Dell UP3214Q Review
by Chris Heinonen on April 1, 2014 12:00 AM ESTThe larger the display, the harder it is to get it uniform. As I’ve found from testing the 21:9 ultrawide displays, the taller a display is the higher the tolerance is for the panel. Because of this we usually see more uniformity issues in larger displays, though there are many large display that are still quite good in the professional market.
The Dell UP3214Q suffers a bit when it comes to uniformity. The white uniformity is pretty good, with only a few spots at the very outside falling more than 10%, which is what I set as a target for a display. The center of the monitor is all within 8%, which is a good number.
Black uniformity shows that there is a corner with light leakage in the upper-right, but that corner is also dim for white. The outside of the monitor is much darker than the center, which is also consistent with how it measures for white. Black uniformity is good other than the upper-right corner.
With the exception of the upper-right section of the screen, the contrast ratio for the Dell uP3214Q is higher for most of the display than it is in the center. The center measures in at 758:1 when calibrated, while other parts of the display are closer to 900:1. The upper-right dips down to 562:1 because of that higher black level but most of the display is better than that.
The color uniformity of the UP3214Q is very good overall. No section has an average dE2000 over 3.0, which is the target. Almost all the display comes in at a dE2000 average of 2.0 or below which is good, and the center area tops out at 1.64. These are all relative to the center of the display, so overall you can use the Dell UP3214Q for color critical work and what you see in one area of the display is what you will see in another area.
The Dell UP3214Q has much better display uniformity than the last UltraHD monitor I saw, the ASUS PQ321Q. Since it is targeting professionals with AdobeRGB support and uniformity compensation that is something I would expect to see. This testing is done with Uniformity Compensation enabled, though that mode does not work if you have MST enabled. Since MST is tempermental for me, I typically left it disabled and therefore did my measurements with it off.
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Taracta - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
I don't know what is considered by many as HiDPI but this monitor is most definitely not HiDPI at just 140 DPI! I know that most highend monitors are ~ 100 DPI and common one are even lower but I don't see why 140 DPI would be such a big deal. Are the Icons that much smaller? Are the alphanumeric character unreadable?I believe the the ridiculously low DPI of generations of monitor has made expectation of huge icons and lettering the norm and they are just not needed. You can see the icons and characters perfectly fine at 140DPI no scaling is needed!
houkouonchi - Friday, April 4, 2014 - link
Yeah I think its just people set in their ways. Even when I had an out-dated prescription and saw worse than 20/20 I still would have no problem with that size. The only thing I can think of is that is just how most people have used computers and are stuck in their ways. I used 1600x1200 on a 17 inch CRT way back in the days (pre windows-2000) and soon after when I switched to linux I was 2560x1920 on a 22 inch CRT. It was even a bit blurry but it was still not a problem and that was 160 PPI. With a super sharp 140 PPI display why do people need scaling? I don't use scaling even on a 200 PPI+ display.JDG1980 - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
Personally, I'd like to see a 39" 4K monitor, using the same VA panel in the Seiki TV but with a 60 Hz input. The Seiki TV is OK for productivity apps, but if you play any games or watch videos, as I do, then the low frame rate is a deal-breaker.A 39" monitor at 4K would provide an absolutely huge workspace - you would no longer need a multiple monitor setup. And the DPI isn't much higher than a standard 27" 2560x1440 monitor, so you don't need to use the Windows scaling that so many applications still don't do properly. (Microsoft really needs to do something about this - right now they seem content just to hope everyone eventually moves to Metro, which they aren't and won't.)
sk317bge - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
Chris H. - does the Dell preset for Game exist? On my 24", the Game mode has less lag (by many milliseconds), with a tradeoff that the color is a bit too overdriven.GTVic - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
May be UltraHD in comparison to a TV, but 138 DPI is something I would sneeze at. A 50% increase in pixel density compared to a standard 16:10 24" monitor with 94 DPI is not enough.lokitx - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
Everyone should read this before purchasing this monitor: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/periph...praeses - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
You mention the usefulness of contrast over brightness in this instance. As LED monitors do lose a notable amount of brightness over time, are you able to re-test the brightness of a monitor that you have previously tested and recorded the numbers on and report the differences?I suspect over the long term having a monitor that can go brighter than needed may be more useful than suspected.
Human Bass - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
It was looking quite decent, but that lag, wow, seems like a motion blur city.cjl - Wednesday, April 2, 2014 - link
Lag does not cause motion blur. Lag is how long a display takes to react to an input, and is usually (in the case of displays like this) caused by a delay in the image processing circuitry in the display itself. Motion blur on the other hand would be caused by a slow pixel response time (where the pixels themselves take a long time to change states after the display has already begun to refresh).Death666Angel - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
I'm more looking for the 28" Dell one, much better price/performance for me. 600€ is nearly as much as I paid for my 1440p monitor not that long ago. Incredible.