Dell UltraSharp U2724DE review: Brilliantly sensible

In this age of eye-meltingly bright HDR monitors and desk-dominating behemoths, the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE strikes an entirely more sensible balance. With a modestly proportioned 27in panel, a GPU-friendly 2,560 x 1,440 resolution and a smorgasbord of features, which aim to make port-starved laptops and multiple machines work in harmony, the £440 Dell U2724DE is far more practically-minded than most.

Practical doesn’t mean boring, however. Dell has again opted to employ an IPS Black panel on this monitor, radically improving overall contrast, and this goes hand in hand with factory calibrated sRGB, DCI-P3 and Display P3 modes. Casual gamers will appreciate the 120Hz refresh rate and basic VRR support, too. Only HDR falls by the wayside, but that’s forgivable – and it’s rarely worth having at this price, anyway.

Factor in all the connectivity you could ask for – Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, 90W of power delivery and full-speed USB 3.2 Gen 2 and 2.5Gbits/sec Ethernet connectivity – in addition to a gloriously svelte stand that has all the ergonomic adjustability anyone could want, and you’re onto a winner. Suffice to say, this is a monitor I wish I didn’t have to send back.

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Dell UltraSharp U2724DE review: What do you get for your money?

The UltraSharp U2724DE is, quite simply, a lovely-looking thing. I’ve reviewed lots of monitors in my time but few that have married looks and function so effectively. The dainty stand, smooth curves and tiny bezels go hand in hand with refreshingly subtle branding, and the overall package just looks gorgeous from any angle. At this price, that isn’t a given; the U2724DE is far better looking than most.

The reason I like it as much as I do, however, is because the design hasn’t trumped practicality. The stand provides 150mm of height adjustment and enough tilt and swivel to be useful. And it works well: you can get the monitor positioned just so with a single hand. If I were to pick nits, then I’d wish that the stand produced less of a rumble. It feels like the bearings are shot straight out of the box – but it’s not a big deal.

Cable management is basic yet elegant in its own way. The stand has a little oval slot near the base, and you can simply push the power, video and data cables through. Neatly, the slot is angled upwards towards the front, and this does a surprisingly good job of stopping the cables binding or catching as you adjust the monitor. It’s simple, but effective.

You can’t accuse Dell of skimping on connectivity. Unlike the U2724DE’s 4K cousin, the U2723QE, this model combines USB-C connectivity with Thunderbolt 4 support. And with that comes a handy Thunderbolt 4 output for daisy-chaining another monitor or Thunderbolt 4 device. Naturally, you also get some bog-standard video inputs – HDMI and DisplayPort – and a further DisplayPort output for daisy-chaining a second monitor.

There’s no need to budget for cables, thankfully. Dell supplies a 1.8m DisplayPort cable and 1.8m Thunderbolt 4 cable in the box, which are long enough for all but the most esoteric desk arrangements, but you may struggle with the 1m USB-A to USB-C cable, which is ridiculously short. If you’re hoping to use it to connect your desktop PC to the U2724DE, then you’ll probably need to buy a longer one.

Frugally appointed laptop owners will already be pleased by the presence of USB-C, but the USB 3.2 Gen 2 hub and KVM functions are the cherry on top. The primary USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 upstream port spiders out to a couple of downward-facing USB-A ports on the rear panel and, helpfully, there’s also a USB-A and USB-C port just under the monitor’s front edge for easier access. There’s also a 2.5Gbits/sec Ethernet port, which is handy.

The integrated KVM switch is a nice addition, too, allowing you to share connected USB devices between two computers, while PiP and PbP functions let you display output from both computers, or any of the various video inputs, simultaneously.

It all works fairly smoothly in practice. Connect a laptop to the primary upstream USB-C port, and you can connect your desktop PC to the second upstream USB-C connection and swap between the two, with all the connected devices following suit. I say “fairly smoothly” as while managing the KVM and PiP/PbP functions is possible in the Dell’s on screen display, it’s very fiddly. Anyone looking to use the features regularly should install the Dell Display Manager software, which is available for both Windows and Mac users.

The only issue here is a common one: the Ethernet port is only active for one machine at a time. If you need your other computer to download something in the background, you’ll need to make sure it has an active Wi-Fi connection.

