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  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Knowing Dell and their QA dep. with UP3214Q, we'll probably be better staying away from this monitor for good.
  • ddriver - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    You might have been unlucky but I've had a number of high end Dell monitors and never had an issue with them. Or maybe you are psychic? Advising us all to stay away from a product not even tested yet?
  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I don't talk about "high end Dell monitors", but "4K Dell monitors", as in UP3214Q which proved to be junk. That device went trough no QA department and Dell's handling of that problem was a disaster:
    check out this epic thread: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/periph...
    And check Amazon.com reviews.
  • hughlle - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    What has that got to do with an unreleased untested product? You're simply speculating, it means absolutely nothing.
  • imaheadcase - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Exactly, Dell makes many great monitors. Just because one monitor might have had issues with some people does not mean to dismiss it. I'm using two dell monitors now that are perfect for me.
  • kgelner - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Except that the one bad Dell monitor so far was a 4K display, not the lower resolution monitors where the reputation for quality was earned. Until there are a lot of good reviews from a very high PPI monitor from Dell it would make sense to be wary.
  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    The problem is that not only their monitor in question is a $3500 premium model, but also that Dell refused to acknowledge problems with it for months. Even after admitting that there are problems, Dell refused to give out fixed firmware. Also, Dell did absolutely nothing to ensure people replacing A00 devices got A01 or newer, but kept it all a mess and didn't care no matter how many people complained.
    That is what makes me cautious. I'd rather wait for Asus.
  • JDG1980 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Dell's standard monitors (2560x1600 and below) are fine. The problem is that their Ultra HD products require DisplayPort MST, which is a very finicky technology, and the firmware clearly wasn't adequately tested before release. As a result, the monitors had tons of bugs and glitches (only showing half the screen, failing to work properly after system wake-up, and so on). The problem was compounded by Dell's inexplicable refusal to let users update the firmware of monitors on their own - instead the monitor had to be sent back and a *refurbished* one with the new firmware would be provided in its place. For products costing $1000-$3500, this is completely unacceptable.

    The 5120x2880 panel is definitely a nice advance, but of course Dell doesn't manufacture panels. We'll probably see similar models from other monitor makers before long. Dell's version might be worth considering if they've learned from their mistakes, but I wouldn't buy it until it's been out for at least a couple months and all the bug reports have come in. I'm not going to pay $2000+ for the privilege of being an alpha tester.
  • ddriver - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Nice, hopefully it will perform well in reviews. Good color accuracy and uniformity will make me buy this absent hesitation.
  • Samus - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    15 million pixels. Wow. I wonder if you'd even be able to tell one was bad at that density.
  • willis936 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    With that many pixels I'm sure it would be an anomaly to get a new display without at least one dead pixel.
  • meacupla - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    and here I thought 2560x1440 27" was already very crisp.

    I guess they are sticking to 27" to keep costs down?
  • ddriver - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Actually that resolution at that size makes up for quite big pixels, at least compared to what we got used to seeing on mobile devices. I've been furious for years that lousy phones got high density display while professional grade monitors were still jagged by huge pixels, but I guess the yields were still not quite there yet to produce big displays with high density. Or maybe they figured they will make more money out of booming mobile devices, now that the frenzy has settled and production has ramped up, they started devoting to big monitors as well.
  • Aguirre - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    you're furious? lol
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E
  • CaedenV - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    but we don't need the same insane cellphone densities for a desktop monitor to get the same clarity. We typically hold our phones 1-2' away from our eyes, while desktop monitors tend to sit 2.5-5' away. This basically means that we can get the same sharpness with 1/2 of the dpi of a phone. Anything in the 100-150dpi range is already a 'retina display' for most desktop use.

    I would personally like to see some larger 36-42" desktop monitor displays in the 4-5K resolution range. I am sure we will eventually see some smaller 4K TVs that would fit this bill... but they would likely be horrible quality compared to something labeled as a 'monitor'
  • seapeople - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    You sit 5 feet away from your desktop monitor?
  • boozed - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    The 2560x1440 of Dell's standard 27" Ultrasharp is already fairly close to the limits of human visual acuity at normal viewing distances for a monitor of that size, but if they could bump it up to perhaps 3200x1800 in a future generation, it would be just about perfect.

    I can probably think of a few interesting use cases for a "5K" monitor, on the other hand.
  • hrrmph - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link

    Uh no. I have one and it is very visibly "sandy."

    I was expecting 4K to hold us over until 8K, but this 5K thing is looking more like where things are heading for the pro-sumer.

