Oh man! I just got my monitor today and I’m returning it. It’s definitely blurry but not even from a slight angle. It’s driving me insane because my imac never had this issue. I really really liked everything else about this monitor but the sides just look grey/dull.

Yeah, the problem I now have is I don’t really see alternative. Any 27inch 4k with good color at around 300 USD?

I was trying to get used to it… returning the monitors.

Returned mine today. I’m still looking, but might go for the lg ergo. Looks similar, but I think I lose PiP. and its a relatively new monitor (2020).

Dec 04, 2020 12:45 PM By OP Neo-2199

14

Yeah, the problem I now have is I don’t really see alternative. Any 27inch 4k with good color at around 300 USD?

I would also try just getting a ~300 4k LG monitor. https://www.lg.com/us/4k-monitors

I don’t see this on my monitor. Maybe I’m blind

Dec 06, 2020 05:50 AM By deleted user

I don’t see this on my monitor. Maybe I’m blind

def a chance it’s just a panel or something, but basically I sit about 2 feet away from the monitor and the left and right edge look ever so blurry or almost like theres a plastic film on it. Most notable on my mac when the window has a scroll bar on the right and the scrollbar looks blurry it was super annoying. could not unsee. got an lg ergo. perfect. exactly what I needed.

Sorry for the delay everyone! I had to send this back to our testers to let me know if they had a similar issue.

Our tester did notice a blurriness on the edge of the display when looking at it from an “inside” angle (as in if you look at the right bezel from the left). While this is fairly standard for every LCD display, it was much worse on this monitor than others.

Overall we expect most people not to notice, but I wanted to confirm to you all that our tester did notice this too!

I never saw blurry edges in my life before got a new monitor recently.

Is it really true every LCD monitors have blurry edges nowadays?

Dec 07, 2020 01:15 AM By RtingsUser9539050

18

def a chance it’s just a panel or something, but basically I sit about 2 feet away from the monitor and the left and right edge look ever so blurry or almost like theres a plastic film on it. Most notable on my mac when the window has a scroll bar on the right and the scrollbar looks blurry it was super annoying. could not unsee. got an lg ergo. perfect. exactly what I needed.

Did lg ergo show no blurry edges even at extreme angle?

I have this on my Dell s2319hn, the edges start to blur around 40 degrees away from looking at it straight on and gradually increases from there. At worst it takes off about a mm, nothing distracting. I’ve seen this on Lenovo models as well.

I realize it’s worse on this model but I’ve decided it’s something I can overlook for the value this monitor gives for the image quality. I also don’t use programs where I need to be looking at the edges of my screen.

I find, that finding perfect monitors, at least with consumer ones are quite hard. There will always be some sort of problem, therefore you might very well have to settle down with a flaw, or at least set your exceptions to be realistic.

I have read your post on the dell website. I don’t actually own the S2721, rather the more expensive Q2720. However I have also encountered my own fair share of problems. From my understanding the “pink hue” you were talking about. That is normal as it is a result of higher gamut panels, ie 10 bit panels. This is present in my own monitor too. While I don’t have the floating edges (not at a regular viewing distance at least) issue you were talking about, I agree that it is also likely a result of the manufacturing process, and most panels will have this to different extents (just the s2721 has it worse). My previous monitor also had the same issue too, it was some older LG 27 inch 1080p monitor.

As for problems for my own monitor, I have a faint yellow tinge that extends across the entire edge of bottom panel. It’s not really noticeable under normal use, but if you pay attention to it you can notice it, and it does bother me. I have actually called a dell rep about it and they said it was normal due to the bezeless design. So pretty much no amount of returns would fix it. I also have quality control issues, there is a bit of adhesive exposed on the bottom plastic panel. You can’t really see it normally but at certain angles, it is noticeable. Other users have also reported this same issue, so not sure if it’s wroth returning if I get the same issues anyways.

My point is that even if you buy more expensive monitors they will have their own issues, and I don’t think its money related. It’s the classic example of panel lottery. For example there is an LG 4k Ultrawide, that monitor is worth 2 grand AUD. It’s like the most expensive consumer monitor you can get on the market. However it suffers uniformity issues and also has a widespread image retention issues which is pretty servere, I would say more than our two issues we were talking about.

I reckon the only way you will ever get a “perfect” monitor is if you bought monitors for professional use, which have limited production and cost more than we could ever afford. Otherwise, any monitor in the market that is mass produced, even more expensive ones will always have their fair share of issues, and you either have to be lucky to get a near prefect panel which is rare. Or you just have to compromise, as life really is just a series of compromises.

