Dell S2725QC  Monitor Review

The Dell S2725QC has a simple, office-oriented design with white plastic and black accents. There's some basic branding on the back, too.

The build quality is okay. There aren't any obvious issues, and the plastic doesn't bend or flex easily, but feels cheap regardless. The monitor also wobbles, especially when you try to adjust the OSD. While the ergonomic adjustments are easy to perform, they don't always stay in place, so you may need to readjust them again to your preferred position.

The ergonomics are fantastic. It offers any type of common adjustment, but at times, the monitor doesn't stay in place once you adjust it. This is especially true for rotating it into a portrait orientation, as it can be difficult to make it even on an uneven desk. The stand also includes a rigid plastic clip for cable management and a cover to hide the inputs.

The stand is basic and doesn't hold the screen very well as it wobbles easily. It also takes a bit of time to stabilize again after it wobbles.

As the stand is tilted, the total thickness from the screen to the back of the stand changes depending on the height you have it set to. The results are with the monitor at its minimum height adjustment, and the thickness at the max height is 5.6" (14.3 cm). While the plastic clip is rigid, it doesn't extend past the top of the stand, so this doesn't make a difference if you want to put the monitor against a wall.

The weight measurement doesn't include the plastic input cover.

There's a joystick to control the OSD and a power button.

• USB-C cable
• Power cable
• User guides

The Dell 27 Plus 4k Monitor has a low contrast ratio that makes blacks look gray against bright highlights. It also lacks a local dimming feature to fix this.

Settings

• Preset Mode: Custom Color (after calibration)
• Brightness: Max

The SDR brightness is good. It gets bright enough to fight some glare in a moderately lit room and maintains its brightness consistently, but doesn't fight glare in sunny rooms.

Settings

• Smart HDR: Movie
• Brightness: Locked to max

The HDR brightness is mediocre. It doesn't make highlights pop, and it has inaccurate PQ EOTF tracking, with raised blacks and a slow roll-off that limits how bright highlights get.

The Dell S2725QC has a great horizontal viewing angle. The image remains consistent up to wide angles, so it's a good choice for sharing your screen with someone sitting next to you. That said, certain colors, like red, wash out, which is concerning if you're a content creator.

The vertical viewing angle is decent. Although colors wash out and the image gets darker at wide angles, it's still fine if you're standing above the monitor and looking down on it.

The gray uniformity is great. Colors remain uniform throughout, although the edges are a bit darker. It maintains the same uniformity even with 5% gray.

The black uniformity is good. There isn't any backlight bleed, but there's still a bit of clouding throughout.

The accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode is excellent. It locks colors well to the sRGB color space, but most grays have too much red, and gamma is too dark with most content.

Using the sRGB mode also locks the Hue, Saturation, Gain, and Offset settings, with the latter two only being available in the 'Custom Color' Preset Mode. 'Custom Color' also locks colors well to the sRGB color space, but some colors are still oversaturated.

The accuracy after calibration is incredible. Calibrating it fixes most issues, like with the white balance and gamma, and gives you access to settings that are locked out in the sRGB mode.

This monitor has a fantastic SDR color gamut. It covers nearly all of the sRGB color space used in most content. However, it has more limited coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in professional publishing, including undersaturated greens and slightly oversaturated reds.

The HDR color gamut is fair. It displays a wide range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space, but there are some inaccuracies, and it has very limited coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space. This means it struggles to display life-like HDR content.

The HDR color volume is just okay, but it struggles to properly display bright and dark colors for a vivid HDR experience.

The Dell S2725QC has fantastic text clarity. Using Windows ClearType (top photo) makes letters bolder and easier to read. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The direct reflection handling is okay. Although its matte coating spreads light out, it still has mirror-like reflections that can get distracting in a sunny room.

The monitor maintains consistent black levels in a bright room, but because of its low contrast ratio, blacks still look gray.

This monitor spreads light out across the screen and still reflects a lot off the display, so visibility is a problem in sunny rooms.

The Dell S2725QC has superb gradient handling, with minimal banding between shades of similar colors.

You can reach the monitor's max refresh rate over HDMI or USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode without any Display Stream Compression (DSC) with 8-bit signals, but it needs DSC for 10-bit signals over USB-C.

This monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The Dell S2725QC has poor motion handling across its VRR range. Fast-moving objects are blurry at any refresh rate with the 'Normal' Response Time overdrive setting, which is the most consistent across the VRR range. 'Fast' is better at high refresh rates, but worse at lower refresh rates, as you can see in an alternative CAD graph.

The refresh rate compliance is terrible. The response time isn't fast enough to make full color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame at any refresh rate.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 120Hz is disappointing. Although the 'Fast' Response Time setting has the fastest total response time out of all three settings, it still has noticeable blur and some inverse ghosting. The motion handling is the same whether you enable VRR or not.

The CAD at 120Hz is disappointing. Although the 'Fast' Response Time setting has the fastest total response time out of all three settings, it still has noticeable blur and some inverse ghosting. The motion handling is the same whether you enable VRR or not.

The CAD at 60Hz is bad as fast-moving objects are very blurry. Unlike at 120Hz, the 'Normal' Response Time setting has the best motion because 'Fast' and 'Extreme' have too much inverse ghosting.

This monitor doesn't have an optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur.

This monitor doesn't have noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates.

The backlight remains flicker-free at any brightness level.

The Dell S2725QC has low input lag for a responsive feel at any refresh rate.

The monitor supports any signal up to 4k @ 120Hz with a PS5 and PS5 Pro. Unlike Dell's gaming monitors, it doesn't have a Console Mode setting that you need to enable for the best compatibility.

The monitor works well with an Xbox Series X|S. However, it doesn't support 1440p @ 120Hz at all, even with various settings or when enabling the console's HDMI override setting. Unlike Dell's gaming monitors, it doesn't have a Console Mode setting that you need to enable for the best compatibility.

There's a pop-out port underneath the bottom bezel featuring USB-A and USB-C inputs. The monitor doesn't have an audio jack, which is disappointing if you want to connect speakers or headphones directly to the monitor.

You can use DisplayPort Alt Mode with the USB-C port on the back of the monitor. The USB-C in the pop-out port underneath the bottom bezel is downstream only and limited to 15W of power.

Tested with: M2 MacBook Pro (Sequoia 15.6.1)

The monitor works well with macOS, whether you're using an HDMI or USB-C connection. There aren't any obvious issues, including with VRR. If you're using a MacBook, the 'Desktop' HDR Mode looks closest to the laptop's display in terms of accuracy, but the monitor has a warm color temperature, and HDR looks undersaturated compared to SDR.

If you connect the MacBook over USB-C, you can close the lid and continue working on the monitor screen. You can do the same over HDMI, as long as you have the MacBook plugged into power, as it goes to sleep without any external power. When you reopen the lid or wake the MacBook up from sleep, windows return to their original locations.

The built-in speakers sound good for monitor speakers and there are different Audio Profile modes to choose from, including a 'Custom Audio' mode for EQ tuning. Other features include:

• Aspect Ratio: Allows you to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios.
• Dark Stabilizer: Adjusts the black level so that it's easier to see opponents in dark scenes.
• ComfortView Plus: Although not a setting, it's advertised to reduce blue light by default.
• Shortcut Key Personalization: Lets you assign shortcuts to the joystick on the back of the monitor.

You can learn more about the OSD in the user manual.