Dell Ultrathin S2419HM Monitor Review

Thin is always in, and the Dell Ultrathin S2419HM ($209 as tested) monitor is one of the slimmest desktop displays we've seen. But it's not just thin; it's also impressively bright and bold, with HDR support and impressive performance across all of our testing.

Design

With a slim design and slender stand, the 24-inch Ultrathin lives up to its name. The display chassis measures 1.14-inches at its thickest point, but tapers down to 0.20-inch at the edges. The stand is less 1.5 inches thick, while the base has a trapezoidal footprint that measures 8.5 x 6.2 inches. The stand has no height adjustment, and there are no alternative mounting options.

The entire design emphasizes the display panel, a 24-inch IPS panel that features Dell's CinemaColor technology -- for rich 8-bit color and HDR support -- and is surrounded by InfinityEdge superthin bezels. (The look is very similar to that of the XPS 13 laptop.)

Around the top and sides of the display, the slim bezels measure just 0.2-inches thick. The bottom bezel is only slightly larger, at 0.3 inches, to accommodate the physical bulk of the monitor's power and control buttons.

From the slim chassis to the svelte stand, the S2419HM is plastic, but instead of the basic black used on so many monitors, the Ultrathin uses a silvery gray color that emphasizes the monitor's swan-like elegance. The display also uses Corning's Iris Glass, a glass developed specifically for displays that measures less than 5-millimeters thick; it's used to provide edge-lit displays without the thickness that traditional edge-lighting methods require.

Ports and Interface

On the back of the chassis are four ports: one for power, one for audio output (for use with headphones or speakers), and a pair of HDMI inputs.

Those dual HDMI ports make it easy to use the one monitor with more than one video source. That way, you can switch back and forth between two PCs -- such as a desktop and laptop -- or use the monitor with a gaming console.

The interface for the S2419HM is fairly straightforward, with controls for brightness and contrast, input source, color adjustment, display settings such as aspect ratio response time, and HDR support. The menus are easy to navigate, thanks to a cluster of buttons on the bottom edge of the screen chassis.

Performance

To put this monitor through its paces, we tested the Ultrathin with a combination of videos, applications and games. When we watched brightly colored test videos, images were sharp and vibrant, with clear details and bright, lifelike colors. Tests of the backlight, however, showed the weakness of even the best edge-lit display, as brightly lit objects against dark backgrounds had significant haloing.

Gameplay on the monitor was also quite good, in part thanks to the monitor's 5-millisecond response time. Playing games like Hitman, in which environments can rapidly shift from a brightly colored seaside garden to a dank basement or alleyway, the S2419HM handled everything with ease.

The same can be said for Injustice 2, a current game that makes the most of HDR-capable displays. Not only were colors bright and vibrant, but specular highlights like light glinting off of armor or the glow of various superpowers in action all looked great.

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The 1080p display was well-suited both to gaming and to everyday applications, such as viewing documents and spreadsheets. Text was crisp and legible, and the wide viewing angles make it easy to view what was on-screen even at a sharp angle. In fact, viewing angles were very nearly 180 degrees (Dell reports 178 degrees), with excellent clarity and color consistency along both horizontal and vertical angles.

Lab Testing

Instrumental testing on the S2419HM also showed the monitor to be a strong performer. The Ultrathin boasts an average brightness of 358.4 nits, with a peak-brightness of 600 nits when displaying HDR content. Compared to other monitors we've reviewed, this isn't merely impressive -- it's dramatically brighter. The gaming-oriented Asus VG245H (252.6 nits) falls behind on brightness, while the wide-screen, curved Dell P3418HW monitor managed only 263.8 nits.

The bright and bold monitor boasts a wide 135 percent of the sRGB color gamut. Given that most monitors do well to approach 100, the S2419HM's expanded color support makes this monitor exceptionally colorful, and its 8-bit color support looks superb.

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Color accuracy for the S2419HM is also among the best we've seen, with a Delta-E rating of 0.1 ( 0 being a perfect score). Even compared to high-performance gaming monitors, this is exceptional accuracy, almost identical to the result from the Samsung CHG70 (0.09) and better than the marks from pricey top performers like the Alienware AW3410DW (0.2) or the LG 34UC89G (1.08).

Audio

Though the monitor has no speakers, it does have an audio jack that passes along any audio piped through via HDMI. The audio jack will work with any 3.5-millimeter stereo connector, so it's ideal for both speakers and headphones.

Bottom Line

The Dell Ultrathin S2419HM impressed us in almost every way, from its slim styling to its bright, clear display panel. While we might wish for a more-varied port selection or something other than edge-lit backlighting, these are very minor complaints compared to the simplicity and performance being offered.

Compared to some of the best value-priced monitors available, like the BenQ GL2760H, the Dell Ultrathin S2419HM delivers vastly superior picture quality, an impressively sleek and elegant design, and a price that's within reach for most shoppers.

Credit: Laptop Mag

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