Whether it is a personal purchase or a corporate purchase, when buying a monitor, the appearance rate of the Dell brand is quite high.
Looking around in the Aifan'er office, Dell's monitors really occupied most of the workstations. And most of the Dell monitors, you can see at a glance, is the U series.
The elegant shape, good look and feel, and good reputation have made Dell's UltraSharp long loved by professional users.
So, when I silently cleaned up my workstation, slowly unwrapped the package, and put a new Dell monitor on the desktop, I still attracted the envious eyes of my entire editorial office colleagues. (Except for a few colleagues who use iMac and alien displays)
After all, this is the latest iteration of Dell's UltraSharp family of 27-inch 4K resolution displays – the U2723QE. By convention, it will be one of the top priorities for many users who are ready to purchase a 4K professional display.
The elegant appearance of the silver-white tone is not dated but not stable enough
For a long time, the design of Dell monitors has been an elegant and recognizable type in the industry. Basically, I can easily identify the stand of the Dell monitor from a distance, and then look closely at the DELL logo on the stand.
Dell's new U2723QE monitor not only introduces a new full-system color, but also greatly changes the design of the bracket and base.
The first is the color scheme, U2723QE in addition to the original dark gray tone, but also provides a silver and white bright tone of the color scheme paint finish optional. This set of color styles is basically the same as dell's own XPS ultrabook and the silver and white aluminum alloy fuselage of the Smart Ultra thin book.
The monitor stand is slimmer than the classic old model, and the back panel is the same platinum gold and silver color, and the hub hole is retained below, but the line hole position becomes a rectangular style.
Dell's lift bracket still supports lift adjustment (150mm), 30° lateral rotation of the center axis, and 360° screen rotation. The damping is appropriate for both lifting and rotating, and it feels ergonomically designed to use.
However, it should be noted that if you want to rotate the screen vertically, you need to tilt the screen up a little before you can rotate it, otherwise even if the screen is raised to the highest place, the corner position of the screen will collide with the desktop. This is clearly indicated in the manual.
However, the stability of the U2723QE's bracket is obviously not as good as the old model, and if you slightly touch the monitor or encounter the desktop shaking, the U2723QE screen will shake more obviously. This happens a lot during my experience, and if used with a desktop lifting bracket, the vibration when tapping the keyboard will also make the screen shake.
If you are planning to install a third-party pneumatic bracket, the Dell U2723QE also reserves four holes and screws according to the VESA standard.
The U2723QE's physical buttons are placed on the back of the fuselage and provide a simple power switch button and a five-way rocker button.
Pressing the joystick button will pop up the settings menu, and Dell has added a set of quickly adjustable menu interaction methods to adapt to the joystick interaction. The traditional settings page is hidden in the next menu, which can be accessed by dialing up.
With the contrast can perceive the obvious changes of the new model, if you want to simply adjust the brightness contrast of the display or the input source, you can directly dial a few times in the quick menu, compared to the traditional setting menu to be more efficient and hassle-free.
The magnetic snap-on mounting hole of the bottom speaker stick absent from the previous generation reappears at the bottom of the new model and is compatible with Dell's official speaker stick accessory (SB521A).
The screen part on the front of the display is still designed with a matte screen, which can effectively reduce glare.
The narrow bezel design on all four sides of the near-equal width completely cured obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the DELL logo, which used to be at the bottom of the screen, also made way for simplicity, completely disappearing on the screen border and running to the lower bracket.
90W USB-C is a fresh trick and can be eaten all over the world
The complete interface lineup has always been one of the strengths of Dell's U-Series monitors.
The Dell U2723QE video transfer interface provides DP1.4 and HDMI2.0 ports. There is also a full-featured USB-C upstream connector (USB3.2, DP1.4, 90W power supply) on the back, 4 USB-A 10Gbps ports, and a 3.5mm audio output port.
The USB-C upstream port has also returned, which means that 23Q supports KVM connectivity, that is, after a set of keyboard and mouse peripherals are connected to the monitor, two different devices can be controlled with the switching of the display display.
▲ Daisy chain to another 4K monitor Image from DELL
The Dell U2723QE can also daisy-chain another 4K display via the USB-C port and display it at full resolution with Display Stream Compression (DSC) technology. This is a very friendly feature for designers.
Less commonly, the Dell U2723QE also has an RJ45 Ethernet port that provides wired network connectivity directly to the notebook.
It can be seen that the Expansion Interface of the Dell U2723QE is quite well prepared, which is equivalent to integrating a USB HUB docking station directly into the display.
The best way to connect your laptop to your monitor is to use a USB-C cable to connect to the full-featured USB-C connector on the back of the U2723QE. A high-quality USB-C Gen2 5A cable is also included in the box.
I don't know what Windows users will think, but I think this "full-featured USB-C docking station" integrated into the display will definitely be a favorite of MacBook users.
Through this interface, the device can transmit both video signals and USB data, and can also get up to 90W of charging power.
That is to say, when I connect the MacBook Pro with the U2723QE, in addition to the screen expansion and interface expansion, the MacBook Pro will also get power. And on the whole desktop, there may be only one such line left.
Such a desktop is very neat and efficient to use. According to my usage habits, when I come to work in the morning, I only need to take out the MacBook Pro, connect this USB-C, and light up my monitor, while also connecting other peripherals bundled on the monitor, and even connecting the MacBook Pro directly to the company's wired network.
To a meeting, or when you're home from work, gently unplug the USB-C cable and take your MacBook Pro with you.
