Dell Ultrasharp U2718Q 27-Inch 4K IPS Monitor

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After spending about a month with this monitor I can say that I absolutely love it. This monitor is 100% used for console gaming so if youre here for work, school or anything else, I cant help you. Im sure it makes PowerPoint look great though. Anyway, I bought this monitor after returning a Samsung 4k display for a few reasons. 1) Its the only (affordable) monitor with HDR support. Its not full HDR10 which you can read about but its also not $1,600 like Dells super ultrasharp HDR10 monitor. Since I have a PS4 pro and Xbox One X on the way, I wanted to achieve some level of HDR gaming BUT its very hard to find monitors right now with HDR. At the time of purchase, it was really the only other option. 2) Its got a 5ms response time in gaming mode. This is crucial for competitive games. While many 4k TVs come HDR ready, if you dig deep and look at response times, youll find that a lot are in the 30-40ms range. I opted for a monitor over a TV for this reason. That and many full HDR10 TVs are in the $1,000+ range and HDR only seems to come on displays 45" and up. 3) HDCP 2.2: what the heck is that? yeah thats what I originally said. HDCP in the easiest sense is the license to display 4k content. The original Samsung 4k monitor I bought was only HDCP1.4 (not HDCP 2.2) and that means that in the future, it may not have the license to display all 4k content. This causes a black screen and effectively breaks your expensive tv or monitor. Mostly an issue with streaming content like Netflix and Amazon but its possible it makes its way into video games. 4) IPS panel. IPS panels display much nicer than older TN style panels BUT at the cost of speed. Many TN panels feature 1ms response times but IPS delivers better color and allows for a wider viewing angle before distorting the image. Since 5ms was enough for me, and I was purchasing a monitor for 4k and HDR, I opted for the IPS panel. Overall, Im extremely happy with this monitor. I would have loved for it to come fully HDR10 ready with super high brightness and contrast ratios but I understand that functionality is not achievable at this price point. To me, I feel that this monitor is the best balance between speed, quality and price and havent found something to replace it with. For those wondering, its a 60hz display but unless youre running dual GTX 1080s and pumping out 4k@120, you wont need anything faster for a long time.

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To enable HDR10 you need to use the Display Port instead of HDMI. There is a known issue with the brightest green/ cyan colours which cannot be properly distinguished when using DP with RGB. The fix is to select YCbCr444 as output format. Once properly set up, image is crystal sharp and the colour is vibrant and accurate

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I bought this as an external monitor for my MacBook because I can’t stand Mac OS’s font rendering on lower resolution screens. Dell’s U2718Q fit my needs perfectly. Initially I hooked this monitor up to my MacBook Pro 2015 and enjoyed the retina fonts, but I soon noticed something was amiss: the greens were way too limey. It turns out that the DisplayPort and mini-DisplayPort connections default to having HDR enabled even when receiving an SDR signal. This causes a mismapping of colors. Thankfully, Dell has recently released a firmware that corrects this issue, version M2B102. You will need a Windows PC to install the fix, so hopefully you have a buddy or a separate machine lying around. I also encountered another issue with Mac OS: my laptop didn’t like to wake from sleep after I locked it and left it alone for a few minutes (OS is El Capitan). My machine required a reboot every time this happened. I disabled the power save option that puts the Mac to sleep when the monitor goes to sleep and the problem disappeared, so no biggy. Overall I’m really satisfied with this purchase. I couldn’t find any dead pixels, and there’s only minor backlight bleed along the bottom, left, and right edges (for thin monitors like this one, a little bleeding is pretty much unavoidable). After I did the firmware update, the colors seem great and are very pleasing to my programmer eyes. Pros: +Very thin profile +Adjust height, tilt, and rotation +Excellent cable management +Crisp text +Pleasing colors +Partial HDR support Cons: -Needs firmware update to look good over DisplayPort connections -Said firmware update requires a PC (or virtual machine) to install -Peak brightness means the HDR support is half-baked

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Wow! the only way to describe this monitor. For the price point, there truly is no better 4K monitor out there. You can spend thousands more, but when compared to this one, there will be very little difference. I bought this for my office, but decided to bring it home first to compare to my much more expensive 4K monitor. In all honesty, they were so close, there was no justification in paying $2,500 more than this for the same quality and features. Dell has always built outstanding products, but when I bought this on a tight budget, I never thought that the quality would be so good. Everything looks spectacular. I use my home monitor for video and photo editing, so I bought a very nice monitor a few years ago. This new Dell looks equal to it in every way. For the money, you cannot go wrong with this monitor.

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The good: Excellent 4K monitor in a 27" panel size... for certain setups. Text can be a bit small, but thats ok; you know what youre buying into. No really obvious defects in pixels. Its a few dim ones here and there but there are so many other pixels, the bad ones blend in. Contrast is noticeably better than my 1000:1 AUO IPS panel and a good bit better than the U2313HM as long as full RGB range is selected. Limited range mode will lead to the 600:1 ratio that some sites measured. Colors are great when using custom RGB mode at 100/100/100. Not Im a a stickler on colors so dont hold me to an artistss standard. Minor bleeding from the edges of the display, but otherwise good black uniformity. See photo. The mediocre and bad: At oblique angles, IPS glow is visible on the corners when the screen is dark as is expected of IPS panels. No points off since this is to be expected of all IPS panels. HOWEVER, DisplayPort colors are messed up on the green channel, and its not an individual monitor issue. Not sure how Dell missed this defect when qualifying this monitor. If you want to use this panel, you need to use HDMI 2.0 at 8bpc and full color range. Not sure if a DP1.2 -> HDMI2.0 adapter will work. Theoretically it should, but I have not tried it. Since I have a free HDMI2.0 port, I did not take any stars off, but for anyone that cannot, this monitor is a nonstarter. Others: The design looks like the panel was just slid into an open frame. Pressing gently on the edges will change the amount of backlight bleeding as theres no hard bezel from the front. Not a detraction, just an interesting observation.

