Dell S2722QC Monitor: Specs, Pros / Cons, and How We Tailored it for Professionals

For those of you multitasking aficionados who need plenty of pixels to spread your work, or entertainment nerds who prefer watching movies and shows on the highest resolution possible, today we have the Dell S2722QC. It has a whopping 4K UHD resolution, all on a 27-inch IPS panel. With this screen size, you get a very detailed picture, now you just need some 4K movies or a streaming service that supports it, and you can enjoy plenty of beautiful entertainment.

What we find strange but cool at the same time, is that the monitor brings AMD FreeSync support, so Dell certainly wants you to play some games on it, even though they didn’t bother increasing the refresh rate to anything higher than the 60Hz that we find here. Still, we all remember starting our gaming journey on a simple monitor with no fancy fast refresh rates or low response times, so who’s to say you can’t game on the Dell S2722QC?

Today we won’t be gaming on the monitor, but rather test it for its color coverage and accuracy. Of course, you’ll be able to get our display profiles which make the S2722QC go into the professional-grade area in terms of color accuracy!

You can check the current price of the Dell S2722QC here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Contents


Specs sheet, Assembly, Drivers, Design, Connectivity

Screen size27 inch (68.58 cm)
Refresh rate60Hz
Response time4ms
Panel typeIPS
Backlight typeLED
Screen finishMatte
Resolution3840 x 2160 (4K Ultra HD)
Technologies
  • Contrast ratio: 1000:1 (Static)
  • Brightness: 350cd/m²
  • Viewing angles: H/V° 178/178
  • Tilt: -5 to 21°
  • Pivot: -90 to 90°
  • Swivel: -30 to 30°
  • Height adjustment: 0 – 110mm
  • VESA mount: 100×100
  • Measurements (with stand): 714 x 246 x 556 mm
  • Speakers: 2x 3W
  • Power Consumption (Idle): 24.8W
  • Power Consumption (Standby mode): <0.3W
I/O
  • 2x HDMI 2.0
  • 2x USB 3.0
  • 1x USB Type-C (up to 65W charging)
  • 1x audio jack

What’s in the box? Assembly

Inside the box of the Dell S2722QC, you can expect the components for the stand, the panel itself, as well as a power cable and a Type-C to Type-C cable, which does support DisplayPort 1.4 video for hooking up both laptops and desktops to it. As for the assembly, you don’t need anything but your hands, as everything can be done without a screwdriver, with hand-tighting screws and parts just snapping into place.

Drivers and Software

You can find all the drivers and software packages on Dell S2722QC’s Product Support page. Next to the drivers, you can also download the Dell Display Manager, which has all the controls that you’d need, including the brightness and contrast, as well as which color gamut to use. In case you have multiple monitors, you can control all of them through the app, as well as create layout presets for better multitasking. You can find out more about the Display Manager on the Official Page.

OSD Menu

Design

Design-wise, the Dell S2722QC looks like a classic office monitor, with a bright white finish on the stand, the base, and the whole backside. The finish resembles the carbon fiber pattern that Dell usually uses on their XPS and Precision laptops, however, here it is all made of plastic. Still, it’s a cool texture. On the front, the bezels and the chin are in black, with a small Dell logo on the bottom.

We have to shout out the stand that Dell provides here, as it brings tons of movement. You can adjust the height up to 110mm, as well as Pivot the monitor in portrait mode, which is helpful for programmers who want to see as many lines of code as possible. Lastly, we’ve got Tilt and Swivel, which provide further ergonomic support. With the swivel, the monitor is also better for sharing your work with others.

Connectivity

As for the available ports, the Dell S2722QC has two HDMI ports, two USB Type-A 3.0 ports, a single USB Type-C port, and an audio jack. While not exactly in the ports section we’d also want to shout out the in-built speaker setup, with two 3W units that are firing towards the bottom.


Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

The Dell S2722QC monitor offers a very high 4K Ultra HD resolution, which makes it an entertainment beast. Movies and shows, provided you have access to 4K editions, look spectacular on this IPS panel. The device is left with a 60Hz refresh rate but still brings FreeSync support. If you’re a 4K Gaming enthusiast, where framerates generally hover around the 60 FPS mark, you can do plenty of tear-free gaming on this Dell monitor.

