Dell competes with Lenovo in the battle for the best office monitor. The Ultrasharp U3224KB should convince with an unusually high pixel density thanks to 6K resolution, a Thunderbolt 4 hub with many connections and a high-quality integrated 4K webcam.
The 31.5-inch IPS panel displays 6144 × 3456 pixels at 60 Hertz – 2.56 times as much as the standard 4K resolution of 3840 × 2160. The pixel density thus increases from 139.9 to 223.8 pixels per inch (ppi). The panel belongs to the so-called Black IPS generation, which is supposed to achieve better black values than conventional IPS displays. Consequently, Dell specifies a contrast of 2000:1. So far, only Apple has offered monitors with 6K resolution.
Thanks to 10-bit processing per color channel and thus 1.07 billion colors that can be displayed, the DCI-P3 color space is almost completely covered. Dell does not name a brightness value, but the Ultrasharp U3224KB has to achieve at least 600 cd/m² with a DisplayHDR 600 certification.
DisplayPort 2.1
A rarity is the DisplayPort 2.1 connection along with HDMI 2.1. As an alternative to the Mini DisplayPort connection, the monitor can also route the DisplayPort image signal via a Thunderbolt 4 port in the form of a USB-C socket. The advantage: via this, the monitor acts as a hub for many other connections.
For example, you can connect a notebook and charge it with up to 140 watts while all the peripherals are connected to the monitor. Thanks to the built-in KVM switch, you can operate multiple image sources on the display at the same time.
The hub has a total of eight downstream USB ports, four each of type A and type C. Seven transmit 10 Gbit/s (USB 3.2 Gen 2), as long as the upstream is not limited. A Type-C port passes the Thunderbolt 4 signal downstream.
Practical: Three USB ports can be folded out at the bottom edge and are facing forward for quick access. A rarity is the rear Ethernet port, which transmits 2.5 Gbit/s and thus works faster than the Ethernet ports of most other monitor hubs. As an alternative to Thunderbolt 4, the hub can be operated via a USB-C upstream (10 Gbit/s), but then with a larger bottleneck in data transmission.
Integrated 4K webcam
The upper edge of the display with the integrated 4K webcam is atypically large. The latter can be tilted but not rotated. The stand is height-adjustable and rotatable, and the display can also be used upright using the pivot function. Thanks to the VESA mount, you can screw on a monitor arm.
Sales of the Ultrasharp U3224KB are slated to begin in Q2 2023 along with Dell’s other 4K hub monitors. The manufacturer has not yet announced prices.
(mma)
