Dell Ultrasharp U2417H review

The best 24inch monitor you can buy

Dell Ultrasharp U2417H review

Dell’s Ultrasharp monitors have been among the best you can buy for years now. They’ve consistently combined great image quality with a good selection of features and a nice design, and the new U2417H is no exception. This 24in display includes a 1080p IPS panel, a fully adjustable stand, good connectivity and of course a nice design all for just £220.

Starting with that design, silver and black has long been Dell’s signature and it’s again used to great affect here. The combination is just a little less utilitarian than all black designs yet it doesn’t look like it’s trying to be something more premium or overtly stylish.

Dell Ultrasharp U2417H video review

Helping the look is the slimness of the bezels. You get just a tiny 1mm edge, with the rest of the bezel below the front surface of the display, and in total the whole bezel is just 5.3mm thick on the top and sides and 8.3mm on the bottom.

The bottom bezel has shrunk even more compared to this display’s predecessor the U2414H thanks to the onscreen controls now being positioned on the underside rather than the front.

The overall affect creates what is arguably the smartest looking 24in display you can buy.

Dell hasn’t scrimped elsewhere either. You get a bounty of connectivity, with two HDMI, a full-size DisplayPort and a mini DisplayPort as well as a DisplayPort output for daisy changing a second monitor.

There’s also a four port USB 3.0 hub, with two ports on the back and two conveniently positioned on the left side.

The stand is also fully featured. Height, rotation, tilt and pivot are all on offer, and the movements for them are all nice and smooth. Plus you get a VESA mount for use with alternative stands and monitor arms. The only slight sticking point is that the total height of the monitor is quite low, at just 485mm. In comparison several competitors offer a similar range of motion but with higher start and end points. I had to resort to stacking the display on some books to get it to a comfortable height.

As to those semi hidden menu controls, they work really well. As each button changes function depending what’s on screen, you don’t need to worry about remembering which button does what and the menus themselves are fast and intuitive to navigate.

Not that you’ll likely need to dive into them much, because this display has fantastic image quality right out of the box. Sure you need to turn the brightness down a bit but otherwise it offers near perfect colour accuracy a great contrast ratio and of course good viewing angles.

To get the very most accurate colour did require tweaking the colour balance a bit but most users will be fine using it as it comes. And this is all despite this only being a 6-bit panel, rather than the 8-bit I would’ve expected.

You do inevitably get some IPS glow but it’s only really noticeable when watching very dark scenes and is no worse than any other panel. Plus the anti-glare coating here does a great job of cutting out reflections while not being too grainy looking either.

As for gaming, this is only a 60Hz IPS display so it’s not going to be your first choice for anything competitive. But, for such a panel it performs as well as it can. Input lag measured using the leobodnar tester was just 10.2ms, while response time and motion blur are no worse than any other IPS display.

The end result is quite simply the best 24inch monitor you can buy for non competitive gaming use. It’s still great for singleplayer games or any other slower paced games but FPS gamers in particular will still want to opt for a 144Hz TN panel.

For everything else, though, the U2417H offers the perfect balance of design, features and image quality all for a great price.