Dell S3220DGF Monitor Review

The Dell S3220DGF has a good design overall. It has a curved screen and a stand that supports it well without having a large footprint to get in the way. The overall build quality is good and the entire construction feels very sturdy with very little wobble. The ergonomics of the stand are decent and will allow you to position the monitor comfortably with ease.

The Dell S3220DGF's stand looks like most typical Dell stands and won't get in the way. It supports the monitor well and prevents most wobble.

Decent ergonomics for the Dell S3220DGF. You can easily place it in a comfortable position. Unfortunately, you can't turn it to portrait mode, although it's unlikely that you'll want to do so given that this is a large curved monitor.

The back of the monitor is plain. There's an opening at the back where all the ports are. Cable management is serviced through a hole in the pole of the stand.

The borders are a little thick and do not favor multi-monitor setup. However, it's unlikely that they'll bother you in normal use.

The overall thickness of the monitor doesn't vary much despite the slightly tilted stand. However, as with most curved monitors, if you wall-mount it, it'll stick out a little.

The S3220DGF has a good build quality. The entire construction is heavy and feels sturdy with no gaps or loose ends. The stand provides good support and prevents most wobble.

The S3220DGF has a good contrast ratio. Thanks to its VA panel, blacks look deep in a dark room.

The S3220DGF doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.

The Dell S3220DGF has decent brightness. You shouldn't have issues placing this monitor in a fairly bright room, although you should avoid placing it in a very bright one. If you need a brighter screen, increasing the contrast results in a noticeably brighter, but less accurate image.

Decent HDR peak brightness for the Dell S3220DGF. When in HDR, the monitor displays bright highlights, offering you a good HDR gaming experience.

Poor horizontal viewing angles on the Dell S3220DGF. This isn't a good monitor to share your work with a colleague or for co-op gaming. Those who view the monitor from the side won't have as accurate an image as those sitting straight in front.

This monitor's vertical viewing angles are poor, as expected from most VA panel monitors. Even at eye-level, you might notice inaccuracies at the top and bottom of the screen depending on how far you are from the monitor. This might be an issue at workplaces if you want to show your work to someone standing next to you.

Excellent gray uniformity, among the best we've ever measured and in the same ballpark as the Samsung CF398. There are almost no signs of dirty screen effect in either the bright or in the darker shades.

The Dell S3220DGF has decent black uniformity. There's some slight blooming at the corners and around the edges, but it's almost impossible to notice in real content.

The pre-calibration color accuracy of the S3220DGF is decent. Most enthusiasts will spot some inaccuracies in both the grays and the colors. Gamma doesn't follow the curve closely and as a result, dark scenes are crushed while bright scenes are even brighter than they should be.

The Dell S3220DGF has remarkable accuracy after calibration. Most inaccuracies are corrected, and even enthusiasts won't be able to spot any remaining ones, except maybe in the blues. Gamma follows the target curve well, and the color temperature is very close to the target of 6500K.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and shouldn't be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.

s.RGB Picture Mode: custom color (calibrated)
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: custom color

Exceptional SDR color gamut for this monitor, very similar to the MSI Optix G27C. The standard sRGB color space is almost entirely covered, but the wider Adobe RGB color gamut, used mainly in professional applications, isn't covered as well.

s.RGB Picture Mode: custom color
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: custom color

Excellent SDR color volume. The monitor's good contrast ratio helps it display its excellent s.RGB gamut at a large range of brightnesses. Its Adobe RGB volume is still excellent, but limited by the coverage of the Adobe RGB color gamut.

DCI P3 Picture Mode: HDR Standerd
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: HDR standard

Decent HDR color gamut. It has good coverage of the DCI P3 color space, which is used by most current HDR content. Unfortunately, the coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is mediocre. It's worth noting, though, that only a few monitors have good coverage of Rec. 2020.

DCI P3 Picture Mode: HDR Standard
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: HDR standard

Disappointing HDR color volume. Limited by its color gamut, the S3220DGF can't display the full range of colors. The saturated colors, in particular, aren't as bright as pure white.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on the Dell S3220DGF, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast, static test image for 10 minutes.

This monitor has excellent gradient handling. There are very faint signs of banding in the darker colors, but this isn't noticeable in real content.

There are no signs of color bleed on this monitor.

The Dell S3220DGF has impressive reflection handling. Just like the Samsung CHG70 or the HP 27Q, you can easily place it in a bright room without worrying about getting distracted by reflections. Just like most curved monitors, reflections are smeared across the screen, and although this decreases their intensity, it can be distracting in certain cases.

The Dell S3220DGF has a very fast response time, although not as fast as other 144Hz monitors. Fast-moving content is displayed with only minimal blur trail. We suggest that you set the Response Time to 'Super Fast', as it's the option that combines fast response time and little overshoot as you can see in the graphs. We measured the response time at the native refresh rate of 144Hz.

The Dell S3220DGF is flicker-free at all brightness levels, which is great. Unfortunately, there's no black frame insertion option to help make motion appear clearer.

The monitor has a native refresh rate of 144Hz that can be easily overclocked, and supports FreeSync for a wide range of frequencies.

This monitor has an extremely low input lag and delivers a very responsive gaming experience that will please even competitive gamers.

If input lag is important to you and you want the best gaming experience possible, check out our recommendations for the best gaming mice.

This a fairly large monitor with good native resolution. You can display a lot of your work on the screen, avoiding having to scroll too often.

Update 10/30/2019: The original text incorrectly listed a crosshair feature - this has been updated, as it is instead a display alignment feature.

There are a few additional features apart from the support of HDR10. Through the monitor's menu, you can enable a grid on the screen to help align multiple displays or a 'frame per second' counter to test your graphics card. You can also display a timer on the screen, which can be handy.

The controls are located on the right side of the underside and are easy to use.

• User Manual
• Power Cable
• HDMI Cable
• DisplayPort
• USB-A-to-USB-B