One of Dell's new Thunderbolt monitors is aimed right at Apple's Studio Display
Just before the CES festivities kick off, Dell has rolled out a pair of large-format curved displays, with one running at 5K and 120Hz off a single Thunderbolt cable.
Dell Ultrasharp U42025QW (left) and U3425WE (right)
Dell's first monitor, released Thursday, was the 40-inch 5K U4025QW display. It has a 120Hz refresh rate, with a 5120x2160 resolution on a curved screen, and a built-in ambient light sensor adjusts screen brightness. Dell also says it reduces blue light exposure with a more advanced LED backlight than the previous 5K display discontinued long ago.
While similar to the Studio Display, it has a lower pixel density versus the 27-inch 5K panel in Apple's offering.
Dell says the monitor has a 2000:1 contrast and a 178-degree viewing angle. It has DisplayHDR 600, which covers 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 100% of the sRGB gamut.
Thunderbolt connectivity gives the monitor a few extra features. The monitor is also effectively a Thunderbolt 4 hub, with multiple ports.
- 2.5 Gigabit ethernet jack on the back
- Four 5 gigabit USB-A ports on the back
- Two USB-C ports on the back
- One USB-C port and one USB-A port on a pop-out port extender facing the user
- 140W power delivery to a connected computer
There is also a DisplayPort 1.4 port and a HDMI 2.1 port. Dell isn't clear if these are on the Thunderbolt hub aspect of the port, but given that the technical specs mention picture-in-picture, these are likely alternative inputs.
The U3225WE is smaller at 34 inches. It also has a much lower pixel density than Apple's Studio Display, running at 3440x1440 resolution. It, too, connects with Thunderbolt but lacks front-facing ports.
DisplayHDR is missing on the U3225WE but has 100% sRGB and 98% of DCI-P3 gamuts. It also has a 2000:1 contrast ratio with a 178-degree viewing angle.
Port connectivity is similar to its larger cousin, but power delivery is limited somewhat to 90 watts to a host device. This is still enough to power a 16-inch MacBook Pro under heavy load, but the battery won't charge very quickly.
The larger U4025QW retails for $2399. The smaller U3425WE sells for $1019. For comparison, the Apple Studio Display retails for $1599 with standard glass and $1899 with textured glass.
Both models will be available on February 27.
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Comments
Good to see movement, finally, in the desktop display space. Started last year with the Dell 6K competitor and the Samsung 5K copycat. After years of 4K being mostly good enough.
Your tease about "8K monitors" expected at CES has me interested...
Contrary to the article title, these Dell monitors are not aimed at the Studio Display. Time and again, Mac users want 220 to 250 PPI external displays to match their laptop displays, or the native pixel density that macOS is designed for. Since they are 136 PPI, it's the same story since Thunderbolt 3 came out, almost 8 years.
The 40" 5K2K isn't even that original. The LG 5K2K 34" has been around for what, 6 years?
I will buy a single-cable Thunderbolt 4 8K display pretty much on the first day it becomes a reality. I won't wait for Apple, hoping for something like that or a mind-blowing, budget-busting Apple 10K (2x 5K, exactly)...
For fun, I'm going to cut-and-paste my old list of the progression of 16:9 resolutions:
For true-blue single cable 8K 60 Hz monitors with data, have to wait for computers with Thunderbolt 5, or you use a multi-cable solution like HDMI2.1 for video+audio and separate TB cable for TB/USB dock, camera, microphone, etc. Might have to live with the multi-cable solution for a while as Thunderbolt 5 adoption is sure to take a long while.
Thunderbolt 5 required for bandwidth? Apple has already done that two cable display connection back in the day with the Cinema display worked but wasn't ideal.