One thing I’m glad the U2724DE doesn’t have is speakers. It’s rare I do anything other than moan about how bad integrated monitor speakers are, so hats off to Dell for spending the budget on something more useful. You can always hook up a pair of headphones or speakers using the 3.5mm audio output, or use your laptop speakers instead. They’re often no worse than those in a monitor and sometimes, frankly, they’re much, much better.

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Dell UltraSharp U2724DE review: How good is the image quality?

The specifications sheet for the UltraSharp U2724DE’s IPS Black panel touts some decent numbers. There’s a claimed 2,000:1 contrast ratio, a modest 350cd/m² peak brightness, 100% coverage of sRGB and Rec 709, plus 98% DCI-P3 and Display P3 coverage. Dell tops it all off with a factory calibration that delivers a claimed average Delta E of less than 2 in every colour space.

It’s always heartening to find that a monitor lives up to its quoted specifications – or in some cases, exceeds them. The U2724DE achieved that in some areas, with its contrast ratio hitting 2,196:1 and the peak luminance topping out at 360cd/m². The sRGB coverage did indeed span a full 100% of the gamut, and only DCI-P3 coverage stopped a little short, with our tests putting it at just over 95%.

We’ve no qualms with colour accuracy. Straight out of the box, the U2724DE met Dell’s claims, with both average Delta E figures remaining well under 2. I recorded an average Delta E of 1.28 and a maximum of 2.6 in our sRGB tests, while activating the panel’s Display P3 mode saw those figures rise just slightly to an average Delta E of 1.49 and a maximum of 2.64.

Turn your attention to response time and motion handling, and while the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE can’t hold a candle to proper gaming displays, it’s good enough for casual gaming. It’s the 120Hz refresh rate that has the biggest impact here, providing silky smooth onscreen movement. And despite the panel’s modest 8ms response time, it retains a reasonable amount of detail and clarity on moving objects.

Another benefit is that – just as with high refresh rates on smartphones – animations and scrolling in the operating system and everyday apps feels substantially smoother than standard 60Hz displays.

For gaming, you can set the monitor’s overdrive setting to its Fast mode, which drops the response time to a claimed 5ms, and the subtle improvement in all round clarity is worth having – the overdrive artifacts aren’t too intrusive. As long, that is, as you aren’t using VRR – which we’ll discuss shortly.

If you’re left wishing for HDR and VRR support, then Dell has at least granted you one of your two wishes – there’s basic adaptive sync supported as standard. There’s no mention of what flavour of VRR is officially supported, but adaptive sync worked fine in its reported range from 48Hz to 120Hz with my Radeon RX 9070 XT. I don’t currently have an Nvidia card to hand for testing, so I can’t currently comment in its G-Sync support.

One word to the wise, however: do not use the Fast overdrive option with VRR enabled. When the framerate and refresh rate drop below a certain point, inverse ghosting suddenly appears out of the blue and is incredibly distracting, as it causes a horrible over-sharpened effect.

It’s a shame that backlighting is one area where Dell drops the ball. The edge-lit backlighting here is decidedly mediocre: even without reaching for the colorimeter, I only needed to display a solid colour across the screen to see that the left and right hand sides of the panel – and particularly the bottom-most corners – look dimmer than the rest. In a dark room, there’s a little leakage around the panel’s edges, too, which is disappointing.

To put these subjective observations into numbers, I measured the panel’s contrast and brightness across 25 points on the display. Brightness fell by as much as 12% on the left and right hand sides of the display, and of the 25 points tested, only 7 achieved a recommended grade for the ISO 14861:2015 standard, with the remaining 17 just tipping over into the nominal pass category. Ultimately, would it bother us in day to day use? Not much, but it really should be better.

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Dell UltraSharp U2724DE review: Should you buy one?

The Dell UltraSharp U2724DE is expensive but if you’re put off by the price, then there are alternatives. One of the best is the Dell UltraSharp U2724D (£358) – essentially the same monitor but shorn of the Thunderbolt 4 and the integrated KVM switch – a great option for those who may already own a USB-C docking station.

Otherwise there’s little I’d change here. With a desktop PC under the table and a port-starved laptop on top, the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE offers a judicious balance of image quality, features and practicality. If you’re looking for a superb do-it-all monitor, then your search is over: the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE is it.