Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP review

The dearest 24in monitor this month by some distance at £388, Dell's Ultrasharp 2408WFP justifies its premium price by cramming practically every feature imaginable into its admirably sleek chassis.

This starts with the fully adjustable stand, which lifts through 100mm, and swivels, tilts and pivots to portrait mode. To the left of the screen you'll find media card slots for all the major formats and a useful pair of USB ports is joined by a further two on the rear.

Whatever video source you may have, you'll find the port to match on the Dell's rear panel. DisplayPort is present as a nod to the future, but for now you can choose from HDMI, two DVI ports, VGA, component, composite and S-Video. If the Dell can't display it, no other monitor here will.

Switching it on, the 2408WFP's superb viewing angles are immediately noticeable. This is thanks to the S-PVA panel - the only one in the group. It's this panel that gives the Dell its wide colour gamut (102% NTSC) and a basic contrast ratio of 1,300:1, higher than the 1,000:1 of most rivals here. A 3,000:1 dynamic contrast option is available, but we found we didn't really need it to get wonderful video quality.

It's slightly oversaturated out of the box, although nowhere near the level of the Asus, and of the wide range of preset picture modes we found Desktop to be more natural than sRGB or anything we could get ourselves from the User mode. The black level was impressively deep, and the 400cd/m2 maximum brightness meant our white test screen, while not quite as stunning as the Samsung, was crisp and strong.

If we have one complaint it's that the dynamic range is weighted towards the bottom end, meaning shadows showed tremendous detail but the lightest greys of our white-level test blended into the background. Other than that, though, the Dell proved a wonderful companion in work, games and movies, and the sheer range of menu options - including 1:1 pixel mapping and picture-in-picture - makes it extremely versatile.

But it's this flexibility that adds to the price and just prevents the Dell from winning this month. It's a superb TFT if you'll make use of the numerous ports - but if not, the similarly adjustable Samsung offers superior image quality at an £80 price advantage.

Author: David Bayon