Dell U3011 Review by TFTCentral

Joined
Oct 13, 2010
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Review is out today. Great review. A bit of disappointment coming from the U3011 (uniformity mostly), I was expecting more but still.. It's one gorgeous display

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u3011.htm

Conclusion

Overall I was very impressed by the new U3011. Spec and features wise, Dell have done their usual excellent job of providing pretty much everything you could want or need from a screen. IPS panel technology is always a popular choice, and it has now been combined with the latest generation of 10-bit panel. There's a massive selection of interface options for connecting all your devices, PC's and multi-media players. Ergonomics are good and there's a decent range of preset modes and options available from the screen and OSD.

Performance wise the default factory settings were very pleasing in standard, AdobeRGB and sRGB modes which was great to see. The factory calibration of gamma and colours has done a good job here and it's a nice investment by Dell. We'd like to see more screens factory calibrated like this as it's very important to most normal users, who would not necessarily have access to a colorimeter or reliable calibration methods. Black depth, contrast ratio, responsiveness and input lag were also all more than adequate. There were some obvious improvements made over the previous 3008WFP in these regards, and certainly when it came to the colour accuracy and performance in those tests. This was obviously a decent upgrade from the 3008WFP which is again great to see.

There weren't really many big issues with the U3011. The DCR function was pretty disfunctional and in no way did it live up to it's 100,000:1 spec. This is something we've seen from the other recent Dell screens and certainly not limited to just this model (or indeed manufacturer). There were some moderate uniformity issues from our sample, with some differences in luminance between the left and right side of the screen. Results may well vary from one sample to another of course. The other draw back is the control of the backlight intensity via the OSD. At the lower end, you cannot drop the luminance much below about 120 cd/m2 which could be a problem to some users who want to work at lower settings. Dell should have perhaps lowered the intensity across the range so that the 0 - 100% brightness control could work within a lower range of luminance.

Overall though I thought this was another excellent addition to the Dell monitor range. It's backed by Dell's well-regarded support and warranty, and their price is very competitive as ever. Well worth looking at if you want a 30" screen.
 
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