
Click to expand...

The driver that comes in the CD included with the monitor is the same that is automatically downloaded from Windows Update, it's used to properly identify the monitor (show the correct model name in Windows).

After installing that you just need to tweak the settings with the OSD Menu:

1. Brightness: A lot of people (and professional review sites) recommend a brightness level of 0-20, so anything between those numbers will be pretty good, above 20 is just too bright. I have mine set at 7.

2. Contrast and sharpness: Default (75 contrast and 50 sharpness) are the best settings, it's not recommended to change them.

3. Finally you can select the "Custom Color" preset and tweak the Red, Green and Blue values (calibrate the colors by eye) to obtain more faithful color reproduction, personally I used this settings, although the optimal values will vary from one screen to another: R 85 G 90 B 95. What I did was load a plain white background and adjust the settings until I removed any red/green/blue tint on the screen. If you really want accurate colors you need a hardware colorimeter, but they're expensive so this ghetto solution should be more than enough for normal use ^^

Coincidentally these values are pretty close to what the review site "Hardware Canucks" used to tweak the colors on their display (they used 85-87-95, but I felt it was still a little red so I raised the green level a little to correct it):
Dell UltraSharp U2312HM, 23” Monitor Review Page 9 (you have to google it, for some reason the URL is censored in this forum o_O)

Enjoy!
 
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Thanks :)
I will just lower brightness and leave preset at standard. I am allright with colors.

Can I also ask what is
ENERGY SMART (off)
DDC/CI (enabled)
LCD CONDITIONING (off)
under other settings ?

Also, since it's my first IPS panel, Should I be worried about "burning in" of the screen when left on for some time?
I have "turn off screen" in power settings in win7 set to 5minutes but it does not always kick in after this time, So there is a potential of screen running for hours with bright window open for example.
my old 226bw did not had any problems with that. hours on and no burns

edit:
@svgtom
I am from Poland. Just went to the retailer and he got it directly from Dell.
 
HiCZoK said:
Thanks :)

Can I also ask what is
ENERGY SMART (off)
DDC/CI (enabled)
LCD CONDITIONING (off)
under other settings ?
Click to expand...

It's described in the User Guide, but there you go:

Energy Smart: When Energy Smart is On, monitor will adjust brightness dynamically according to the screen content for saving power consumption.

LCD Conditioning: Helps reduce minor cases of image retention. Depending on the degree of image retention, the program may take some time to run.

DDC/CI: DDC/CI (Display Data Channel/Command Interface) allows your monitor parameters (brightness, color balance etc) to be adjustable via software on your computer. Enable this feature for best user experience and optimum performance of your monitor.
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In other words, some useless stuff better left at default.

Also, since it's my first IPS panel, Should I be worried about "burning in" of the screen when left on for some time?
I have "turn off screen" in power settings in win7 set to 5minutes but it does not always kick in after this time, So there is a potential of screen running for hours with bright window open for example.
my old 226bw did not had any problems with that. hours on and no burns
Click to expand...

Some light image retention may appear if you leave the screen turned on for a lot of hours with the same image, but in LCDs it's pretty rare, so it should be the same as your old monitor. If you are worried about that, enable a screensaver or manually turn the screen off when you are going away from the computer.
 
Thanks for clarification.
Maybe a bit offset question... why is every reviewer and professional setting brightness to 120 (which is reported to be about 7 brightness settting on this model)?

Does it have anything do do with quality or life besides just screen brightness?
 
HiCZoK said:
Maybe a bit offset question... why is every reviewer and professional setting brightness to 120 (which is reported to be about 7 brightness settting on this model)?
Click to expand...

The idea is to simulate print stock paper illuminated by D65 light at 120 cd/m2. What this means is that the monitor should show colors/images as close as possible to how you would see them printed on paper and illuminated by midday sun light.

Does it have anything do do with quality or life besides just screen brightness?
Click to expand...

It has no effect on image quality as the brightness setting only controls the backlight intensity.
It has no effect on product life, but it has a HUGE impact on power consumption (you save money on electricity by reducing the brightness setting). You can see this effect on the "Energy Use" bar on the OSD.
It's a quality of life improvement, specially if you use the monitor at night or in a dark room, as the lower brightness will cause less eye strain (the default setting of 75 is way too high for comfortable use in a dark environment).