    It would be nice to see what NEC could build with one of these panels.
  • tyger11 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    They probably didn't have much choice as to what size display, since they're gluing two panels together. They don't make their own panels, so they have to use what's available, like almost all monitor makers.
  • erikloman - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Come on! I'm not gonna watch movies on this thing. Please make a 16:10 screen!
  • Nihility - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Seriously, give us 16:10!
  • iceman-sven - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Thumbs up!!!!!!

    5120x3200 or better 7680x4800 and Adaptive-Sync/G-Sync support.
  • platinumjsi - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    My head hurts, so if I take 2x 1440p screens which both have 3.7 mill pixels and place them next to each other then I have 7.4 mill pixels, but if I take 2560 x 1440 double that to get 5120 x 2880 and do that sum I get 14.7 mill pixels?
  • Essence_of_War - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Num_pixels = width*height.

    One display:
    2560x1440 = 3.7 million pixels

    Two displays next to each other:
    2*(2560x1440) = 5120x1440 = 7.4 million pixels

    One 5k display:
    (2x2560)x(2x1440) = 5120x2880 = 14.7 million pixels

    The key is that doubling both dimension, is quadrupling the pixel count :)
  • nevertell - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    If you take two squares and place them next to each other, you will get something with twice the space, right ? But only one of the axis will have double the length of one square. To get double the resolution, you have to double each axis, so you would actually need 4 1440p panels stitched together to get a 2880p panel.
  • nathanddrews - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    2560x1440 = 3.7 million pixels.

    Two 1440p screens = 7.4 million pixels.

    5120x2880 is double in both directions. FOUR (two horizontal x two vertical) 1440p screens = 14.7 million pixels.
  • TrevorH - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Surely 5120x2880 would be 4 x 2560x1440 displays stitched together not two?
  • Ian Cutress - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Derp, it's most likely two 2560x2880 lots through MST.
  • jamescox - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I have a U3011 (last 16x10 display at 2560x1600) and it looks spectacular for images, but sitting close, small text is not that readable. This may have been from improper font smoothing though since I was mostly working via vnc connection. I don't think you need anywhere near this resolution for gaming, but it certainly helps with text readability. If you wanted to use it for gaming, you may be able to just run it at 2560x1440, although I don't know how well that works via MST or whatever you are using to drive this high resolution.
  • nathanddrews - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!
  • nathanddrews - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Totally misread it. I thought this was a "5K" 21:9 monitor. :(

    Oh well, it's a step in the right direction. Keep pushing the resolution war, force GPU makers to up their game!
  • bnjohanson - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I'd feel far more confident buying a Ferrari F1 off of ebay from a Seller named, "Nigerian Nemesis"...
  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Exactly.
  • CSMR - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Stupid choices of resolution are really hurting the PC market these days. Almost no monitors come out with sensible high resolutions. It is either average or insane (with 4 times the pixel count) with nothing in between.

    27" at 1440p: good sharpness, good value, can be used with any modern system.
    27" at 1600p: great sharpness, good value, can be used with any modern system.
    27" at 2880p: great sharpness, poor value, requires a modern discrete graphics card even for normal non-gaming desktop use so incompatible with 95% of PCs.
  • weiran - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    At 27", in-between resolution don't really make much sense.

    You'd either have to do imperfect scaling which at this pixel size wouldn't look good, or you'd have to live with a less usable working area than your old 1440p 27" display.

    This is why that 28" Samsung 4K display is of no interest to me, either I have to run it at 4K and squint, run it at 2K which is basically 1080p, or run it in between with fuzzy text.
  • jeffkibuule - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I think you are missing the point of these monitors, which is showing more *detailed* content, not showing more content. Better for photo and video editing while still having some UI.

    If you don't want to squint at text, just get a 39" 4K display, which will have a similar DPI as a 27" 1440p monitor
  • CSMR - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Unless something is going wrong with your software, text should be rendering at the native resolution (actually effectively at more than the native resolution with subpixel rendering). A higher dpi increases readability, provided that you set the dpi appropriately in the OS (which may be done automatically).

    So at 27", 1440p should give sharp text, 1600p very sharp text, and 2880p extremely sharp text, but my point is there are rapidly diminishing returns, while there are large costs and inconveniences to extremely high resolution in the processing power needed.
  • SirPerro - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    This pixel count and size is PERFECT.

    HDPI perfect 2x2 scaling with perfect size of the UI elements. Not too small, not too big.

    Perfect 1440p gaming with no scaling at all (2x2 pixels per pixel)

    Perfect size for home and office.

    Windowed editing of 4K content pixel perfect!

    This size and density is a real winner, and we will see MANY monitors follow this path.
  • Friendly0Fire - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Yeah, that's one thing people often ignore or strike up as crazy, but frankly downscaling without any form of interpolation is a big one. You get sharp features for things that benefit most (text, image editing, video editing, browsers, etc.) while still being able to game on the screen by just downscaling to quarter-resolution. Heck, I'm expecting game developers might soon throw in an automatic option for just this which renders the UI at full resolution and the game at quarter-resolution (which would be ideal).

