Product Reviews

Large format monitors are becoming increasingly popular as high definition video finally gets a foothold. Prices are falling and quality is rising, making even huge 24 inch TFTs a feasible option for many users, particularly those who need to use several applications at once or like to play games. Helping these screens earn their keep, many have the ports to hook up to the latest consoles as well as your PC.

Dell's UltraSharp 2408WFP isn't among the more affordable 24 inchers, but £456 is a lot less than you used to pay for a premium screen like this. It's a stylish and versatile display, with a stand that can tilt, swivel, and lift up to 10cm. You can

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even rotate it to portrait orientation (tall rather than wide) if it suits your work better.

On the side are two USB ports and a memory card reader, and on the back things get even better: HDMI, two DVI ports, VGA, S-Video, component and composite all sit in a line. In short, whatever devices you own, they'll connect; you even get the brand new DisplayPort connector.

The built-in menu system is one of the clearest we've used, but the screen didn't need much setup, and quality is way above most rivals. Colours were perfectly natural and accurate, whether bright outdoor scenes, intimate portraits or dark interiors. Gradients were perfectly smooth in our tests, and the 3000:1 dynamic contrast makes for terrifically bright whites and deep, dark blacks.

The 6ms response time isn't the quickest around, but we saw no problems in our video and game tests; movement was smooth, and the jungles of Crysis looked gorgeous. If you connect a PlayStation 3 to watch 1080p Blu-ray movies, you can use 1:1 pixel-mapping so the image won't stretch to fill the screen. The only missing feature is built-in speakers, which are rarely great anyway.

If you don't mind paying for a better quality of display, the Dell puts your money to good use.