To sum up the advantages of reducing brightness from 75 to 7: better simulated light conditions, less power consumption and less eye strain.
 
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Thanks. This actually sounds very reasonable.
I've set brightness to 7. Everything looks even better after I adjusted. Blacks are better too!.

And energy use only hits 2 bars on the meter.
 
HiCZoK said:
Thanks. This actually sounds very reasonable.
I've set brightness to 7. Everything looks even better after I adjusted. Blacks are better too!.

And energy use only hits 2 bars on the meter.
Click to expand...

Great! I'm glad you like the new setting.

By the way you can update your signature now that you have the new monitor! ^_^
 
I think antiglare is more noticable on 7 brightness than it was on 75.

It's like little barely noticable noise filter. It's not bad but I am not imagining things right ?:p

it was also on my old 226bw btw it wasnt so efficent.
I prefer anti glare matt displays to glossy and u2312hm is doing better job than my old 226bw at anti"glaring" in my room with windows open.

That said, It is noticable but it only if You really look for it (looking at light in games etc).


Another thing - the screen is much sharper thanks to sporting 1080p. 226bw was 22" but sported 1680x1050. so Both monitor the almost the same size but more pixel density on dell. Image is much sharper and overal better than 226bw.


I repeat: The antiglare is more noticable and more efficent but that is to personal taste. I think I do like it and don't mind it as much. it surely helps in some situations
 
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HiCZoK said:
I think antiglare is more noticable on 7 brightness than it was on 75.

It's like little barely noticable noise filter. It's not bad but I am not imagining things right ?:p

it was also on my old 226bw btw it wasnt so efficent.
I prefer anti glare matt displays to glossy and u2312hm is doing better job than my old 226bw at anti"glaring" in my room with windows open.

That said, It is noticable but it only if You really look for it (looking at light in games etc).
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree, it's a little more noticeable in low brightness, but that's the tradeoff for not having reflections. As long as you don't look at white backgrounds very close to the screen it's not a problem, but of course it's about personal preference. I hate any kind of reflections so I keep my room pretty dark even during the day.

Another thing - the screen is much sharper thanks to sporting 1080p. 226bw was 22" but sported 1680x1050. so Both monitor the almost the same size but more pixel density on dell. Image is much sharper and overal better than 226bw.
Click to expand...

Exactly, this screen has a pixel pitch of 0.265mm vs the 0.282mm of a 1680x1050 22" display (the one we had before), so everything looks sharper, that's another advantage. I've used a 1680x1050 20.1" before, and it had a pixel pitch of 0.258, so things looked a little smaller, I think 0.265mm is a pretty good compromise between image quality and usability. I've tried a 1920x1080 16:9 21.5" display with a pixel pitch of 0.248mm and it was just terrible, everything looked too small.

Also thanks to the new resolution this display shows more information vertically AND horizontally vs the 1680x1050 22" displays, so basically it's a straight upgrade and it doesn't matter that it's 16:9 (a lot of people don't realize that). You lose 0.97cm vertical but gain 3.55cm horizontal going from 16:10 22" to 16:9 23". But the loss on vertical display size is compensated by the fact that a lot of movies and videos are 16:9 aspect ratio or wider, so basically they look bigger on this display even vertically (and also you get smaller pixel pitch as I said, which gives more sharpness). In games you can always raise the FOV a little and you're good to go, you get to see more image on all sides.

Here's a very interesting table with dot pitch values for reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch
 
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I've had 3 of the U2312HM's for a few months now for an eyefinity setup,
and they are very nice monitors.. i get a little back light bleed but not much.
Would highly recommend them to anyone looking into getting a decent IPS
and not break the bank. Even tho i am looking to get rid of mine and move up
to a 27" but thats just what work needs right now.
 
Can I ask owners to post their settings ?

Mine is 7brightness. 75 contrast
Stabdard profile
Rgb pc
Everything default
Overdrive lefy on by default.
 