Dec 08, 2020 11:29 AM By  Shea Angus

Sorry for the delay everyone! I had to send this back to our testers to let me know if they had a similar issue. Our tester did notice a blurriness on the edge of the display when looking at it from an “inside” angle (as in if you look at the right bezel from the left). While this is fairly standard for every LCD display, it was much worse on this monitor than others. Overall we expect most people not to notice, but I wanted to confirm to you all that our tester did notice this too!

On your Dell S2721QS review you stated : “We’ve retested the horizontal viewing angle, as some users have reported that the edge of the screen seems blurrier than the rest when viewed at an angle. This is normal for most monitors since that area is behind the border, but it’s a bit more noticeable on this monitor. The score hasn’t changed.”

I disagree that’s it’s “normal for most monitors to be blurry on edges”. I’m working with middle-range LCD screens since a long time and they were all “edge perfect” or enough perfect to not be noticeable with my naked eyes. However the difference is that they all had >=1.5cm borders. Nowdays Dell reached borders of 0.7cm with its “InfinityEdge” series and although I’m not a LCD expert I guess with such thin borders the backlighting is not wide enough anymore to do a decent job on borders.

So there’s two options. We can either state that’s it’s normal and let constructors continue to focus on product design over product quality. Or as consumer we can stop buying such products.

But for us being able to do so we need you RTINGS.com to help us to identify such drifts in products. So if there’s nothing in all your metrics which can’t put in evidence a problem which can be see with the naked eye there’s something missing in your metrics (or constructors may know your metrics too well that they can foil them).

Apr 10, 2021 01:08 PM By jails

2

On your Dell S2721QS review you stated : “We’ve retested the horizontal viewing angle, as some users have reported that the edge of the screen seems blurrier than the rest when viewed at an angle. This is normal for most monitors since that area is behind the border, but it’s a bit more noticeable on this monitor. The score hasn’t changed.” I disagree that’s it’s “normal for most monitors to be blurry on edges”. I’m working with middle-range LCD screens since a long time and they were all “edge perfect” or enough perfect to not be noticeable with my naked eyes. However the difference is that they all had >=1.5cm borders. Nowdays Dell reached borders of 0.7cm with its “InfinityEdge” series and although I’m not a LCD expert I guess with such thin borders the backlighting is not wide enough anymore to do a decent job on borders. So there’s two options. We can either state that’s it’s normal and let constructors continue to focus on product design over product quality. Or as consumer we can stop buying such products. But for us being able to do so we need you RTINGS.com to help us to identify such drifts in products. So if there’s nothing in all your metrics which can’t put in evidence a problem which can be see with the naked eye there’s something missing in your metrics (or constructors may know your metrics too well that they can foil them).

Hey Jails! I absolutely understand what you’re saying, so I’ve passed this message along to our Testing Development team! They’re in charge of updating our testing methodology, so they will take this into consideration for a future update!

You’re feedback is important to us because it’s how we improve, so please keep it coming! :)

Have this exact problem on my asus vg249q, it’s my first IPS monitor so not really sure if it’s supposed to be like this.

Received my S2721QS after a long wait, notice the edge issue too.

• The front panel is sharp edge-to-edge. The “blurry” feel comes from the backlight’s edges rolling off to black. This maybe due to the gap between the panel and the back-light.
• You can test this by placing some text right at the edge, or just look at the scroll bar on web-pages. When looking straight on the edge (90 degree), everything is sharp and nice. However, when viewing from decreasing angels, the black “fade-in” effect kicks in, for instance, when viewing at around 30 degrees, the small triangles at the end of the scroll bar will be touching the blurry black edge. Look closely, the text and the scroll bar would appear “floating”.
• I sit about 60cm away from the screen.
• This happens with the top and bottom as well but one has to really look for it. For instance, on Windows 10, active apps have a blue underline on the task bar. When looking from the top, from where you can also see the white back panels and the top vents, that blue underline will gradually disappear. Probably no one will use a screen at those angles though. In comparison, that blue underline is always present on a laptop’s OLED screen.
• This may be a reason for people into Dell to consider the VA panel S3221QS, whose curved screen should mitigate this issue. Wonder whether the U series (U2720Q) see this issue too. My old U2311H does not have this issue.

