Yesterday, I posted a review on my Asus VS247H-P monitor that was delivered last week. I personally don’t actually own the Dell S2340M, however, I went through the monitor, inspecting things like build quality, screen display quality, and the thing as a whole.

Dell S2340M Amazon product page here.

S2340M Review

Dell S2340M: Specifications

Last time I left out this section of the regular review structure. I’m bringing it back because this monitor really isn’t up to par, in my opinion. You can read Dell’s advertised features here and read up on what the monitor actually excells at. If you’re too lazy to read the technical details, here they are:

• 23-inch, diagonally measured
• Maximum resolution: 1920×1080 (60 Hertz)
• DVI-D and VGA connection ports
• LED display
• Response time: 7ms
• Tilt Adjustability

As written above, it is a 23-inch, LED-lit monitor. Though it’s not as big as a 24 inch monitor, it doesn’t really make a noticeable difference, so that’s a positive. Max resolution is solid, at 1920×1080 and I really adore the tilt adjusting capabilities of the S2340M. It makes it easy to adjust your monitor at an angle that prevents the sun from glaring off the screen.

Dell S2340M Review: Performance

As with our other monitor reviews, we like to do performance tests. These generally give us an idea on how long the monitor will last, what it is suitable for (gaming, videos, general use, etc), and the overall quality and value it will give us.

For the Dell S2340M, we ran some highly detailed movies on it along with our custom monitor benchmarking program. This program gives us a report on things that happened within the monitor while the movies were playing, things like: average response time, any stutters, any frame skips and how many. The movie isn’t one you normally see in a theater or on DVD, but rather a custom benchmark movie that displays a diverse amount of scenes such as explosions occurring, debris flying everywhere, high amounts of light scenery, and low-light environments. With our benchmarking techniques, we are able to see how well the monitor produces in all types of situations.

Note: Although the monitor was owned by my friend, we hooked it up to my Alienware Aurora which had a very good processor and graphics card. Performances may vary.

So we let the benchmark run for a good 2 hours, enough to really make the monitor sweat (Note: Resolution was set to maximum and brightness fixed at 80%; all other settings remained default). After the benchmark, a quick look at our program showed some interesting data.

First, the average response time in 120 minutes was more of 6ms than the advertised 7ms. While it is impressive to have a quicker response time than what was originally being offered, we unfortunately can’t say that this will happen with all S2340M units. Also, we saw some frame skips, more commonly on low-light sudden explosion scenes. There were only about 10 minor skips during the movie. We replayed these frame skips and the majority of them are hardly noticeable.

We had no problem with screen tearing, so that was a plus, especially for a monitor that’s priced at $179.99. Our usual test subjects can range anywhere from $250-$400.

Here is an example of a 400 dollar gaming monitor.

Dell S2340M Review: Viewing Experience

Dell advertised the S2340M’s viewing experience so heavily that I decided to make a new section specifically looking at that. , Dell sells you on the fact that the monitor is almost borderless.

I’ve seen and tested -with the help of my buddy- this monitor; I’ve even watched a movie and an episode of Breaking Bad on it (great show, by the way). While I watched Breaking Bad, I decided to also closely examine what I liked about viewing on this monitor and what I didn’t.

So a “virtually borderless” monitor. It was noticeable, I clearly had a ton of space to feast my eyes upon, and no dark and thick border getting in the way. However, borders are generally used to make the monitor visible instead of blending with the background. That’s one of the problems I faced when using the monitor, although the non-existant border thing made it look really good; the monitor quickly blended in with whatever was behind it. This made it really tough to focus back on what you’re watching after looking away for just a second. In addition, while watching, you feel as if the things surrounding your monitor is glaring really intensely at you.

Despite the blending in because of having no border, you can still have a very good viewing experience. To fix the surrounding objects being noticeable problem, I simple moved to an environment where the background was a solid white color and there wasn’t any mess laying around. Now the borderless feature becomes a positive thing, allowing for awesome wide-angle viewing. The resolution was also set to max, so I had an HD experience watching Breaking Bad.

One other thing I really enjoyed with the S2340M was the viewing angle adaptability. You can literally choose how you want the monitor to face you. If the sun is in the way, you can simply adjust according to the glare you’re getting.

Dell S2340M: 7ms Response Time

Here’s something that really surprised me when taking a look at a medium-priced monitor. A response time of 7ms definitely isn’t considered a bad thing, but it is a bit more than the average product. The Asus VS247H-P, which I reviewed here, had a response time of 2ms and was right about the same price.

You may be wondering, but it’s only a 5ms difference!?. Yes, it is only a 5ms difference. However, if you’ve ever used over 15 monitors over the last 3 months (I’ve owned about 9 of them, borrowed the rest), then it becomes really distinct in your eyes. Even if you don’t use a lot of monitors, the jump from a response time of 2ms to 7ms has it’s own issues. You notice a little bit more frame skips. If you take a look at our Asus VS247H-P review, you’ll see that the 2ms framerate had only 2 frame skips during our benchmark. Our 7ms monitor over here, the Dell S2340M, had a lot more than that.

Is the S2340M Worth $179?

Value is a huge thing in everything you buy. Whether you’re purchasing a new gaming computer, a television, a tablet, or even accessories, you’ll always be curious as to how long it will last and if you’re getting a good deal for the money.

In my opinion, there are a lot better monitors for the price. If you want to see what I mean, just go to the related products section of of the Dell’s Amazon product page and look around.

There are a lot of sub-$200 monitors out there. Heck I’ve even reviewed a few, which you can take a look at from our review homepage, that are better valued than this.

The Dell is actually perceived well, much better than my review. The customers are generally very satisfied with this monitor.

I simply give it a 7.7 rating instead of a 9 because the response time and frame skips were a bit high for my likings. If you’ve been considering this monitor for a long time, don’t let my review push you aside. The negatives I’ve mentioned are literally the things I didn’t like, it doesn’t mean you will notice them. Also, just take a look at Amazon customer reviews if you really want the S2340M.

Read Dell S2340M customer reviews here.