Color coverage

Here’s an illustration (Fig. 1). The whole “sail-shaped” map below consists of all the colors we can see, while the black crooked line shows all the colors from real-world scenes and nature around us.

Then, we’ve drawn some of the most important and interesting color spaces, compared to the colors the panel of Dell S2722QC can show:

Standard/For Web: sRGB – widely used color space for most consumer devices, ideal for Web design and development
For Print: AdobeRGB – used in professional photo editing, graphic design, and print
For Photographers/Video Editors: DCI-P3 – used in high-end film production, post-production, and digital cinema
Premium HDR: Rec.2020 – the widest consumer ITU color standard, covering a massive 75.8% of the visible spectrum, a benchmark for premium HDR content

Dell S2722QC: the yellow dashed triangle (– – – – – –) represents the range of colors this monitor can display. In our tests, we calculated the total color coverage of the monitor at 97% of the sRGB color gamut and 88% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

(Fig.1) Dell S2722QC covers 97% of the Web colors (sRGB)

This means that if the Dell S2722QC tries to show any color outside of its triangle, it will show the closest color to it that’s inside the triangle.

Color accuracy

Now let’s see how big is the difference between the real colors and the one you’ll see on the Dell S2722QC. We measure that distance in DeltaE – the bigger the number, the more different they look.

For the next illustration, we’ve chosen 24 common colors like dark and light skin, blue sky, green grass, etc.

Values below 2.0 are considered suitable for color-sensitive work. Before our calibration of the Dell S2722QC, the Average color accuracy was 3.1 dE (Fig. 2), and with our Web Design and Office Work profile, it lowered to 1.9 dE (Fig. 3). This is just entering the realm of professional-level color accuracy, so we would absolutely deem the monitor ready for creator work.

(Fig. 2) Dell S2722QC in its factory condition
(Fig. 3) Dell S2722QC with our display profiles

Comparison in the sRGB color space (primaries and D65 white point specified in ITU-R BT.709, sRGB encoding curve).

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Web Design and Office Work Profile

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom-tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate (they may seem strange at first but after a few minutes our brain will start recognizing them as accurate ones – that’s how Health-Guard differs from alternatives like f.lux).

Pro Tip: As the Health-Guard profile simulates paper and has as accurate as possible colors, it could be a great tool for prepress designers!

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Health-Guard Profile

Gaming and Movies

We also have a third Gaming and Movies profile, which regulates the black colors, making dark areas in games and movies appear more visible, thus giving you a better viewing experience. Shooting at your opponent first can be a make-or-break moment, so make sure you’re best prepared with our profile.

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Gaming and Movies Profile

BUY OUR DISPLAY PROFILES

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for the Dell S2722QC.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Verdict

The Dell S2722QC offers characteristics that many creators and video editors will appreciate. The robust design and mobile stand allow for a lot of ergonomic adjustment, while the high 4K Ultra HD resolution, paired with the rich color gamut (97% sRGB) offers a very detailed image, so you can do detailed image editing on high-res images and really spot, edit, and refine visual elements.

Now moving into color accuracy, right from the factory, the monitor has a dE value of 3.1, which goes down to dE 1.9, when we apply our Web Design and Office Work. This puts it right into the range of being accurate enough to handle professional color-related work, so you can use the monitor for color grading, graphic design, and photo editing.

Lastly, with the FreeSync support, you can game on the monitor, with your games remaining tear-free, while not introducing any input lag. Overall, FreeSync is good to have on any monitor, regardless of the refresh rate. Oh, and we almost forgot about the rich port selection, including plenty of HDMI and USB ports.

You can check the current price of the Dell S2722QC: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Pros

  • Appealing design and great stand (Height adjustment, Pivot, Swivel, Tilt)
  • Wide port selection
  • Very high resolution at 27-inches
  • 97% sRGB coverage
  • Adequate color accuracy with our Web Design and Office Work profile (dE 1.9)


Cons

  • If it had a slightly higher refresh rate, the FreeSync would have been much more useful.

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