If you're looking to get closer to a calibrated profile, here are some settings.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/icc_profiles/dell_u2312hm_standard.icc
Download and install this .ICC profile
then adjust brightness to 20 and contrast to 75.

Or

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/icc_profiles/dell_u2312hm_custom_color.icc
Download this .ICC profile
and adjust Brightness to 20, Contrast to 75, Red to 92, Green to 88, Blue to 98

Then download this http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/downloads/DisplayProfile.zip
and switch your profile to either one of those ICC files. Make sure you are
using the profile with the correct settings.

Now every monitor differs and this may not be 'exactly calibrated' for your
monitor but it should get you a little bit closer. These profiles were calibrated
with the X-rite i1 Pro + LaCie.

Alos if you want to go back to the original profile the monitor uses, open up
the DisplayProfile tool, and choose Dell U2312HM Color Profile,D65

Enjoy, and have fun!
 
no. I don't want profiles for windows. I am also using the monitor with xbox360 and profiles don't work there ;)
 
I use 20 brightness and reduced the green to 95, otherwise defaults. I believe the RGB settings are quite monitor/revision dependent. They are quite difficult to get right without a colorimeter, the only way I judged it was by watching a white background so that it would appear without a color tint. The AG is indeed somewhat more noticeable on lower brightness settings. A setting around 7 is probably ideal in dark conditions for text reading. I use a bit higher which is better while gaming and watching movies.
 
JES said:
I use 20 brightness and reduced the green to 95, otherwise defaults. I believe the RGB settings are quite monitor/revision dependent. They are quite difficult to get right without a colorimeter, the only way I judged it was by watching a white background so that it would appear without a color tint.
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I completely agree, I calibrated colors manually and my result was RGB = 85 90 95

As results will vary from one display to another, a good way to do it is by adjusting the RGB settings with a white background until you get the white to be more "pure", as we have said, with no color tint.

The default values (100 100 100) on my display made it look too yellow and when I tried the color profiles from TFT Central the results were not good (blue tint).

One important thing to note is that the difference between using their profile created with a custm RGB setting and not using a profile at all is very small. What that means is that a big part of the correction can be achieved just by adjusting the RGB values on the OSD, and later refined using a colorimeter/color profile. Bottom line is you can improve color reproduction a great deal by the manual method but if you want the colors to be close to perfect you need a hardware solution.
 
oh nice!
I think that those values (red85 green90 blue905) works excellent for me.

The white windows seem whiter :p

I will experiment more on my own but as for know this seems to work

edit: Actually no. Blue 94 instead of 95 :D
 
HiCZoK said:
oh nice!
I think that those values (red85 green90 blue905) works excellent for me.

The white windows seem whiter :p

I will experiment more on my own but as for know this seems to work

edit: Actually no. Blue 94 instead of 95 :D
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Keep experimenting with those values, I spent almost an hour tweaking them. If you get obsessive about it you are going to wish you had decimal precision xD. By the way 94 Blue looks pretty good too, it seems like all Rev A06 displays have similar color reproduction.

To compare the changes easily make a shorcut in the OSD for "Color Preset Modes" so you can switch between "Custom Color" and "Standard" with the push of a button and see the improvement. You will notice a change in brightness, but that's because you are using 85 90 94 instead of 91 96 100 (6 more points in each value, which is equivalent).

Also check this out:

rgb.jpg


As you can see looking at the red line, on the default preset, the red and green values are too high, so our "Custom Color" configuration makes a lot of sense (we lower red by 15, green by 10 and then tweak blue and end up setting it to the highest value of the three).
 
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So why do You use 85 90 95
and not 90 95 100 ?

Anywaym Your calibration match mine perfectly (almost), while tftcentral 92, 88, 98 are terrible
 
HiCZoK said:
So why do You use 85 90 95
and not 90 95 100 ?

Anywaym Your calibration match mine perfectly (almost), while tftcentral 92, 88, 98 are terrible
Click to expand...

I use the lower values because they are closer to the ones that the guys from Hardware Canucks used in their review and they knew what they were doing (they had hardware tools to measure the values). I also like the lower brightness and if for some reason you're suddenly not happy with the blue level you can still raise it (if it's 100 you can't of course).

