Dell S2725QS  Monitor Review

The Dell S2725QS has a simple design that's almost exactly like the Dell S2725QC. It's mainly white with some black accents throughout.

The build quality is alright. There aren't any obvious issues, and the plastic doesn't bend or flex easily. However, it feels cheap regardless, and the monitor wobbles easily. 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 incredible. 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, which are set into the back of the monitor.

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

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 5.5 inches (14.0 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.

• HDMI cable
• Power cable
• Documentation

The Dell S2725QS has a mediocre contrast ratio. Blacks look gray against bright highlights, and it lacks a local dimming feature to improve this.

Though this monitor doesn't have local dimming, we still film these videos so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

Settings

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

The SDR brightness is great. It gets bright enough to fight glare in most well-lit rooms, but still struggles in sunny environments. Luckily, it maintains consistent brightness across different content.

Settings

• Smart HDR: Desktop
• Brightness: Locked to max

The HDR brightness is alright. While it gets bright enough to fight some glare, highlights don't pop for an impactful HDR experience. It also has inaccurate PQ EOTF tracking, with raised blacks in dark scenes and a slow roll-off. So, it's tone mapping before your source does, limiting how bright highlights get.

This monitor has great gray uniformity. Although there's vignetting in the corners, the rest of the screen is uniform. This vignetting is still noticeable with 5% gray.

The black uniformity is mediocre. There's noticeable clouding throughout, along with raised blacks.

The accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode is amazing. It locks colors well to the sRGB color space, but primary colors are still slightly oversaturated. Regardless, any inaccuracies to the white balance and colors aren't noticeable, and the color temperature is almost spot-on with the 6500K target. Even the gamma tracking is nearly perfect, although most scenes are slightly darker than intended.

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, and gamma is worse.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable. Calibrating it fine-tunes any errors and gives you access to settings that are locked out in the sRGB mode.

This monitor has an incredible SDR color gamut. It covers all of the sRGB color space used in most content. It has more limited coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in professional publishing, including undersaturated greens and slightly oversaturated reds, but it's still decent in this color space.

The Dell S2725QS has a decent HDR color gamut. It displays a good range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space, but not all of it, and it struggles a lot more with the Rec. 2020 color space. Interestingly, it covers a wider color gamut than the Dell S2725QC, but it's still not enough for an impactful HDR experience.

The HDR color volume is okay. It fails to properly display dark and bright colors well, so HDR content looks muted.

The Dell S2725QS 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 Dell S2725QS 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 alright. 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 S2725QS has superb gradient handling, with minimal banding between shades of similar colors.

You can reach the max refresh rate as long as your computer supports HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 bandwidth. However, your graphics card needs to use Display Stream Compression for 10-bit connections over DisplayPort.

This monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The Dell S2725QS has poor motion handling across its VRR range. There's noticeable and distracting blur with fast-moving objects at any refresh rate. Although the 'Normal' Response Time setting is the most consistent, it still performs poorly, and the other overdrive settings are worse. The 'Fast' and 'Extreme' settings have such high CAD that they pass the limits of the chart, which you can see in an alternative 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 poor. Motion is blurry with any of the Response Time settings. Using VRR doesn't impact the motion handling of the 'Fast' and 'Extreme' overdrive settings, but disabling it with 'Normal' results in better motion than with it on. That said, even with VRR off, the response time is still slow.

The CAD at 120Hz is poor. Motion is blurry with any of the Response Time settings. Using VRR doesn't impact the motion handling of the 'Fast' and 'Extreme' overdrive settings, which have significant inverse ghosting, but disabling VRR with 'Normal' results in better motion than with it on. That said, even with VRR off, the response time is still slow.

The CAD at 60Hz is bad. There's distracting blur in fast-moving content with any of the overdrive settings. Unlike at 120Hz, using VRR doesn't have a significant impact on motion handling.

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

This monitor has just a bit of VRR flicker in dark scenes and the brightest areas of bright scenes, which you don't see in the video. That said, it's not distracting, and it's hard to see unless you're looking for it.

Although the backlight is flicker-free and doesn't use pulse-width modulation, there's still a slight dip in the brightness. This is uncommon for IPS monitors, but it isn't noticeable.

The Dell S2725QS 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. There aren't any settings you need to enable from the monitor's OSD to get 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. There aren't any settings you need to enable from the monitor's OSD to get the best compatibility.

As this monitor lacks an audio port, you can't easily connect speakers or headphones directly to the monitor.

Tested with: M2 MacBook Pro (Sequoia 15.6.1)

There aren't any issues when using this monitor with a Mac computer. If you're using a MacBook, the 'Desktop' Smart HDR Mode looks closest to the laptop's display, but it has a warmer color temperature, and HDR looks undersaturated compared to SDR. You can close the MacBook's lid and continue using the monitor, even if the laptop isn't plugged into power, and windows return to their original positions when reopening the lid or waking the MacBook up from sleep.

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.
• Custom Color Preset Mode: Includes 2-point white balance and RGBCMY Hue and Saturation settings for calibration.
• 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.