Customer Reviews

Dell S2409W 24-Inch LCD Widescreen Monitor

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am using this monitor on an Apple early 2009 series 13" Aluminum Macbook via an Apple MiniDisplayPort->DVI adapter and the supplied DVI cable. The monitor is flawless (no dead pixels), crisp, bright and looks great at its full 1920x1080 resolution in millions of colors. Its response time is fast even with the Macbook driving both its internal screen at 1280x800 as well as this display.

This monitor allows me to use my Macbook as my sole machine (used to have a 24" iMac on my desk which was great but keeping multiple machines in sync is always a pain). I have not had to make any adjustments to the screen and its great for business use as well as viewing movies and pictures.

Thanks DELL - this is a great monitor regardless of price and the fact its such high quality at such a low price point makes it an exceptional value.

I recently decided to upgrade my HP Pavilion computers 17 inch CRT monitor to a roomier 24 inch LCD screen. After much research I settled on the Dell S2409W. After buying the monitor for some $311 from Amazon I was horrified to discover that Dell offered the same product (during a missed two-day sale), for about $200 including free shipping! There's a lesson there, always check the manufacturers site for special offers.

The C-NET site gave this model high ratings but commented on it having an unsteady or wobbly base. I found that the base is heavy metal and quite secure. Maybe they upgraded it. I have several points to share.
First, the monitors rated 1920x1080 resolution makes text too small for comfortable reading. My computers older integrated graphics could only approach this setting at 1280x768. This produces a nice image and no distortion but the image is more detailed at my current setting of 1600x900. To get this setting, I had to replace my integrated graphics with a new graphics card. I selected the eVGA 512 (see my Amazon review).

There is one annoying feature, a blue line about the width of a pencil line along the bottom border of the screen. In analog VGA mode you can control vertical height and make the line vanish off-screen, but in digital DVI mode, the monitor locks in these settings. I can find nothing on the Dell site to remove the line. It may be backlight leakage due to a possibly misaligned screen within it's bezel, but I think it's firmware related. It's a small thing, but still...
Also annoying, is that this type of LCD screen called a TN, has contrast which shifts slightly with viewing angle. The top of the screen seems to have more contrast than the bottom. The effect is subtle and on the whole I don't notice it, but if Dell gave the monitor just 3 degrees more tilt backwards, the overall image would be a bit better. Why didn't they do this? Foolish mistake. I put a pencil under the front of the base. It's still steady and improves the image a little bit.

You may think that I am unhappy with this monitor, quite the contrary, it works beautifully and I'm glad that I have it. Still, if your interest is in the internet more that movies, I think a screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio may be preferable. Just bare in mind you will not be able to use the full 1920x1200 resolution on such a screen without eyestrain, text will be tiny. This screen at 16:9 works well using 1600x900.
Check your computer for support at 1600x900. This is the setting that you will actually use. The image quality is virtually identical for analog VGA and digital DVI. However, a slight loss of clarity in text only, is visible when using VGA.

I will conclude by saying that this monitor gives a beautiful image quality and aside from the worlds most unintuitive controls (a study in rotten design), I think this monitor is a winner. Now if Dell would just add 3 degrees of tilt and give us manual overide in DVI mode...

At first I was very happy with the monitor. It has a quick response time, a variety of inputs, and pretty good price.

However...

When connecting an HDMI cable to the monitor, you have to run an audio cable from the monitor's audio port. That audio port is very difficult to access as it's tucked deep between where the monitor connects to its stand. Also, there is some very annoying occasional audio popping that occurs when using HDMI with this monitor.

The other issue is this monitor has an absolutely terrible vertical viewing angle. Colors are displayed completely inaccurately if you're looking at the monitor at any angle other than directly head on.

I had picked this monitor up at a local retail chain recently. When I called Dell support, they asked that I provide them with unique n-length number code they said would be printed on the receipt I had gotten from the store. There was no such code on the small receipt at all. They told me they could not help me without this code.

Buyer beware!

I upgraded from a 22 inch Viewsonic CRT that was a beast when I first bought it, not to mention it cost me a fortune at that time. It actually still works well. It was rated as one of the better gaming monitors. That monitor only had a VGA input and BNC cable input (anyone remember those :-) ). I was using the VGA input because I had issues using the BNC cables as my video drivers could not detect the monitor. I mention this because it works in with the review.

After years of people telling me to go LCD, I came to amass a couple hundred dollars of gift cards from the retail electronics store. So I decided to look into upgrading my monitor since there was nothing else I wanted and based on pricing, would cost me little out of pocket.

I primarily use this monitor for gaming. So my main concern was input lag and response time. When I first got the monitor, I was exclusively playing World of Warcraft and was both pleased and dissappointed at the same time initially. First, the color was amazing in addition to sharpness and detail. I saw detail and colors on my toon I never saw/noticed with my older set up. I think a lot of that came from the higher resolution and the move from a VGA to DVI input. But nonetheless, a fantastic visual upgrade. My disappointment first came from the noticeable input lag in WoW. Immediately I was wondering if I made a mistake and a check box in WoW settings called "Reduce Input Lag" or something, really cleaned up the problem at the expense of a few frames per second.