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This monitor is one of, if not the best professional 4K IPS monitor available right now. It has 100% sRGB, HDR support, and comes factory color calibrated so it looks fantastic out of the box. No dead pixels, extremely thin bezels. The stand is very stable, and has height, tilt, and rotation (you can use this is portrait or landscape mode). Its an amazing difference in color, resolution, and size compared to my old U2415 1200p monitor. Monitor is great for photo and video editing, 4k gaming, and software development. It will have a slightly slower response time than a TN monitor, but its definitely worth getting IPS for the deep blacks and accurate colors. The monitor comes with a displayport to mini displayport cable, and a USB 3.0 cable (it has 2 USB ports built in on the side, and 2 on the bottom). Finally, this Ultrasharp comes with a 3-year warranty with a fast replacement, which is great if you happen to get a dead pixel or something like that. I couldnt recommend this monitor enough, its worth every penny.

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When I first received this product, I thought "DAMN THIS IS HUGE!" When opening up the box I kept saying to myself "damn, Dell doesnt screw around at all" over and over due to how well the monitor was packaged. I have never seen how well a monitor has been sealed up and placed in a box before. When I was taking the monitor out, it had a shielded cover. I didnt think much until I pulled it out and noticed there was another cover covering the screen. I, again was saying "damn Dell doesnt screw around at ALL!" So once setting it up I was stunned by how large these monitors are. One major feature I bought these monitors was the small bezels. They are INCREDIBLY SMALL! Im literally stunned at how well this monitor is well made and how well thought out the design is. The buttons in the bottom right corner are really small, but a plus for me but not sure about others. The options it gives for custom screen settings is awesome. You get Standard, Comfort View, Movie, Game, Color Temp., and Custom Color. I prefer Comfort View due to it having a yellowish color and easy on the eyes at night. I also had to disable to "monitor auto sleep" within the settings. But other than that this monitor is just absolutely amazing. In short, if anyone is looking for a 4K monitor with small bezels that offers many options, this monitor is for you. The item is pricey, I know and I too was a bit hesitant for Ive never spent $500 on a monitor before. But trust me, this monitor will put a smile on your face the moment its at your door.

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1. Beautiful display, Looks very professional. 2. Bezels are very thin. 3. Brightness at the right level (Easy on eyes) As suggested by many reviewers (thank you!) To make it work for macbook pro 2017: 1. Install the latest firmware update for the monitor(M2B102). You will need a windows computer to update the firmware. Follow the instructions on Dell site. 2. Use USB-C to DisplayPort Cable (HDMI caused the monitor to flicker even after firmware update); I purchased the cable at Apple store (Moshi) as it supports 5k @ 60 hz; It is pricey at $49. I personally didnt want to take any chance and wanted something to work.

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Just got this today, so far so good. No complaints yet. I know there were some color and HDR issues from a few reviews that its not as good as its UP2718Q hardware HDR cousin (of course!) but I wasnt about to fork out $1000 more bucks for that either. This monitor so far is very nice indeed, larger than my 24" LCD that bit the dust last week due to old age and power outage surge. Lighter weight that I expected too. Anyway, still playing around w/ it but so far love all the features, esp the height, tilt, pivot and swivel adjustments, theyre perfect! In fact I wont buy a new monitor that doesnt have these versatile stand features in an LCD. The buttons being on bottom are kinda nice and outta the way too (long as you know which is which, still figuring that out. Oh yea and the thin bezel is a definite plus. Would make great side by side for a dual monitor setup. Also love that Dell included both a 6" HDMI, DisplayPort and USB 3.0 cables right in the box. Currently have it hooked up via HDMI running 2K resolution at 60Hz, Both Warcraft, and Witcher 3 look incredible in those specs! Highly recommended if youre looking for a new 2018 model 4K monitor.. I may update review w/ 4K results a bit later. Thanks again Amazon and Dell! UPDATE 05/31/18: Set 4K in both Windows and WoW, works great w/ 60Hz on HDMI. Yes you have way more real estate screen wise but keep in mind Windows 10 at 4K, fonts and icons are very small and spread out -- & if youre like me I cant see too small of fonts anymore -- not w/o reading glasses anyway and I dont want to strain my eyes any more than have to. As for Warcraft, while it may look a bit smoother on some areas / screens I couldnt tell a big difference if any over 1080p so switched back to 1080p Widescreen which still looks great. I have not tried some newer game titles in 4K b/c do not have anything except Witcher 3, and have not tried it under 4K yet ... Im sure its fine. Some of you hard core gamers can give it a try....

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Early in this monitors product cycle, users were expressing apparently valid complaints on a green tinge which was impossible to get rid of even with calibration. I almost held-off purchase due to this, but it no longer seems to be a problem. The monitor was in calibration out of the box with a printed and detailed chart. This is an excellent panel which has surpassed my expectations. If youre running older hardware, make sure your system is compatible because the older HDMI and DP port versions dont support 4k.

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