Dell P2815Q Review
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- PCmag
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If you haven’t heard of the Dell P2815Q , it is one of the FIRST 4k displays from a big reputable company like Dell, that makes a lot of modern monitors. Certainly, Dell is one of the greatest ones out there, and this screen is available at an affordable price. And the big thing about the Dell P2815Q is its Ultra HD standard or the 4k standard of screens that you are going to be seeing in the next couple of months and years.
Obviously, one of the biggest highlights of the product is its price tag, which is relatively affordable for most people who are interested in getting high-end displays. Now another thing that everyone should know about is this is not the cheapest 4K display that you can get in the market. Currently for about $399, under $400 you can get a 4K display from Amazon, for example, a Seiki 39-inch, 4K display. It has relatively these similar specifications of 30 Hertz at 4K. Although you are getting apparently an ‘unknown’ kind of brand. The reputation of Seiki doesn’t even compare to what Dell has done in the past. And I am sure the color accuracy and overall built quality that you get out of this particular 4K display are certainly better.
There are some huge disadvantages to Dell’s P2815Q display if you are used to a 1080p display. And we will talk about some of those disadvantages as there are also some huge advantages to having this Ultra HD resolution. When we talk about some of the capabilities, you have with having a monitor or display that has this massive resolution of almost 4,000 pixels wide. You get to take advantage of some of the stuff that you do on a day-to-day basis- especially if you are a user that likes as much resolution as possible.
Dell p2815q 4k Monitor Specs
Okay, so the first thing that we are going to talk about is the technical specifications of the P2815Q. Now this monitor is the cheaper version of the UltraSharp series that they have available right now. That monitor is, I believe, a 24-inch. This is a 28-inch monitor with the native resolution of 3840 x 2160. And that is a pretty standard resolution for 4K at a 16:9 aspect ratio. It is a TN panel so. Unfortunately, it has no in-plane switching capabilities.
No IPS technology in there means that the Dell P2815Q is ‘limited’ regarding the viewing angles. But you can view it around 162 about 170 degrees for optimal viewing. But ideally, it is quite narrower than that. You do see some color shifts as soon as you get at extreme ends of the monitor. So it is not as versatile as a real IPS display. Now one thing I do like about the monitor is its capabilities and connections that it has. The adjustability is good. It has a full swivel stand which is convenient. You can fully rotate it to a horizontal position or vertical position depending on what your needs are or what you typically want to use this monitor regarding orientation. Another great thing is that it does have a standard VESA monitor mount connection. So you can attach it to a desk stand or the wall.
Now, let’s talk connectivity. The Dell P2815Q includes a plethora of connections. You have HDMI 1.4 capable of full 4K resolution at 30 Hertz. You do also have a mini DisplayPort or a Thunderbolt connection in the Apple world which is also capable of obviously doing 4K. And then you have two regular DisplayPort connection; one is an IN, and one is an OUT. And the other cool thing is that it does have a 4 USB 3.0 hub built into the monitor, and you can hook up your downlink cable to get full USB 3.0 speeds. So very convenient and fully featured regarding most things. You do also have the option to hook up their sound bar to the monitor so if you want to use the soundbar that one should have kind of pair this monitor you can as well. About you obviously can use any speakers out there.
Okay so let us see how the P2815Q compares against a very similarly spec Dell monitor. We will be using the Dell E2414H, which is a TN panel like the 28-inch but it is 1920 x 1080 at 24 inches. Now here is the kind of grand example of why somebody would want a 4K monitor with this high of a resolution and that is screen real estate. When we run the Premiere Pro on this we noticed that the images and effects are all viewable, all very bright and so much more versatility and overall screen real estate available to me on the 4K monitor. Now as soon as we dragged the Photoshop window unto our 1080p monitor, we could see that we pretty much didn’t even have any room for anything else. Now obviously, we could have shrunk it down and probably done a couple more things. But if we have the power of 4 1080p monitors on one display, it is more versatile to them because if you have multiple monitors displays you have to deal with bezels, and they are physically different displays. With this setup, however, it is all one large display, and you can infinitely customize it to your preferences.
Now obviously with this particular Dell 4K monitor, you only have 30 Hertz at a 4K resolution. Our 24-inch 1080p is running at 60 Hertz. And observing just the motion and cursor movements is a very good idea to understand and get a good feel of 30 Hertz versus 60 Hertz. Obviously, the 60 Hertz is better. It is much smoother. You have a better sense of control, and this sensation of what you are used to is just normal at the 60 Hertz refresh rate. With 30 Hertz, everything is half regarding frame rate and most things. Now, if you are doing a lot of photo editing and video editing, that is not much of an issue. But you are going to notice that your cursor is not as smooth and as responsive as you would typically experience at a 60 Hertz refresh rate.
Now, as we know that most TV shows, most online video content is shot at 30 frames per second or lower than that. So that is not too much of an issue. But if you are a gamer, this is pretty much a no go at the 4K resolution. You can only experience any frame rate whether you have a high-end graphics card that is doing 100 frames per second or 33 frames per second you are always going to experience 30 frames per second. You are always going to be top of the line. Now keep in mind you can drop that resolution to 1080p and experience your normal 60 frames per second. But again, the whole reason why you are spending this much money is to get something that caters to your specific needs. And there is no point in getting a 4K monitor and using it at 1080p.
