Dell S2718D
On tilt
DPRICE $ 1,099 www.dell.com.au ell is renowned for its amazing monitors, so we expected some seriously good results for this new beast. To our disappointment it churned out some rather strange results in our benchmarks given the specs, showing that it really requires a professional to get the most out it.
This display’s key feature is that it’s ultra-thin and HDR-ready. Apparently it’s the thinnest 27-inch monitor on the market, and the inclusion of Dell’s ‘InfinityEdge’ ultra-thin, edgeless bezel design makes it look even slicker. If only the sexy stand was more adjustable – the only motion possible is screen tilt. This is rather odd for Dell, who usually excel when it comes to stand design; it seems they’ve gone the Apple route this time around, favouring form over functionality.
One thing we do love about the base is that it’s where all the cables plug in, as well as where the OSD controls are, making it super easy to plug in laptops and make adjustments.
Where things went pear-shaped where our colour-test results. Dell is known for incredibly accurate colour reproduction, and they claim that this display covers 99% of the sRGB spectrum with HDR10 support. Yet in our colour tests, it came out in the middle of the pack, and the contrast performance was incredibly disappointing. With HDR10 support, it should have some of the best contrast performance numbers in the test, so we’re guessing there’s a setting somewhere that caused our results to be so different to what we expected.
It’s not designed for gamers though, with a maximum refresh rate of just 60Hz, and a normal pixel response rate of 8ms. This led to noticeable motion blur during our UFO refresh. There’s also no such thing as G- Sync or FreeSync included, and with a resolution of 1440p it’s rather pricey.
What is included is Dell’s incredibly deep set of options for tweaking the image quality. We’re thinking this is where our testing may have gone pear shaped, as we let the i1 software automatically adjust contrast/brightness and R/ G/B colour levels, and it may have done so incorrectly. We’re sure with some more tinkering we’d be able to hit the specs mentioned by Dell, as they also tend to be one of the few companies who are very honest when it comes to their specs.
However, even if it had hit the right numbers, we’re not sure this is a good option for gamers. It’s got a very high
if only the sexy stand was more adjustable - the only motion possible is screen tilt
pixel response time, low refresh rate and a high price tag, so we’d leave this one to the image professionals.