I think the TFT Central values are so bad because they had an earlier revision of the U2312HM.
 
Yeah You are rght. HC review is from april 2012 and their description matches mine screen. It is also warm out of the box.

Ok. Done polutting the topic :p
Thanks again for all the help ;)

edit: Ok some more tweaking. brightness at 7 and found some interesting stuff when fiddling with rgb. The finall resould is 84 90 95

For red. There was a noticable gap in 84 and 85. Screen was still red on 85 and not on 84.
Green does not have huge impact on colours but on gamma it seems (checkerboard on white background). checkerboards were fading away in 100-89. Appeared most ad 90 and then fade out below 90. interesting. 90 seems to be the best gamma and colour.
and blue is on 95 because the screen was getting yellow on 95.
 
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HiCZoK said:
edit: Ok some more tweaking. brightness at 7 and found some interesting stuff when fiddling with rgb. The finall resould is 84 90 95

For red. There was a noticable gap in 84 and 85. Screen was still red on 85 and not on 84.
Green does not have huge impact on colours but on gamma it seems (checkerboard on white background). checkerboards were fading away in 100-89. Appeared most ad 90 and then fade out below 90. interesting. 90 seems to be the best gamma and colour.
and blue is on 95 because the screen was getting yellow on 95.
Click to expand...

You're right, 85 is a little red, there is really a gap there, the jump from 85 to 84 removes the red tint but if you lower it more it looks too blue.

I have lowered it to 84 and it looks better. So now I'm also using 84-90-95 ^^
 
I received this monitor a couple of weeks ago to replace my Samsung 226bw and thought I'd share my thoughts. Almost immediately I was disappointed. I ordered directly from Dell assuming/hoping I would get the latest revision. Instead, I received a Rev A05 with a July build. I found this a little strange since I have seen people mention they have a Rev A06 with a June build. Other than this, I'm pretty happy with it.

I did immediately notice the slight loss of vertical space as compared to the Samsung, but I adjusted to it fairly quickly. I have no dead pixels and the AG coating is not nearly as noticeable as I was concerned it would be. You do really only notice it when you're up close to the screen. As for the IPS glow and/or backlight bleeding, it is more siginifcant than I thought it would be. Fortunately, I haven't noticed it (yet) during normal use.

I was kind of surprised regarding how the stand just snaps into the back of the monitor. It seems pretty sturdy though and provides plenty of flexibility. Overall, I prefer the NeoFlex stand I was using with my Samsung but there's no reason to replace the Dell. I have no complaints with how the monitor looks, other than I would have preferred a glossy bezel like my Samsung had. It gives the monitor a more classy look.

As far as the quality of the display, I'm quite satisfied with it. Deep blacks, accurate colors, etc. I'm not much of gamer so I can't comment on things like lag, but movies look really good. I'm not going to post my settings since I'm still tweaking them a tiny bit. Overall, I'm happy with the decision I made to buy this.

Tom
 
svgtom said:
I have no complaints with how the monitor looks, other than I would have preferred a glossy bezel like my Samsung had. It gives the monitor a more classy look.
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I agree with you there, I'm also not a big fan of the rounded edges, I prefer the classic 90 degree angle edges. The monitor looks a little less badass and more girly xD.

I'm not going to post my settings since I'm still tweaking them a tiny bit.
Click to expand...

Let us know your values once you're happy with them, it's always interesting to know :D
 
Hey you guys. How do you access the factory menu on the U2312HM? I want to check that I've got overdrive enabled.

Also, I'd like to see if there's an option to turn the power LED off.
 
kissenger said:
Hey you guys. How do you access the factory menu on the U2312HM? I want to check that I've got overdrive enabled.

Also, I'd like to see if there's an option to turn the power LED off.
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To access the factory menu, hold the top two buttons down while powering the monitor on. Once it is on, press the top button to bring up the menu. You can navigate with the two top buttons (up/down) and the third button (from top to bottom) is used to change the options.

This is what you get:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/images/dell_u2312hm/factory_menu.jpg

Default for Overdrive is ON and there's no option to turn the LED off afaik. By the way, after using the menu the brightness resets to 75.
 