    I'm just waiting for Windows to support high-dpi better, really.
  • CSMR - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    Almost all linear resolutions are even numbers and so can mimic 1/2 the linear resolution without loss if needed. (For images; text is a very different matter because of subpixels.) So there is nothing special here.
  • meacupla - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    Assuming the software/hardware in the monitor can downscale properly.
    Because I have yet to see a 1440p 27" monitor properly downscale to 720p without being super fuzy, beyond what a 720p should look like at 27"
  • evilspoons - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Finally, an era where you can buy a computer monitor with a higher resolution than a cell phone screen.

    Keep 'em coming. I'll be reading the reviews on this guy for sure!
  • Tewt - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Refresh rate? 60Hz, 120Hz, etc?
  • Guspaz - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    "If the display is using MST to combine two outputs, that puts the emphasis squarely on two DP 1.2 connections."

    Errm, no, the whole point of MST on DP 1.2 is that you can do it over a single connection/cable, because DP 1.2 can normally do two displays per cable, and MST consumes both of them on a single monitor.
  • jeffkibuule - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    While you are correct about the purpose of MST, that only works for monitors around 1080p. At a resolution of 5120x2880, you need two physically separate DP 1.2 connections to make that possible.

    Keep in mind that regardless of the number of monitors connected to a single cable, the bandwidth limit is always fixed.
  • Guspaz - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    MST is used for 4K@60Hz monitors on DP 1.2, so I'm not sure where you're getting the 1080p from. Dell's 5K monitor is less than double the total number of pixels of a 4K display, so 5K@30Hz is therefore well below the bandwidth limitations of DP 1.2.
  • naxeem - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    Aside from the fact that no sane person would use anything @30Hz.
  • DanNeely - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    For some uses, eg medical imaging where you're looking at highly detailed static images 30hz is fine.
  • iceman-sven - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Finally progress!

    And now in 30" 16:10 please. 5120x3200 or jump straight to 8k 7680x4800. And add Adaptive-Sync/G-Sync support. Please bring a proper HiDPI display. I do not want a 28/32" 16:9 3840x2160 display.
  • piroroadkill - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    30" 5120×3200 would be absolutely perfect. I'd be down for that.
  • efficacyman - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Finally some innovation in desktop displays. I would also like to see a 21:9 1600p monitor come out now that we are finally doing high dpi monitors. Preferrably a lightboost 144hz 21:9 for optimum gaming with only one display.
  • meacupla - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    to nit pick, those aren't 'innovations', but rather 'evolution'
  • ABR - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    So in the early 1990's the NeXTStation Color came out with a "Megapixel Display". A typical configuration ran at 25 MHz, had 16 MB memory, and maybe 500 MB disk. Nowadays a PC "workstation" will run 3-4 GHz with more IPC and multicore, call that a 1000x improvement, with a TB or two of disk (2000x), and anywhere from 16 gig on up of main memory -- another 1000x. But this monitor has what, _fifteen_ times the pixels of that NeXTStation, and we're nominating it for extreme sports categories! Interesting times indeed... (And BTW you could play Doom on that NeXT, so don't say its video card had to do anything less.)
  • MikeMurphy - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    Ironically you can thank the same person running NeXT at the time for the recent spike in resolutions - Steve Jobs via Apple.
  • frostyfiredude - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    Maybe for marketing by raising awareness, but not from a technical standpoint. Both Android and Windows devices had HiDPI options prior to iOS and OSX respectively.
  • BGQ-qbf-tqf-n6n - Monday, September 8, 2014 - link

    That's a negative on the Windows. Mac OS X frameworks were far more high-DPI aware 2003-2008 while Windows XP was still struggling to display non-96 PPI. Apple's vector-based UI model was incredibly forward-looking for the time, although the Retina/2X model came later.

    Only with Vista/DWM/WPF did Microsoft finally start to catch up (still didn't close the gap until 2012/Windows 8 new-HiDPI support, really).
  • rajeshk4u - Sunday, April 26, 2015 - link

    I am running my 4K on Windows XP. I have no idea what you people have said....
  • coolhardware - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    Here is the NeXTStation Megapixel Display vs the Dell 5K: http://pixensity.com/list/desktop/

    But does anybody know the actual diagonal screen size of the NeXT? (was it really 17 inchces?)
  • pixelstuff - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    For monitors like this the OS needs to become aware of the screen size and then apps need to be developed in inches or centimeters so if a button should be 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch the OS can automatically draw it the same size regardless of the PPI in various screens.

