MONITORS
74 NOVEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 381
WHILETHEREAREfarmore expensive
displays than the UltraSharp U2719DC, £390
fora27in, 2,560x1,440 office monitor is the
kind of premium that Dell will have to work
hard to justify.Itstarts with the relatively
rare and very office-friendly quality of aUSB
Type-C connector.
This hugely simplifies adesk setup,as
you can power the monitor via the single
power cable (there’s no external power brick)
and then use USB Type-C both to transmit
data and charge laptops that need a
maximum of 65W of power.
Youcan even hook up asecond 1440p
monitor via the DisplayPort connector,which
is neat. Dell appears to have put the effort
intostreamlining the UltraSharp U2719DC’s
design, too. The first sign of this is the tiny
rectangular footprint, which is roughly the
size of an A5 sheet of paper.That means you
can squeeze it on to the narrowest of desks
and still have plenty of work space.
FLYING COLOURS
Note, too, the narrow bezels. These aren’t only
forcosmetic benefit: you could happily place
two of these monitors side by side,perhaps in
portrait mode,for an enlarged workspace.
Another advantage of this monitor over the
alternatives is its colour accuracy.Instandard
mode,our review unit achieved afantastically
low delta-E of 0.43 with amaximum of 1.36.
That makes it more accuratethan the HP
EliteDisplayE243d, the other Type-C-focused
monitor we’ve reviewed here.
These are figures we would expect from a
monitor designed forcreative professionals,
not astraightforward office monitor.
Every panel will be slightly different, but
Dell promises an average delta-E of
less than two in all cases, helpfully
printing off aColor Calibration Factory
Report so you can check your
particular panel’s performance.
Not all of this screen’s test results
were so excellent, however.Wemeasured
its contrast ratio at 961:1 –Dell claims
1,000:1 –which will mean lost detail in
dark movie scenes. Gamma tracking is
also loose at the extremes, which again is
bad news forextra-dark and extra-light
scenes. To simplify what this means,
colours will displaytoo dimly.Don’t
expect perfectly even brightness across the
screen, either,asour sample displayed an 18%
variation at the farleft and 13% at the right.
DELL UltraSharp
U2719DC
★★★★★
£390•From http://www.ebuyer.com
VERDICT
Sleekdesign,USBType-Cconnectivityand
superbcolouraccuracyhelpjustifythis
monitor’shighprice
There’s also no easy waytoflick between
colour profiles such as Adobe RGB and
DCI-P3. Your choices are the more basic
Movie,Game and ComfortView modes.
The latter promises reduced blue light
emissions, which some people find helpful
if using amonitor forlong periods. Dell’s
OSD,while basic, makes it easy to switch
between settings: simply press one of the
four physical buttons sitting at the bottom
right of the bezel and follow the context-
sensitive menu choices.
WINDOWCLEANING
Youcan also download the Dell Display
Manager.This offers anumber of custom
window layouts –for instance,you might
want abig window on the leftfor your main
work, with two small windows atop one
another on the right –intowhich you can
drag applications. It’s like asuperpowered
versionof WindowsSnap,andgenuinelysaves
time once you get used to the wayitworks.
There are other nice features, too, such as
applying different modes to specific programs;
if you want Windows Media Player to open in
Movie mode,itcan. In truth, the Movie mode
doesn’t make much difference other than
adding an orange tinge to the screen. We had
hoped that activating it might increase the
coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space,but in
fact it covered only 68.3% on testing.
We got better results when we tweaked
the colour balance ourselves –the OSD
again makes this simple –and hit 77.6%.
That’s still below the 85% that Dell claims,
although it does beat the 70% managed by
the EliteDisplayE243d.
This panel’s gaming performance is fine,
with no obvious tears or ghosting, but
naturally this is a60Hz screen, not 144Hz
or higher.Ifgaming is your priority,the
affordability of gaming-tuned screens
with higher refresh rates makes them a
much better bet.
The Dell UltraSharp U2719DC also doesn’t
include speakers; there is a3.5mm jack, but
this is foroutputting audio,not inputting.
There are also two easy-to-access USB3 ports
on the left-hand side of the monitor,which
will come in handy if your USB Type-C-toting
laptop doesn’t have any of its own.
WORK ETHIC
Ultimately this is amonitor with alot of
individual qualities: guaranteed colour
accuracy,compact design and USB
Type-C connectivity among them.
While the first two elements on that
list are welcome,however,they’re not
enough to make the UltraSharp U2719DC
worth its price by themselves: the
panel’s limited contrast ratio and other
weaknesses ensure that. The real killer
feature is USB Type-C support, which
effectively means this screen can turn
intoadocking station at your desk:
connect one cable and you’re done.
The EliteDisplayE243d can also
connect via Type-C, and it costs less, too.
Not by much, however,and Dell’s monitor has
slightly superior colour performance,soboth
are good options fordifferent budgets.
