Dell UP3214Q Review
by Chris Heinonen on April 1, 2014 12:00 AM ESTThe Dell UP3214Q is both a wonderful looking display and a maddeningly frustrating one. When it works correctly, it produces beautiful images that are incredibly sharp. It has a fairly uniform screen and the full AdobeRGB color gamut that allows it to work well for professionals and image editing.
However, the hardware and software support for UltraHD is at a stage that it will likely drive you crazy. MST would work, and then stop working when the PC goes into sleep mode. A firmware update would fix it, and then another software update would cause that to stop working again. The Dell Calibration software never quite worked for me, no matter what USB port or video port on my PC I used (though I know one person who managed to get it working fine).
Software support is also an issue. While the OS X 10.9.3 update holds a lot of promise to make this work well, it currently does not work elegantly with a Mac. With a PC it is even worse as Windows 8.1, despite the promises to work better for HiDPI, still has many issues and really does not do well with multiple monitors. App support on the PC side is also worse than on the Mac side, with far more poorly scaled elements on screen in different applications.
Of course, OS and App support is not something Dell can help. In an ideal environment, the UP3214Q works well. As a single PC display, it is fantastic and the high-resolution display, when scaled, is wondrous to see. However, running it at 60 Hz kept causing me issues and 30 Hz is annoying in real world use. Updated versions of HDMI and DisplayPort promise to remedy this situation, but right now it is troublesome to deal with.
The combination of these issues leads me to want to wait for UltraHD displays until all the pieces are in place. Unless the resolution is essential to you, there are simply too many potential issues right now. The Dell UP3214Q is a beautiful display, but unfortunately it's also temperamental and is not plug-and-play at this point.
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Samus - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
For <$400 and 2560x1440, I'll take a thick (matte finish) bezel with an IPS panel. Infact, I'll take 6 of them and keep the change instead of buying a "Dell"Samsung just announced a direct-competitor to this monitor for $800 starting price. So maybe just 3 of those and keep the change, and they have a razor thin bezel and aluminum frame construction.
I mean...I just can't get over the price here. $2800 bucks. It's not even worth $1000.
inighthawki - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
Are you referring to the ud590? It's hardly a "direct competitor." It's not only 4" diagonal smaller but it's a TN panel, and lacks quite a few input types. Or are you referring to the ud970, in which case would you please post a source to the $800 price tag, which sounds unlikely.On top of that, remember that you then need 2 video cards to power 4/6 monitors (nvidia supports 4 but only in span with the fourth as an "extra" display) so you won't even be able to tile them properly by default. On top of that have fun trying to play a game across all the monitors. At least with a single 4K display you can render at 1080p and have a seamless scaling across the entire display. With 4 or 6 monitors you'd have to run it in the standard "eyefinity" style 3x1 configuration which is nice, but also will cost you with resolution. At that point you're going to need not just two GPUs, but likely two high end GPUs. When all is said and done I don't think you'll save much once you take into account the disadvantages of the setup on top of the price.
nevertell - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
You have never been truly productive with a computer, have you ?A multi monitor setup enables me to do things just that much faster. While you could argue that a 4K monitor would allow me to do stuff side by side on the same panel, at the end of the day, when the new resolution becomes the norm, you have to develop content for 4k. And the only way to see your results is to see them at 4k, so you have to have another panel. Single display setups are meant for lazy office people and content consumers. And even then, playing a game with a surround monitor setup is much nicer than having one large monitor.
People used the same kind of software back in the days of 1280 by 1024, 1024 by 768 and 800 by 640. And even though most of the software for today is written for 1080p or 1200p panels, the fact still remains, you cannot operate Visual Studio in half of that. Hell, it's a nightmare to run Visual Studio on 1336 by 768, let alone something like 960 by 1080p. Even though application UI's appear scalable, scaling them is a last resort. So yes, when we will catch up to 4K on the software side of things, we will need multiple monitors again. But yes, of course, for a web developer of today, being able to edit multiple stylesheets, javascript and html files at the same time AND seeing the result largely in scale is truly great. Unfortunately, most enterprise developers rarely need to edit countless files at once and the php/css people just simply will not be able to afford these displays.
Sabresiberian - Sunday, April 6, 2014 - link
What do you mean by "run 4K at 1080p"? That makes no sense.If you are talking running those 4 monitors to get a total screen space of 3840x2160, sure, you could do that, but you entirely miss the point of having a high-density monitor. The pixels on a 39" 1080p screen are the size of a truck. Maybe suitable for using as a TV viewed across your living room, but not as a monitor a couple of feet from your face.
mczak - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
A wall of TN panels is fairly pointless if you can only see the center one due to the poor viewing angles :-).cheinonen - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
AdobeRGB vs. sRGB, HiDPI vs. Regular DPI, Apples to Orangescheinonen - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
I tested with both Nvidia and AMD cards and had the same issues with both.toncij - Sunday, April 6, 2014 - link
Yes, that information could help, since not every test was done on Nvidia/AMD and the same driver. Also, it would help a lot to hear if those problems also happen with ASUS and Sharp, to compare those products. Anandtech made a review already: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ult...jasonelmore - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
Where the hell is HDMI 2.0? Its done and being produced, why isnt it in these new devices?SunLord - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
It takes more then 6months to go from a finished standard to fully certified working silicon let along shipping it in quantities to enable mass production of consumer devices.