Dell S2722DGM
An affordable 1440p gaming monitor
IN THEORY, the new Dell S2722DGM is pretty much the perfect affordable gaming monitor. It’s fast, cheap, has plenty of pixels, decent panel spec, and doesn’t bother with frills and features that add little to the gaming experience.
It’s built around a 1440p 27-inch VA panel with decent specifications. VA tech tends to be cheaper than IPS and with that come pros and cons. The most obvious advantage is static contrast. Dell rates this monitor at 3,000:1, which is almost three times better than any IPS monitor. However, despite the strong contrast, this is a straight-up SDR display with no HDR support. We’re fine with that, given most so-called HDR PC monitors are nothing of the sort. Brightness is pegged at 350nits, which is fine for an SDR display.
The other major differentiator between VA and IPS is speed, as VA tends to be slower. The S2722DGM’s pixel response is rated at 2ms GtG and 1ms MPRT, just behind the 1ms and 0.5ms ratings of the best IPS panels. Dell provides figures for how response performance relates to the user-configurable overdrive settings in the OSD menu. The other metric for speed is refresh. The S2722DGM is good for 165Hz, which is plenty. Chasing even higher rates would bring the extra costs of securing a GPU capable of keeping up.
The S2722DGM’s 1440p native resolution equates to 2,560x1,440 pixels. On a 27-inch screen, that’s a reasonable pixel density without generating the debilitating GPU load that comes with 4K. As for the Dell S2722DGM’s broader feature set, don’t expect too many extras. USB-C connectivity doesn’t feature, but the dual HDMI and single DisplayPort connections are fine, even if the HDMI ports top out at 144Hz rather than 165Hz.
The chassis and stand are plastic but robust, with tilt and height adjustment included. Arguably the only irrelevance is the panel’s 1500R curvature. It doesn’t detract from the gaming experience, but on a 27-inch screen, doesn’t add much either. If that doesn’t qualify as a caveat, there’s little else that does when it comes to image quality. The Dell S2722DGM is a punchy and vibrant monitor considering it’s a pure SDR panel. The strong inherent contrast helps, ensuring you aren’t shortchanged when running games that support HDR, such as Cyberpunk2077, in SDR mode.
So, the Dell S2722DGM does eye candy just fine. It’s also quick enough to deliver where speed matters most. But we’d steer clear of MPRT overdrive mode, which hammers the panel’s brightness and vibrancy. ‘Extreme’ mode, rated at 2ms, suffers from a whiff of overshoot, but it’s only just visible in-game, while ‘Super fast’ resolves the overshoot but allows a little smearing of darker tones.
Meanwhile, the 165Hz refresh ensures lag is a non-issue and adaptive sync is catered for via AMD FreeSync Premium certification. Owners of Nvidia GPUs will need to run in basic G-Sync compatibility mode, which in practice is just fine.
All told, the Dell S2722DGM isn’t as quick as the best IPS monitors, but nor is it a slouch. For similar money, you could go with a fast 1080p IPS panel, but we’d lean towards giving up a bit of speed for the added pixels and visual detail of this Dell. That’s especially true if you factor general computing into the equation. 1440p on a 27-inch panel makes for adequate pixel density for mundane tasks like font rendering and desktop space. 1080p is pretty low rent. –JEREMY LAIRD
VERDICT 8 Dell S2722DGM
SIGHT TO BEHOLD Decent overall image quality; strong contrast; reasonably quick.
SEEN IT ALL BEFORE Few features and frills; no HDR support.
$ 329, www.dell.com