Dell's U2410f 24in LCD monitor boasts incredible image quality, but price is uninspiring

Dressed in very plain office livery, the Dell U2410f's appearance doesn't do it any favours. You could be forgiven for not casting it a second glance. But there's plenty of charm beneath the drab exterior. The U2410f has the most breathtaking display we've seen since the HP Dreamcolor.

Colour response is, quite simply, amazing. It's leagues ahead of everything else on test, and of all the monitors on test this was the most vivid and colour-accurate.

Dell has paid a lot of attention to colour accuracy, professionally calibrating each unit before it leaves the factory. A lab report is provided with every unit, detailing the response of the monitor at different frequencies across its entire gamut.

These leaps in performance compared to the competition in this month's test come down to the technology being used to drive the display. While all other screens on test use Twisted Nematic (TN) panels, the U2410f uses a superior In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel.

Being an IPS-based panel, the Dell has another trick up its sleeve. While TN based screens claim a wide viewing angle,
it's rare that you can sit more than 45 degrees off front-on and have a good viewing experience. The U2410f however maintains its colour and most of its brightness until the screen is obscured by the bezel at 178° in both axes.

Out of the box the screen requires little adjustment, short of professionally recalibrating from time to time. What adjustment needs to be done is a breeze through well-thought out menus and the 5 touch-sensitive buttons.

Dell has also covered all bases where connectivity is concerned, with pretty much everything - the increasingly popular DisplayPort, HDMI and two DVI inputs cover digital signals and VGA, composite and component analogue inputs and mean that you'll be hard pressed to find something you can't hook up to it.

The good stuff isn't just limited to what's inside either. The stand and bezel may look simplistic but they're exceedingly functional, allowing good tilt, height and rotational adjustments.

All this performance comes at a price, however, and the U2410f, at $799, lands at double the price of the LG, its next nearest competitor.

It's definitely not for everyone, but if you rely on your monitor's colour then this is for you.