Dell S2340T

Until recently, Windows 8 certified touch-screen monitors have been relatively scarce, but not anymore. Monitor manufacturers such as Acer, Viewsonic, LG, and Planar have all announced multi-touch monitors that are designed to enhance the Windows 8 user experience. Not to be outdone, Dell has joined the fray with the release of the Dell S2340T, a 23-inch IPS monitor featuring 10-point touch technology and a handful of useful features, including a webcam and USB 3.0 and Ethernet connectivity. More importantly, it delivers good color and grayscale accuracy and responsive touch functionality. However, it's the most expensive 23-inch touch-screen monitors we've reviewed to date, and it only has two video inputs and lacks VESA wall mounting capabilities.

Design and Features
As with the Acer T232HL and Viewsonic TD2340, the S2340T boasts a slick tablet-like design. The 1,920-by-1,080 IPS panel sports a glossy (and reflective) edge-to-edge glass coating over black borders. The requisite Dell logo is positioned along the lower edge of the display and there five buttons on the right side of the cabinet. A two-megapixel webcam and dual microphone array is embedded in the glass above the panel.

The use of edge-mounted LED backlighting allows for a very thin (0.8-inch) cabinet, which is supported by a glossy black square base and a silver dual hinge mechanism. The hinge provides height and tilt adjustability and allows you to lay the panel flat so it is parallel with the desktop surface. Unlike the Acer and Viewsonic model, the S2340T doesn't have VESA-compliant mounting holes. That's because the all of its ports are located in the base.

You only get two video inputs (HDMI and DisplayPort), both of which are located at the rear of the base. They share space with three USB 3.0 ports (one upstream, two downstream), an Ethernet port (a rarity among desktop monitors), and the power jack. On the right side of the base are two more downstream USB 3.0 ports and on the left side are headphone and microphone jacks. The base acts as a docking station for your notebook, delivering Ethernet, USB, and audio connectivity via a single USB cable. It is also home to two relatively loud 5-watt speakers.

Four of the five aforementioned buttons are used to access and navigate the settings menus (the fifth button is the power switch). The S2340T uses the same excellent on-screen labeling system that is used by Dell's UltraSharp U3014 and UltraSharp U2713HM models; touching any button launches a menu that corresponds to each button, making it easy to work your way through the settings menus.

The S2340T gives you seven picture presets including Standard, Multimedia, Game, Movie, Text, Warm, and Cool. There's also a Custom Color preset for users who prefer to create their own color mode. Brightness, Contrast, Hue, and Saturation adjustments are also available, as are Sharpness and Aspect Ratio settings. The Energy Smart option enables dynamic dimming that reacts to the amount of bright areas on the screen, and the Green Mode option helps conserve power by disabling advanced USB features.

Dell covers the S2340T with an extraordinary four year warranty. The monitor ships with HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB (upstream) cables as well as a resource CD and a Quick Start Guide.

Performance
The S2340T's multi-touch screen was a pleasure to use; pinching, tapping, and stretching gestures worked perfectly as did swipe and scroll movements. Entering text using the on-screen keyboard was comfortable, especially when the panel was tilted backward.

Color accuracy was good but not perfect. On the CIE (International Committee on Illumination) chromaticity chart below, the closer each color dot is to its corresponding box, the better the color accuracy. Reds and blues were very accurate but greens were a little off.

This is not uncommon with desktop monitors, and in this case the flaw does not translate to tinting or skewed skin tones. In fact, image quality was superb while watching blu-ray movies; flesh tones in the movie 2012 were natural looking and colors were deep and well defined. That said, if you absolutely must have spot-on color accuracy you can try calibrating the monitor or consider investing in a professional grade monitor such as the NEC MultiSync PA301W or Dell U3014.

The panel did a good job of rendering each shade of gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test, but as was the case with the Viewsonic TD2340, the darkest shade of gray could have been a bit darker. Viewing angles were typical of an IPS panel; colors remained intact from any angle and the picture suffered no significant loss of luminance when viewed from the top, bottom, or side.

The S2340T averaged 26 watts of power usage during testing, which is on par with the 23-inch Acer and Viewsonic touch-screen models. I was able to lower that number to 23 watts by enabling the Energy Smart dynamic dimming option but couldn't get it as low as the Viewsonic's Optimize ECO mode (16-watts) or the Acer's ECO mode (18-watts).

The Dell S2340T is a sharp-looking 23-inch touch-screen monitor that is optimized for Windows 8. It offers robust IPS color quality, solid grayscale performance, and outstanding 10-point projected capacitive touch technology. The addition of a webcam and an Ethernet port are nice touches, but a third video input would be welcome here. Moreover, at $700 it's very expensive for a 23-inch monitor, even one with touch-screen capabilities and a generous feature set. Our Editors' Choice for touch-screen monitors, the Acer T232HL, also offers solid IPS performance, responsive 10-point touch technology, and a USB hub, but it doesn't double as a docking station or have a webcam. However, it's almost $150 cheaper than the S2340T.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/CBmfloNA64U/0,2817,2417713,00.asp

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