Apr 12, 2021 08:53 AM By  Shea Angus

Hey Jails! I absolutely understand what you’re saying, so I’ve passed this message along to our Testing Development team! They’re in charge of updating our testing methodology, so they will take this into consideration for a future update! You’re feedback is important to us because it’s how we improve, so please keep it coming! :)

Hi Shea,

I registered just to add on to this comment chain because I think it is important.

I purchased a monitor online, sight unseen and based on reviews. It had this exact issue where when viewed at an angle, the text at the corners just got distorted and disappeared. I work heavily with documents and wanted to use the monitor for work purposes as well as some light gaming, and my monitors are set up to be side by side, so I end up looking at one of them from a fair angle. This issue was absolutely unacceptable to me.

After offloading those monitors, I eyeballed monitors at dept stores for a month. To my surprise, this issue was present on almost every single IPS monitor I saw, be it the LG ultragear, HP Omen, Asus and Samsung and Philips. On 4K monitors it is much less pronounced, but still visible. Curved screens reduce (but do not eliminate) the issue. It is tremendously distracting because IPS monitors are advertised to have wide viewing angles but then when you look at them from the side the image gets distorted and blurry and cut off at the edges.

I rely heavily on rtings for its TV and monitor reviews, it has been my go-to source for some time now. I echo what Jails said. If there is an obviously visible flaw but that flaw is not captured by any of your metrics, it is impossible for me to rely on your reviews.

At least IPS glow is documented. I have only found this edge blurriness documented in two places, this discussion thread and this reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/k80kbb/dell_s2721qs_blurry_at_edges/) which points to this discussion thread. Yet every single IPS monitor I looked at, has this issue to varying degrees!

(Edited to add another example https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/bfmscg/floating_text_at_edge_of_va_screen_phillips_p499/)

I have used the same old samsung “PLS” panel for almost a decade and it is perfect edge to edge, this flaw is not even something that would have crossed my mind as a possibility. Please help us make better choices by capturing this metric in your tests. Each monitor I saw has an angle at which this blurriness starts, and the angle seemed to be consistent across monitor models, so there must be something that can be tracked.

May 14, 2021 06:31 AM By ryan44

1

Hi Shea, I registered just to add on to this comment chain because I think it is important. I purchased a monitor online, sight unseen and based on reviews. It had this exact issue where when viewed at an angle, the text at the corners just got distorted and disappeared. I work heavily with documents and wanted to use the monitor for work purposes as well as some light gaming, and my monitors are set up to be side by side, so I end up looking at one of them from a fair angle. This issue was absolutely unacceptable to me. After offloading those monitors, I eyeballed monitors at dept stores for a month. To my surprise, this issue was present on almost every single IPS monitor I saw, be it the LG ultragear, HP Omen, Asus and Samsung and Philips. On 4K monitors it is much less pronounced, but still visible. Curved screens reduce (but do not eliminate) the issue. It is tremendously distracting because IPS monitors are advertised to have wide viewing angles but then when you look at them from the side the image gets distorted and blurry and cut off at the edges. I rely heavily on rtings for its TV and monitor reviews, it has been my go-to source for some time now. I echo what Jails said. If there is an obviously visible flaw but that flaw is not captured by any of your metrics, it is impossible for me to rely on your reviews. At least IPS glow is documented. I have only found this edge blurriness documented in two places, this discussion thread and this reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/k80kbb/dell_s2721qs_blurry_at_edges/) which points to this discussion thread. Yet every single IPS monitor I looked at, has this issue to varying degrees! (Edited to add another example https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/bfmscg/floating_text_at_edge_of_va_screen_phillips_p499/) I have used the same old samsung “PLS” panel for almost a decade and it is perfect edge to edge, this flaw is not even something that would have crossed my mind as a possibility. Please help us make better choices by capturing this metric in your tests. Each monitor I saw has an angle at which this blurriness starts, and the angle seemed to be consistent across monitor models, so there must be something that can be tracked.

Hello! Thanks for sending us your thoughts on this too!

We take every suggestion very seriously and forward all of them to our Testing Development team so they can work to develop standardized testing methods that we can apply to all of our reviews.

I’ve gone ahead and forwarded your comments onto them as well, as this thread is a good example of people having concerns about something our testing, as is, didn’t fully account for.

We know we can improve our reviews, and we rely on feedback from the Community to do it, so once again, thank you and everyone else in this thread for your comments!

I also have this problem with ViewSonic. VP3256 4k monitor. I have two and both have the blurry edge problem. It is totally unacceptable that manufactures don’t inform consumers about this issue. Does someone know which models do not have this issue?