I have since been playing many other games and I can say that input lag and response time is really not an issue with this monitor. Examples include Dragon Age, BF2142, Left 4 Dead 2, Bioshock, and COD Modern Warfare. I am a fast mover with the mouse. I do extremely quick 180 degree turns to check my surroundings in first person shooters and the experience felt very accurate. L4D2 is a good example of this and if you play, you know what I am talking about. You are constantly being bombarded from all sides and need to get the enemy off you. I notice no ghosting, lag or whatever, when quickly moving the mouse. However, I recently upgraded from a 8800GTX to a 275GTX and the experience feels even better and more dead on. I think it was partially due to the improved frames. However, video cards are known to be a factor in input lag, so take this into consideration if you are running an older card. I will stress that my 8800GTX still felt good and pretty tight, the whole experience was just better with the new card as it should be. So in summary, the experience felt really good with the old card and fantastic with the new card. If you search input lag and S2409W in youtube, someone actually tested the input lag of this monitor to a CRT and it is almost perfect. Many more expensive monitors cannot say this, so if you game and are looking for more features than this monitor offers, do yourself a favor and research any target monitor well. Even other Dell monitors have had problems with input lag so it is not necessarily a brand thing good or bad. Lastly, the millisecond response time is not an indicator of input lag necessarily, so don't grab a 2ms one because it is better than a 5ms one on paper. The internal processing from the monitor can be the difference. A good article can be found by searching Anandtech and input lag in Google.

Other comments:

Design/looks - I personally feel that monitor looks great. It is a nice change from the bland square design. Thumbs up from me.

Viewing Angle - This is tricky and another reviewer is correct about. When looking straight at the monitor, it looks great. Stand up for a sec and the visual quality declines. Stand a bit to the side and the picture is blah. My brother was standing behind me watching me play and was like that looks good. I had him sit down and he was like "whoa". That is the difference in viewing angle. I have settled on what I think looks good, but it is only if you are looking directly at it. Every now and then I find myself tilting it and moving it to see if I like something more. However, from what I know, this is largely common for TN panel LCDs. If you search for this monitor at Cnet's site, they have a great description of the optimal viewing angle, which is basically how I deducted was best for me.

Controls - The controls are easy to use and figure out. Apparently this monitor is factory calibrated, but I found it to be a hair bright. Lowering the brightness is easy and you can figure it out quick. The only nit pick I have is that the modes (Game, Standard, Multimedia, etc) take a few clicks to get to by digging down the menu. So, I primarily game and in Game mode it looks good and Standard for most else from what looks good to me. Game mode is not as good for the desktop and movies where Standard seems to be. However, switching to different modes is sort of a pain, even though it does not take too long. For example, I don't want to boot up the system, read a little online, go through the menus to get to Game mode, play games, switch again etc. So I generally stay in Game mode and switch to Standard if I plan to be out of games for some time doing other work. I had an old Dell CRT that had a dedicated mode switch. I wish they did the same with this monitor.

Text - If you are upgrading from a lower resolution to an HD monitor, text will be quite smaller. However, I can say that with my set up, text on this monitor is sharp, but smaller. Be prepared for that. In games, most newer ones accomodate the native resolution well. So in WoW for example, going from my lower 1280 x (don't remember) to this native resolution did not make the text smaller on the screen. It actually made it easier to see all the info, including mods, I had running. The text size remained about the same. I have not problems seeing the chat windows or text in all my games. The size seems to only be in windows and the internet, which can mostly be adjusted via settings if needed or viewing size in MS Word or something. So there is a workaround if needed.

In summary, this is a great monitor for the price and I am very pleased with it. If I would have paid full price without the gift cards, I would still say the same thing. It suits my gaming very well and was a fantastic upgrade from the CRT I was using. If you are using a CRT (especially in VGA!!) still since it still "works", I will tell you that you are missing out on a worthy upgraded experience especially if you game.

This is a great no-frills monitor - beautiful, clear picture. There is no webcam and no built-in speakers, but personally I did not need these features. I had been a little concerned before purchase about possible distortion since the picture is rectangular rather than square, but once you get the settings right, it is OK. I had also been concerned about getting the picture set to the correct pixels, but that was not too hard either. Bottom line - if you are looking for a simple, no-frills monitor at a great price (I paid $210), this is it!

This is a great monitor, shame amazon is selling it for more than Dell.com. It is $50 cheaper at Dell.
I have some gift certificate's that I have to use and will wait for Amazon to lower it's prices to match Dell.com.
I am sure that most people will go to Dell.com.

I am a big fan of Dell products. I bought this monitor from Amazon because it was priced almost $30 cheaper than at Dell's website. It is a simple looking monitor in flat black that does not distract from the work at hand. I am very happy with this monitor. The max res. is 1920x1080 (need to pay a lot more for 1920x1200).

No regrets. Don't hesitate to buy this. You will be happy.

No dead pixels, fast shipping. The monitor doesn't like to run any anything other than 1920x1080. This is fine with movies and high rez pics, but for typical desktop and word docs and older games, full rez isn't practical. So when you use lower rez setting the pic is shrunk on the screen, so you have empty space all around the screen. I would recommend this as a secondary monitor and not a primary for use in final product display ie photo-shop and premier/final cut applications.

Bought the monitor for about $220, don't understand why it's becoming so expensive now(350).
Monitor is good and I like the design, hooked up with my PS3 and it works fine.

A beautiful picture, enormous viewing area and it is at a really great price. Much like having two side-by-side monitors but seamless.