Now let us briefly come back to our comparison. We noticed that regarding the backlight bleeding itself; it is fairly even and consistent about the 24-inch. There are some hot spots here and there, but it is typical what you would find on a consumer grade panel. Now here is probably one of the biggest disadvantages of the monitor straight out of the box and that is the color balance of the pure white that the display can replicate. Now importantly, both monitors were in the same setting. They were both set on the standard picture mode, and the color balance of both of them was the same. By doing that, we got the pure white comparisons between these two monitors. And We could see that the 24-inch was way better regarding representing a more ‘truer’ white and does a massive shift towards a reddish greenside on the 28-inch UHD monitor from Dell.
Now, of course, this isn’t the end of the world because you can calibrate the 28-inch to match a more representative color. But you are never going to get true, accurate colors because it is limited to only 8-bits and it doesn’t have a reference grade panel inside, so it is not ultra sharp. But you can color calibrate it to be ‘more representative.’ Just out of the box, it is not as good as even the other consumer grade Dell monitors. Now here is what we get to some highlights of the overall image quality of the UHD panel. It is very good regarding overall color responsiveness, vibrancy, and the overall image quality is pretty good. It is very much similar to the 24-inch. And the sharpness that you get out of the 4K certainly surpasses the image quality of a standard 1080p model regarding sharpness.
But the color response of Dell P2815Q isn’t fairly good. It’s obviously not as accurate as you would want especially if you are going to do some work with printing or you need critical color analysis you want to calibrate it. But again, you might want just to invest in the Ultra Sharp series if you are that much of a professional. But overall definitely not a bad photo editing and video editing monitor for most people.
Now one thing I do have to mention is that this is my first experience with any 4K display, any 4K monitor period. So this is a noble experience for me. And I am enjoying that amount of real estate that Dell has done with that super high resolution. And just the clarity of photos, images and text are just incredible. Even videos look great at this higher pixel density level. And truly one of the issues that you are going to have with this high-resolution monitor is regarding the visual strain, because now you are looking at something that is a lot higher regarding pixel per inch, regarding pixel density. Your eyes are going to be concentrating on smaller and smaller prints. And if you do a lot of web surf thing or anything regarding text reading or anything like that. You are going to have to come a little bit closer to the monitor and to see basically because the pixels now are so small when their scaled at the 1:1 ratio. Now obviously, the solution of this is for you to find kind of a medium, kind of happy setting. This is what Apple does with their Retina displays. They double each pixel resolution of the whole OS. So you can have it in kind of a ‘Retina style’ where the size doesn’t change too much regarding you still, have enough regarding doing all sort of things regarding screen real estate. But it is not so small that you are straining your eye all the time and therefore weakening it further. I already have bad eyesight, so it is just going to get worse. So I am not too worried about that obviously long-term effects we will see down the road as I use it for a bit further. But if Windows and with Mac OS 10, you can do it with this monitor. You can find a happy medium between having higher pixel density and having a good amount of real estate regarding doing your work.
Now obviously, this is going to be a personal factor. Everyone will have a different preference. Some people will just love that 1:1 resolution or they can just max out that setting and completely use that giant real estate to as much as possible. And they don’t mind coming in, and they have good eyesight, so they don’t care about visual acuity loss or anything like that. And there might be some people like my brother who does not like a 4K experience at all. He would rather prefer the 1080p experience because it is easier to read and the text is n’t so tiny.
Dell P2815Q Review
Now one of the last things that we are going to talk about is where does this monitor kind of fit in into the ecosystem of 4K. Well, it is kind of hard to pin it down because on one end it is certainly not the cheapest. Again, the $400 Seiki offers a lot of the different aspects of this monitor regarding 30 Hertz and the full 4K resolution at a very competitive price tag. Better than what Dell can offer even at this pretty competitive price tag. And yet it is so significantly more affordable than even Dell’s Ultra Sharp series which is going for a way over $3,000. And I am sure the price is going to get better. But that is a professional rate monitor that has reference colors, and it is more made for people who do color grading and critical photo work and things like that. So obviously you can calibrate this monitor to get better colors. And that is something I would recommend you to do if you are interested in having this monitor do some professional level stuff.
The Dell P2815Q, in my opinion, is better than the Seiki regarding this because it has great capabilities of color calibration. I think the big decision will be definitely that 30 Hertz factor here. Now to me, it is another dilemma because I do love that display and I love the price tag. I am not going to get anything near this price tag if I want 60 Hertz at 4K. Both Asus and Dell offer a 60-hertz, 4K display but again the price is quadruple. So you are going to have to take that into account when looking at this display, that’s how it is.
Another the cool thing about the Dell P2815Q display is that you can bump it down to 1080p and has 60 Hertz. So that is not a big issue, and there are lots of 27-inch monitors that have a 1080p resolution, so it is pretty versatile. But the Seiki can also do that too, and it is a lot cheaper. But,
“you get the brand, and you got the better color and built quality and conveniences.”
That’s how it works in the tech world.
I hope I gave you a good understanding of how this thing is regarding performance and usability. I do have to say that this P2815Q monitor has a lot going for it, of course, down the road. This is a generational product. Next year, we will have something that is probably cheaper and can do 60 Hertz at 4K. So many of you might probably just want to wait until the technology gets cheaper, and get people who have extra money to get these monitors so the price can come down. But the price is coming down for sure. A lot of people are going to be getting these displays. 30 Hertz is not the end of the world. It is flexible. You can get different resolutions at 1080p to do 60 Hertz if you need to play games or whatever. But if you are doing most things for kind of prosumer level, I think this is passable and certainly a great experience. After all, When you live in the world of 4k, it is hard to go back to 1920 x 1080.