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hello, guys, i use dell u 2312, revision 06, or 05, not sure )
Can any one share their RGB setting ? I try - red85 green90 blue95, but i have horrible blue tint, Ofcource... better use calibrator for this, but, i'm not from USA, or even from EU :(
In my town i already two weeks try found place wherep osible rent of a 1-2 days calibrator, or a special service for this, but nothing.

I right now use bright 0, contrast 60, and defoult settings. and if say true it;s monitor still very very bright, i once write on this forum about a broblem with revision 01, but i return monitor in service centr and recived new, without "flikering", now new dell i not use, and use old LG, TN / CFL.

thnak YOu for your help.
bye~~

P.S. I'm probable made mistake, excuse me, i never learn english.
 
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Hey, can anyone give me a calibration for games and movies ? Some standard calibration ?

And the store which i purchased it, said the revision is re. A00 from august 2012, this is true ?
 
So I just received a couple. I was shipped RevA00 Sept 2012, also it notes on the rear U2312HMt

wtf is the T? refurb?
 
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EXPERIMENTONGOD said:
Default for Overdrive is ON and there's no option to turn the LED off afaik. By the way, after using the menu the brightness resets to 75.
Click to expand...
And as far as I can tell, it's not possible to permanently turn off Overdrive either. Power cycling your display will always revert the setting to ON.

For anyone else with this display, what are the "DEBUG" options in the factory menu for?
 
Should be receiving mine today--stupid blizzard delayed all packages--and I saw someone post an .inf file that supposedly allows the monitor to run at 72hz. Is this safe? Any idea how to uninstall it if it causes problems? Would I be better off using Nvidia's customer resolution controls or skipping it all together?
 
So now that I've had the monitor for a week and have tinkered with it a bit, I've found a few things out. It's an A00 revision from October 2012.

The backlight bleed is only slightly noticeable in the bottom right corner when viewed from certain angles but even on this page you can't see it while displaying black. The IPS glow is almost nowhere to be found, though there's some on the bottom left side. Hardly noticeable and nowhere near as bad as my NEC 2490wuxi2 (that's the follow up without the filter than removed most of the glow--I'm selling this monitor btw). The AG coating is fine as well and not that noticeable viewed with new prescription glasses and new contacts close up.

I'm a little confused by some reviews, and maybe this monitor being a new revision is different, but I'm running it at 72 cd/m2 calibrated just fine with a very low deltaE on Custom Color R89 G87 B96 and 7 brightness. The colors here are just as rich as 120 cd/m2 except my eyes don't melt. So this monitor may not dip into the 40's that the u2412m apparently does but I'm fine with that.

Using Nvidia's CP, I was easily able to get the monitor running at both 72 and 75 hz. I didn't do thorough checks for frame loss but playing a movie at 72 (24fps) and a game at 75 were nice and smooth. I used a tutorial on these forums to do the tweaking. I've returned it to its native 60hz now. I was nervous about setting it so high knowing that I bought it on Amazon from an "authorized dell dealer with 3 year warranty", but I know people who've been screwed by sellers like that in the past that claimed to honor warranties but didn't. Just the other night I checked with Dell and registered it there and all is good. They had a sale on the monitor too that made me kick myself.

Games are amazing on this monitor. I prefer them to a 2ms Samsung TN I'm coming from even. Everything is nice and smooth but very fast and responsive making it very easy on the eyes. I'm a big FPS gamer and playing Tribes Ascend is a blast on it. Really no noticeable ghosting and absolutely no input lag (using a Razer Deathadder as well).

The color uniformity here is great as well. My NEC needs the uniformity corrector enabled and maxed out and still has yellowing on the sides. This monitor doesn't. It's slightly warm in the lower right corner but it's hardly noticeable. I will say that at 120 cd/m2 it wasn't noticeable at all. So, it seems that lower brightnesses make it worse.

Really loving this monitor so far and I'd give it a 9.2/10 from a gamer/graphic designer.
 
I just bought one of these and love it. It's revision A06 July 2012. I'd be grateful if those who have the same revision could let me know their settings. Thanks.
 
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