U2410 Green/Pink Failure Analysis

Also worth mentioning that in some countries, Dell charges administration fees for returns. In Canada : 15% administration fees + shipping fees. For a 700$ CAD monitor, that's about 150. That left a sour taste on my side.

...and in Europe, this monitor,  is priced as much as an EIZO or NEC costs in the US.

I just registered to be able to share my story.

1. Ordered and received a U2410. Happy. 

2. Unpacked, connected it and powered it up. Within five seconds I realized "Hey, there's something wrong here...." . Heavy blue/green tint in lower left part of the screen. 

3. Started to google around, realized I was part of a (another) Dell Lottery,  and was disappointed that I didn't go for the NEC LCD2940WUXi instead.

Here's a photo of my screen.  It's the same image tiled across the screen. Notice how much less healty this woman looks in the lower left corner! Absolutely unusable for photographic work.

4. I called Dell to ask for a refund. Dell refuses to do that as the screen was bought by a company. 

5. I called Dell support. They said that they had never heard of a tint problem with the U2410. We agreed that I would send over some photos (including the photo on the link above) and that Dell would call back to me after analysis. 

6. I called Dell support a few days later, they said "The person responsible for your case is not in, we'll call back".

7. I called Dell support  a week later, they said "Oh, there's no problem with your screen", something I just refused to accept. After a looooong phone call, Dell support agreed to send my case over to the "technical escalation team" (not sure about the title). 

8. Nothing happened. I called Dell support two weeks later: "Yes... I can see that we've decided to replace your screen, but I don't know when the replacement will arrive."  Thank you Dell for not sharing progress with me. 

9. Another week later: Finally a phone call from Dell, where we agreed on date for replacement! 

10. Replacement time. At last. The new monitor is much better, but not perfect. Using the portrait above or an all grey image, I can still see some tint, but when doing real work I can't see it. Good enough. After going through calibration (it really did need calibration) I finally have a monitor with "...astounding color accuracy, precision and performance..." and ".. Vibrant, Accurate Color.." as the sales talk goes. 

Dithering... yes there's dithering in sRGB or aRGB, but since I usually use standard mode, it's not a big problem for me. And I don't dare going through another replacement, just in case the next monitor would be worse. 

To sum it up, if you're lucky in the lottery, it a great monitor! 

Krej,

Where did you get that image? I'd like to test it on my screen.

Sorry, I can't remember from where I got it. If you've got a greenish tint, a portrait like this is rather sensitive to that tint. I'm sure you can find a suitable image on the net. 

Well I am a new user of this forum and a professional photographer and a Photoshop CS4 user and was looking around for a 24" Dell monitor as a 2nd monitor to support my 24" Eizo CG243W which is fantastic but at a premium cost. And from what I read here, I'm glad I stopped in. Based on what I read and having tried a friends new 12/2009 U2410 Dell the tint issues are there. I do not see the same issues on my Eizo or our labs NEC 2490WUXi.  We calibrate our monitors and printers with the X-Rite Colour Munki

I really like Dell desktops but this issue with Dell's 24" LCD will drive Photoshop users away towards another product and I can assure you photoshop and photo editing users know it already as it's on a lot of photo forums.

9 to 5 mac is now also talking about the DELL tinting issue:

http://www.9to5mac.com/imac_27_problem_child_567890

also they are publishing the info within the 27" mac yellow issue, as it wasn't enough:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=u2410+green+to+pink&aq=f&aqi=&oq=

Hello from Poland,

Two brand new U2410 and both faulty - green tint issue which Color Settings or profiles don't fix it at all.

"Because this is a normal panel characteristic and not a hardware failure, exchanges will no longer be offered for this complaint since a dispatch of another display cannot be guaranteed to resolve the complaint." 

It's a joke right ? This "premium" panel is worse than cheapeset TN panel, even family photos look UGLY.One big disappointment.My first Dell product and probably the last, do you ever test your hardware ? Even monitor profile from CD is faulty.

Anyway damage is being done to Dell reputation.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=33639096

Sorry for you Jade7878,

What is the revision number of your panels A00 or A01 ?

Thank you

I recieved my brand new U2410 today and noticed some color uniformity problems. The image on the left side of the screen is more greenish whilst the right side is more pinkish. Even on this forum I can clearly see the color difference. Just to be sure I asked a couple of people to come and take a look at my new monitor and they too noticed it. I just asked, can you see any difference in color and didn't  told them anything that would have pointed them in this direction.

The monitor is made in Czech. Januari 2010 (Mfg). Rev A00.

