Dell S3422DWG Monitor Review

The Dell S3422DWG has a fairly plain design that looks great in any setting. Instead of a full RGB backlight, there's a fixed-color blue ambient downlight feature on the bottom bezel.

The Dell S3422DWG has decent build quality. Though it's entirely plastic, and there's a bit of flex along the bottom bezel, there's no bubbling or areas of significant concern. The stand is okay, but there's a bit of wobble due to the weight of the display.

The ergonomics are unremarkable. This is expected for an ultrawide monitor, but without swivel range, you can't easily share the screen with someone next to you. The stand also features a clip for cable management.

The stand has a small overall footprint, so you can still place small objects in front of the monitor. It supports the monitor well, though there's a bit of wobble due to the weight of the display.

There's a joystick control on the back for navigating the on-screen display.

• Power cable
• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-B cable
• User manuals

The Dell S3422DWG has a good contrast ratio. It shows deep blacks next to bright highlights, making it a good choice for content consumption or gaming in a darker room. This monitor has no local dimming feature to improve the contrast further.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

The SDR brightness is very good and is bright enough to overcome glare in most environments. It also maintains its brightness well across different content.

These measurements are from after calibration in the 'Custom Color' Picture Mode, with the Brightness set to max.

The HDR brightness is good, though highlights don't pop against the rest of the image. It also follows the PQ EOTF curve very well. There's a sharp cut-off at the peak brightness, but this means that it doesn't tone map before your computer does.

These measurements are in the 'DisplayHDR 400' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to max.

The horizontal viewing angle is mediocre. While you can still share your screen with someone else, the image is inconsistent at different angles.

This monitor has middling viewing angles. The image is inconsistent if you stand up and look down at the monitor.

The gray uniformity is great. The sides of the screen are a bit darker than the center, and there's a dark horizontal band running across the center of the screen, but it's not too noticeable. There's very little dirty screen effect.

The Dell S3422DWG monitor has excellent black uniformity. There's a bit of clouding throughout the screen, but it's not very noticeable. There's no local dimming feature to improve contrast further.

The Dell S3422DWG has disappointing accuracy before calibration. The white balance is noticeably off, especially in brighter shades of gray, and the color temperature is a bit warm. Gamma doesn't follow the sRGB target curve, and most scenes are too bright. Additionally, the monitor oversaturates most colors and doesn't have an sRGB mode to correct this.

The accuracy after calibration is superb. Gamma is very close to the sRGB curve, and the white balance is nearly perfect. Colors aren't oversaturated anymore, and there are no noticeable issues with any color.

The SDR color gamut is superb. It can display nearly the entire sRGB color space used by most desktop and web content. Coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space is decent, though it's too low for professional editing.

The HDR color gamut is good. It has very good coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content. However, coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is disappointing, and white is particularly off in this gamut.

The HDR color volume is good. It's mainly limited by the incomplete color gamut, even in the DCI-P3 color space, and it can't display very bright and very dark colors all that well.

The text clarity is good. With ClearType on (top photo), the diagonal lines appear clearer. These photos are in Windows 10.

The Dell S3422DWG has good reflection handling. It also has very good brightness, so it overcomes glare in most environments.

The gradient handling is incredible. There's a bit of banding in darker shades, but it's not noticeable with most content.

This monitor has a fast refresh rate. If you want an ultrawide gaming monitor with a slightly higher refresh rate, look into the HP OMEN 34c, which has a 165Hz refresh rate.

The Dell S3422DWG has okay motion handling across its entire refresh rate range with VRR enabled. The 'Super Fast' Response Time setting performs the best across the entire refresh rate range, but motion still looks blurry with smearing, and there's overshoot at low refresh rates. The 'Extreme' setting has such high CAD that it passes the limits of our charts, as you can see here.

The refresh rate compliance is decent. It struggles to keep up with quickly changing frame rates, but it's better at 60Hz.

The CAD at 144Hz is okay. There's noticeable smearing and blur with fast-moving objects, and the 'Super Fast' overdrive setting has the lowest CAD because it has a faster response time than 'Fast' and less overshoot than 'Extreme'.

The CAD at 120Hz is decent. It's actually better than at its max refresh rate, but there's still blur and smearing. The overdrive settings perform similarly to its max refresh rate, and 'Super Fast' has the fastest total response time.

The CAD at 60Hz is mediocre. There's noticeable blur and smearing, and unlike at higher refresh rates, the recommended overdrive setting is 'Fast' because 'Super Fast' and 'Extreme' have too much inverse ghosting.

This monitor has an optional backlight strobing feature. You can enable it by setting the Response Time to 'MPRT', which also locks the overdrive settings.

Unfortunately, the Dell S3422DWG has terrible VRR flicker with changing frame rates. It's noticeable in most content, especially in dark scenes, and this can be distracting while gaming.

The backlight remains flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.

The Dell S3422DWG has low input lag for a responsive gaming experience.

Since the PS5 doesn't support ultrawide aspect ratios, you have to set the Aspect Ratio setting to 'Auto Resize'; otherwise, the image will be stretched to fill the space. This results in black bars on either side, but the image is displayed correctly.

Since the Xbox Series X|S don't support ultrawide aspect ratios, you have to set the Aspect Ratio setting to 'Auto Resize'; otherwise, the image will be stretched to fill the space. This results in black bars on either side, but the image is displayed correctly. Even though the native resolution of this monitor is below 4k, it can accept a 4k signal and downscale it to 1440p, resulting in a slightly more detailed image than a native 1440p signal, and allows you to use HDR because the console only supports HDR at 4k. Also, you need to enable the console's HDMI override setting for 1440p @ 60Hz to work, which disables VRR.

There are two sets of inputs on this monitor.

This monitor has two sets of USB inputs, including two ports along the bottom bezel that are easy to access.

This monitor works well with macOS. HDR works properly, though VRR doesn't work properly with macOS and flickers a lot when you're not gaming. When using a MacBook, windows return to their original position when you reopen the lid or wake the laptop up from sleep.

The Dell S3422DWG has a few additional features, including:

• Timer: Displays a countdown timer on-screen.
• FPS Counter: Displays the current frame rate the monitor is receiving from the source.
• Dark Stabilizer: Adjusts gamma to make it easier to spot other players/enemies in the shadows.
• Display Alignment: Displays gridlines on the screen to help align multiple displays.
• Downlight: An ambient downlight on the bottom bezel. It's a fixed blue light that can't be changed; it can only be turned on or off.