Dell P2815Q; Larger than life display on the cheap!

I did not post for the last few weeks. I was busy recovering from the chaos that was Black Friday and getting my holiday shopping done. Also, I had bought and started using a few items that I intend to review so I was deciding what to write about next. In the end, I decided to share my impression of the increasing availability of 4K screens in the PC market.

Before you ask, I did take the plunge and bought a 4K screen this Black Friday. I bought a Dell P2815Q. Why that specific one? Because of the price which was ridiculously low. At 300$ plus tax, it was by far the cheapest 4K display I have seen on the market. I initially had 3 27” Acer screens, so I decided to sell two of them to partially finance the new acquisition. Truth be told, scanning across 3 screens, which took up my entire 6 foot wide desk, was dreadful and I mostly used 2 of them.

When I was reading reviews I was weary of the fact that the new Dell P2815Q had a paltry 30 Hertz refresh rate. But due to my usage, I was not turned off by this. Since 95% of my use of the PC is work related rather than gaming heavier multimedia, I decided that picture quality and sheer pixel real estate would trump over refresh rates.

It took me a good 20 minutes to set up my new screen and un box it. Once I plugged it in, Windows 7 detected it instantaneously and set the resolution to the default 3840 by 2160 pixels. At first, my head started to hurt as I adjusted to the tiny text. Then I opened up a picture taken by a Canon t3i DSLR and I went WOW! I even went double WOW once I set the color template to Warm. The detail and quality of the image in front of me was worth the price of entry.

In the end, I still believe that 1080p screens are the norm and will remain so until their 4K counterparts become more affordable at an equal 60 Hz refresh rate. Most people don’t need to nor want to spend more than 600$ for a single 27” monitor, especially that not everyone will be able to live with the tiny text on a daily basis, if using such as screen in an office environment several hours a day. In the end, the Dell P2815Q was worth its price because it cost me 100$ to upgrade from 2 27” Acer 1080p LCD’s to a single Dell P2815Q which can host as much data as 4 1080p screens. And that’s what I call a bargain. I will post a commentary after a few months of usage that will detail more how to efficiently manage the sheer pixel real estate efficiently and without having to bleed your eyes out! More to come...