Will this issue be resolved? From what I have read there are currently no solutions other than a statement that this is acceptable. Well it is not acceptable. Even my old TN monitor half the price doesn't have this issue and has as a beter color uniformity. This monitor cost me 700 dollars (510 euro) and for such a money I expect quality. Viewing pictures that aren't uniform is far from quality.

I would like a solution to this problem. Thanks. 

Hi Energie, unfortunately there are only 2 solutions for this problem:

- Return the monitor and get a refund so you can buy the upcoming HP ZR24 or NEC PA241W monitor .

- Start the DELL lottery exchange and hope that at one point you will get one which is tint free. I myself have already gone through 5 U2410 (of which 4 brand new and 1 was an exchange) and I can assure you that all of them had the green to pink issue.

Wow, the fact that Dell accepts this defect as "within specifications" is hugely disappointing.  I am disappointed because:

1) my previous experience with Dell, where they actually sent an engineer to my home (in Oregon, not near Round Rock) to diagnose a problem with the speakers they made, then purchased new speakers for me when they discovered that it was a design flaw in their speakers

     - but that was 5 or 6 years ago and the service level from Dell appears to have consistently (and unfortunately) declined since then (just as the rumors suggest)

2) all the claims made by the marketing types (clearly puffery, in light of Dell's position on the issue.)  These statements include:

     - Uncompromising Screen Performance (it appears that owners are being asked to compromise regarding performance)

     - Precise, Vivid, Industry-Standard Color (this doesn't appear to be precise, and the industry standard for color doesn't change across the monitor)

     - Thanks to PremierColor technology, the Dell UltraSharp U2410 Monitor delivers reliable, true-to-life color without the need for extensive calibration. (this monitor does not appear to be reliable, other than the problem seems to reliably occur on monitors; and my "true to life colors" do not show a pink hue to the left and a green hue on the right.)

     - 110% Color Gamut (typical)1 A color gamut of 110% delivers vibrant, true-to life color across all display modes. (back to true-to-life colors again...)

     - Consistent, Accurate Color Out of the Box: Factory-tuned Adobe RGB and sRGB modes minimize the need for further color calibration; each monitor arrives with a certified color-calibration factory report. (other than consistently having this problem, I don't think that a pink hue on the left and a green hue on the right should be considered consistent, at least not across the monitor; as for accurate color, this is clearly incorrect, unless you choose to redefine accurate which is what it appears that Dell has done.)

     - Excellent Out-of-Box Experience: Certified, in-factory calibration and simple setup get you up and running quickly. (Doesn't sound like an excellent out of box experience to me and the in-factory calibration doesn't sound worthwhile).

I quote the above because the moderator indicated that the only way Dell could live up to the expectations of the users, whose expectations were based on what they were told by Dell, would be to increase the price of the monitor.  I think the moderator (and the legal team and management at Dell) fail to realize that they should simply NOT have made those promises to begin with, if they didn't plan on living up to them.  Why not be honest and just say it's a decent monitor, but the colors are not 100% consistent across the screen and should not be used for color critical applications?  Ah yes.  Lost sales in a down economy.  But guess what gang, you're already losing sales because this issue is so widely discussed across the internet.

Best of luck to those of you with the problem.  Maybe Dell's next monitor will be better, but I certainly won't be an early adopter.

Matt

Hi Energie, unfortunately there are only 2 solutions for this problem: - Return the monitor and get a refund so you can buy the upcoming HP ZR24 or NEC PA241W monitor . - Start the DELL lottery exchange and hope that at one point you will get one which is tint free. I myself have already gone through 5 U2410 (of which 4 brand new and 1 was an exchange) and I can assure you that all of them had the green to pink issue.

I bought this monitor thru a reseller with EU Dell warranty, so I dont think a refund is possible. Maybe Dell might do a refund because of this issue that still hasn't been resolved. The pink tint is really distracting. The left side of the screen seems be ok. I've been doing some research this past weekend and noticed that the HP LP2475W has the same issue, because both monitors use the same LCD panel. So that monitor isn't an option either.

I still find it unbelievable that Dell thinks this is acceptable.

Are there are tint free U2410 monitors? I might call up Dell to exchange this monitor for a monitor with a later build date, but I dont want a refurbished monitor. How long does an exchange usually takes?

Hi Chris,
The order number is on the box of the monitor. The reseller explicit stated that I have the Dell 3 year Premium Warranty. I made sure of that before buying. So I guess i'm covered. What do I need to do now?

Reseller Monitor Warranty policy
Contact the reseller and get his Dell order number for the monitor. That order number will tell us the start and end date of the warranty. If he paid for the warranty, we can transfer the monitor warranty into your name.