To its credit, Dell offers a 1A1C high-speed data interface below the monitor (the previous interface was on the side of the screen). Both interfaces provide not only 10Gbps high-speed connectivity, but also up to 15W of wired charging.
▲ You can use this interface to connect to the SSD portable hard disk
▲ After connecting the SSD portable hard disk, it can still transfer at high speed
It is very practical to use these two interfaces to connect a mobile hard disk, charge a wireless keyboard and mouse (magic keyboard & magic control board), or make up a battery for a mobile phone. However, if the 3.5mm interface can also be moved to this position, external wired headphones will become more convenient.
In total, the entire Dell U2723QE provides 6 USB downstream interfaces, and this USB HUB is also very competent.
The new technology displayed by the first LG makes the IPS even darker
At CES2022, LG Display showcased the latest IPS Black display technology. This is a technology that allows the IPS panel to obtain higher contrast, in layman's terms, it is to make the panel get a deeper effect when displaying black content, and it tends to be close to the OLED that does not emit light in the display characteristics.
However, the first display equipped with this technology is not LG, but Dell.
The panel model used by the Dell U2723QE is the LM270WR9-SSA1, which can achieve a static contrast ratio of 2000:1, which is much higher than the 1300:1 static contrast ratio of the previous generation U2720Q.
In LGD's parlance, the IPS Black panel's black level is 35% deeper than existing IPS products, while still guaranteeing extremely high clarity and accurate color accuracy.
From the actual look and feel, the U2723QE contrast is obviously higher, indeed deeper, the screen does not look so gray, maintaining a consistent viewing angle range, it looks much better than the previous IPS panel.
Of course, users who choose Dell U-Series monitors value its most advertised color accuracy.
Inside the box, Dell still provides a factory screen calibration report that guarantees factory color ΔE<2 (average). However, compared with the previous generation, the calibration report of the U2723QE has added the calibration of Rec.709 and P3 in three color gamut spaces in addition to sRGB.
We can see with the Red Spider SpyderX Elite colorimeter that the color gamut of this screen reaches 100% sRGB, 95% P3 (the subsequent warm-up retest can reach up to 98% P3, reaching the official nominal value), the minimum ΔE value is 0.50, the maximum is 2.3, and the average is around 1.2.
To sum up the above parameters in one sentence, that is, the color performance is very accurate, and it also has the top P3 color gamut coverage.
It also confirms that the IPS Black technology panel does not affect the performance of the color accuracy while enhancing the contrast.
Thanks to the high coverage of the P3 gamut and the 4K HD resolution (3840×2160) supporting HiDPI rendering, the U2723QE perfectly reproduces macOS colors and HD Retina displays.
Next, let's pick the shortcomings of the U2723QE.
The first is that although it is VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified, the maximum brightness can reach 440 nits, but its HDR display effect can only be said to be unsatisfactory (barely satisfactory).
The main reason is that the U2723QE panel is designed for side-entry partition backlighting, but it only provides 4 partitions to choose from, and the partition light control strategy performance is relatively normal when watching the video, the brightness is obvious, and the color performance and shadow detail performance are OK.
However, if you play HDR games, the large-area light column interference will be more obvious, especially when switching between light and dark scenes in FPS games, which greatly reduces my enthusiasm for playing games. Well? This seems to be the effect that the bosses are trying to achieve?
It is worth mentioning that this panel has the characteristics of hardware low blue light, and has passed the hardware low blue light and non-flicker certification of the German Rheinland TUV. And as far as we know, this screen is DC dimming under the SDR display, and high-frequency PWM dimming when switching to HDR display.
That's why the U2723QE is a display for professional workflows that is best-in-class in terms of clarity and color accuracy.
For users like me who need to spend a long time browsing the web and dealing with floor plans and text work.
PIP/PBP split screen display, productivity/iQiyi between a thought
Dell U2723QE supports PIP/PBP split-screen display.
PBP is the ability to split the screen in two and display the output from two different source devices on the left and right sides of the screen.
▲Show Mac on one side and WIndows on the other
▲While displaying the computer, the Switch game screen is displayed.
But on the 16:9 screen ratio to turn on the PBP, split screen display of the picture of two devices, I think this effect and experience is still not with the fish screen to be reasonable.
PIP, also known as the mother-daughter screen, displays the primary source on the large screen and embeds a small window screen of the secondary source within the screen.
The U2723QE offers a four-corner window with a total of eight PIP split-screen options.
Using a PIP window to embed a Switch game window seems like a new way to get to work and fish. Either way, whether to use PIP/PBP for productivity or for iQiyi, It's up to u.
It's still a 4K IPS display that professional users love
When it comes to the model of the Dell monitor, many people may find it complicated.
We experienced the U2723QE, whose suffix represents the commercial series, and a 1.8m DP filament comes standard in the box. The corresponding household series model is the U2723QX, which comes with a 1.8m HDMI cable.
The two models differ only on the supplied wire, and the panels and functions are consistent.
In summary, from the perspective of the direction of product iteration, U2723QE is the "increase without price increase" iteration of U2720Q.
Because the new U2723QE not only inherits the performance of the previous generation of accurate color and high-definition display in the same price segment, but also introduces a new 4K IPS high-contrast technology. Just from the quality of screen performance, it is already the best choice for this gear at present.
Coupled with a complete high-speed data interface and USB-C first-line connection function, it is not only easy to compatible with the large-screen expansion of laptops, but also allows laptop users to save money and desktop space required to expand the dock.
So, if you're looking for a good 4K IPS display with good color accuracy and don't have FPS gaming needs, the Dell U2723QE is a good choice.