    The OS would probably need some kind of average viewing distance knowledge as well so it can cope with TVs, desktop monitors, and tablets. As well as a way to automatically or quickly switch between those distances once phones and tablets become the universal computing device that you plug into any screen.

    When is this going to happen?
  • DanNeely - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    when enough of them are sold to convince developers to start updating them. win32 is too old and doing DPI aware software in it's a pain; but WPF (the new UI framework launched with .net 3.5 in 2008) and it's decendent in win8 both are designed to play nicely with varying DPI levels. It just requires convincing the PHBs and bean counters to spend the time and money needed to rewrite the UI from scratch.
  • jmunjr - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link

    Once again another LCD churned out that is a less productive design than it could have been. 16:9 is generally best for movie watchers.
  • Johnmcl7 - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    I find 16:9 better for a lot of uses, I rarely use it for video - when processing video it means I can have more of my timeline on the screen at once and when developing 3:2 photos it means I can have them full size in the middle with room for toolboxes down the side. I'd love the 34in 21:9 display from LG to give more room at the sides although after 4K issues with my graphics card, it's too much money and hassle to find it won't work properly.
  • rajeshk4u - Sunday, April 26, 2015 - link

    I have three PC hooked up to my 4k monitor. One is a Win XP, VISTA and Windows 7. For two computers I use a Radeon R7 240. One the graphics card is fan-less....
  • Roland00Address - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    Give me a windows is that will allow me to usuch a monitor by changing the default DPI the OS uses and software see so I get a sharper text at normal size and software that looks correctly and with the correct scaling
  • Rdmkr - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    I saw the total pixel number for ipad retina and realized it can't be correct since 2000x1500 is already 3 million pixels. Correct number for 2048x1536 is 3,145,728.
  • cmdrdredd - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link

    Might be me but I feel this resolution is wasted in a 27" panel. Needs to be larger.
  • AnnonymousCoward - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link

    A 4K 40" would be much better.
  • rajeshk4u - Sunday, April 26, 2015 - link

    I have a SEIKI 4K 39" monitor. It is too big for PC work. As you have to move your head left to right. A bit like a game of tennis.... 32" or 28" make more sense.... But hte SEIKI at 39" was cheaper then the 28" / 32" from others...
  • pen-helm - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link

    Can it be made to work with a Mac?
  • cyburzaki - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link

    Who would buy this for $2500, when they can apparently get the same display in an entire iMac 5k for the same price? There's no way Dell is going to be able to sell this for $2500.
  • locutus self - Saturday, October 18, 2014 - link

    At $2500, I think this monitor says the iMac 27 Retina is a bargain.
  • cohenfive - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link

    One thing I don't understand is pricing...if Apple just announced its imac with 27 inch 5k screen for $2500, how can dell come anywhere close to selling just the screen for the same price? I think this screen has to be below $2k to have any chance, regardless of how good it is. The apple screen that comes with the new imac sounds amazing.
  • rajeshk4u - Sunday, April 26, 2015 - link

    I am using a SEIKI 39" 4k monitor. I am pleased with it. Although I would say a 39" monitor is 'too big'. But I can get 4k 3840 x 2160 on Windows XP, Windows VISTA and Windows 7. I can use a medium graphics card such as the Radeon R7. On XP, I got lucky and it worked a on MSI Radeon 5000 series Graphics (even though the spec says it would not). (The same card will not support 4k on VISTA or Win7)

    On Windows, there are still some annoyances in terms of supporting large monitor. When you open a File Open dialog may be in the wrong place. So you have many more mouse movement.

    However, the fantastic thing, is that I can have lots of windows or browsers open at the same. Great when you when you want to compare web site or copy information from one window and paste onto another.

    However, I can't see myself moving to 5K, there is little benefit from moving over from 4K. You need a Graphics card with two display port, so it means specialist graphics card, which pushes up the price.

    My 4K (TV Monitor) is good enough. It uses HDMI and limited to 30Hz. So they need to resolve industry standards on HDMI.

    The Dell have made a huge mistake, by not adding several HDMI port, so people like me who already have 4k enabled graphics card, can use them at 4k standard (even if limited 30Hz). At the moment with my SEIKI, I have hooked up 3 PC on HDMI and a fourth via VGA. It saves on having a KVM box. I just use the TV remote to switch from one PC to another. A bit like chaging a channel on a TV.

    PLus with HDMI it carries the audio. So II can get sound on my SEIKI via HDMI. Only my main PC is hooked up the real audio speakers 7.1 speakers.

    I have used the SEIKI for almost a years. I have not had any complaints regarding the 30Hz issue (which for some reason a lot of first complain. I don't see the fuss. I watch TV and watch YouTube. So no issues on it. Some gamers may have issues...)

    Most laptops and tablet do not support 4k output to a monitor. They are lagging behind.

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