Conclusion
The Dell UltraSharp U2211H offers an affordable solution for professional users on a tight budget but is also an appealing solution for home users. A simple glance at the angular matte panel and a quick swivel of the stand is enough to tell you the intended market. But then there is the ‘full HD’ resolution and rather ‘homely’ price tag that suggests that this is a monitor that reaches out to other users. The E-IPS panel of the U2211H delivered a great variety and consistency of colours in our game tests – you start to notice subtle pastel tones and slight variations in your favourite games that you never knew existed if you were using a Twisted Nematic PC monitor. Although the vibrancy wasn’t quite as intense as some of the broad-gamut IPS monitors we’ve used we can’t fault the U2211H for displaying natural and accurate colours within the sRGB colour space. The backlight itself is not particularly powerful but this is partly why the monitor costs considerably less than most other IPS models. This meant that explosions, artificial lights and glare on games wasn’t quite as ‘stunning’ but nonetheless stood out from the rest of the scene. This is because, despite this lack of backlight power; the contrast performance was consistently good with no noticeable loss of detail in dark areas and a good range of shades. The U2211H also provided a fairly fluid experience in games, giving that responsive feel that only a panel with low input lag ever could. Trailing was at times a little more noticeable than on other panels but in the majority of cases this was minor.
The U2211H, which sits at around £250 ($280 US), is at a price-point that competes with the more expensive but often slightly larger TN-film LCD monitors that are more common in the current marketplace. For professionals on a budget and home users who want excellent colour reproduction in all their applications, the U2211H is hard to ignore. Equally hard to ignore is the fact that the U2311H, which offers similar performance and an extra inch and a half of screen space, can be had for just a smidgen more.