Dell S3222DGM  Monitor Review

The Dell S3222DGM has a simple design that looks great in any setting. It has thin bezels on three sides, great for multimonitor setups. It looks identical to the smaller version, the Dell S2722DGM, but has a slightly less-aggressive curve. There's a fixed-color ambient downlight feature on the bottom bezel, but no RGB bias-lighting on the back.

The Dell S3222DGM has decent build quality. It's made of plastic, but feels pretty solid, with no noticeable flex to any of the panels. The bezels feel solid, and we didn't notice any issues. Unfortunately, the stand isn't as stable as the Dell S2722DGM, as there's significantly more wobble.

The Dell S3222DGM has an okay height adjustment and an amazing tilt range, but it can't rotate to a portrait orientation or swivel, which limits its versatility. You shouldn't have any issues placing it in an ideal viewing position. The back of the monitor is identical to the Dell S2722DGM. There's no bias-lighting, which is a bit disappointing. There's a cutout in the stand for basic cable management.

The stand is okay. It has a small overall footprint and still allows you to place small objects in front of the monitor. Unfortunately, it doesn't support the monitor very well and wobbles a lot, even when gently nudged. It wobbles worse than the Dell S2722DGM, which would only wobble when the height adjustment was near the maximum extension.

There's a joystick control on the back for navigating the OSD. There are also four quick access buttons that can be assigned to different options. The power button is located on the bottom bezel of the display.

• User manuals
• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• Power cable

As expected for a VA panel, the Dell S3222DGM has excellent contrast, resulting in deep blacks in a dark room. These results are higher than we expected, as Dell advertises a typical native contrast ratio of 3000:1 for this model, but it can vary between units. We ran a few sanity checks on these results, and all of our measurements were within the same ballpark.

The Dell S3222DGM doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video is for reference only, so you can see how the backlight on this display performs and compare it to a similar product with local dimming.

The Dell S3222DGM has very good peak brightness in SDR. There's no noticeable variation in peak brightness with different content, and it's close to the advertised typical peak brightness of 350 cd/m². If you want a 32-inch monitor that gets even brighter, take a look at the Acer Nitro XZ322QU V3bmiiphx.

These measurements were taken after calibration, in the 'Game 1' Picture Mode, with the backlight at max. The peak brightness can change depending on which mode you're using. We used different settings than the Dell S2722DGM with this monitor, as these settings are the most accurate on this model.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

As expected for a monitor with a VA panel, the Dell S3222DGM has disappointing horizontal viewing angles. Colors remain accurate to a wide angle, but if you move even slightly off-center the black levels rise and gamma shifts, causing the entire image to appear washed out. This can be an issue if you share your screen with someone else, or even if you sit close to the screen. The curved screen can help compensate for this, but our testing doesn't currently account for that.

As expected for a VA monitor, the Dell S3222DGM has disappointing vertical viewing angles. In general, colors remain accurate to a very wide angle, but shift ever so slightly beyond our threshold for accuracy at a moderate angle. Like the horizontal viewing angle, black levels rise and gamma shifts at a narrow angle, causing the image to appear washed out.

The Dell S3222DGM has excellent gray uniformity. The corners and sides of the screen are a bit darker than the center, but there's very little dirt screen effect. This can vary between units, but it's rarely an issue on current monitors.

The Dell S3222DGM we bought has decent black uniformity, but this can vary between units. There's almost no clouding, but there's some backlight bleed along the top and bottom of the screen.

The Dell S3222DGM has alright accuracy out of the box. There are some noticeable inaccuracies in many colors, and as there's no sRGB clamp, the image is oversaturated. White balance is off mainly in brighter scenes, and the color temperature is a bit cool. Gamma is nearly flat close to 2.1, so most scenes are too bright.

After calibration, the Dell S3222DGM has nearly perfect accuracy. Gamma follows the sRGB target curve almost perfectly, white balance has no noticeable issues, and the color temperature is almost exactly on our target. Any remaining inaccuracies in colors aren't noticeable, and the image is no longer oversaturated.

The Dell S3222DGM has a superb color gamut in SDR. It covers pretty much the entire sRGB color space used by most desktop and web content. It has great coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, but it might not be good enough for professional content creators. If Adobe RGB coverage is important to you, check out the ASUS ROG Swift PG279QM instead.

This monitor has superb SDR color volume. Despite the relatively high contrast ratio, it still can't produce saturated colors at low luminance levels very well, but this is hardly noticeable.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

This monitor has decent reflection handling. The matte finish reduces the intensity of direct reflections, so glare shouldn't be an issue for most people, unless you have really bright lights or a window opposite the monitor.

The Dell S3222DGM has decent text clarity. It's a bit worse than the Dell S2722DGM, as the larger screen results in a lower pixel density. We recommend running the Window ClearType wizard if you're on a PC; otherwise, there are some text clarity issues with diagonal lines, as shown in the bottom photo.

The Dell S3222DGM has great gradient handling. There's some banding in all shades, and as it can only accept an 8-bit signal, there's 8-bit banding in our 10-bit test image.

The Dell S3222DGM works with both FreeSync and G-SYNC VRR. Both VRR formats work over DisplayPort, and only FreeSync works over HDMI.

The Dell S3222DGM has a decent response time at the maximum refresh rate. The 'Super Fast' Response Time setting is the best one because it's quicker than 'Fast' and has less overshoot than 'Extreme'. At its max refresh rate, there isn't much of a difference between the response time with VRR on and off, and you can see the results with VRR off below.

The response time at 120Hz is decent. It's similar to its max refresh rate if you enable VRR, and the recommended overdrive setting is once again 'Super Fast'. However, the motion handling is different if you disable VRR, as there's a lot less overshoot, even when you use the 'Extreme' setting. You can see the results below.

The response time at 60Hz is okay. There's more motion blur than the higher refresh rates, and the recommended overdrive setting is still 'Super Fast'. This means you won't have to change the overdrive setting if the frame rate of your game drops. Like at 120Hz, there isn't any overshoot if you disable VRR, and the recommended overdrive setting is 'Extreme'. You can see the results with VRR disabled below.

The Dell S3222DGM has an optional backlight strobing feature that you can enable by setting the Response Time to 'MPRT'. The timing seems very good, with no noticeable crosstalk, but there's still a noticeable blur trail behind fast-moving objects. Unfortunately, it only works with 120Hz or 165Hz signals, and you can't enable it at the same time as the VRR feature.

The backlight is completely flicker-free, which is great as it can reduce eye strain.

The Dell S3222DGM has fantastic low input lag.

The 32 inch, 1440p screen is great for multitasking, but some people might find the pixel density a bit low.

The Dell S322DGM has limited compatibility with the PS5 as it doesn't support 4k or HDR at all.

This monitor doesn't support 4k signals from the Xbox Series X|S, but at least VRR works on it.

Unfortunately, there are a few issues when using this monitor with recent MacBooks, and it behaves inconsistently. It sometimes defaults to YCbCr color format with a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, and when changing the color format to RGB, the screen goes black. At other times it defaults to RGB and supports up to 165Hz. The variable refresh rate feature works well but flickers at low frame rates. Windows return to their original positions when the computer wakes from sleep, but not if you just close the lid.

The Dell S3222DGM 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 shadows.
• Display Alignment: Displays gridlines on the screen to help align multiple displays.
• Downlight: Dell has added 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.