Dell UltraSharp U3011 30-inch Price Review

Dell UltraSharp U3011 30 inch Widescreen Monitor with PremierColor Max Resolution 2560 x 1600 16:10 part percentage Contrast percentage 1000:1 answer Time seven ms Supports Digital DVI D, HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, Composite Video fitted Scaler for many Resolutions

80 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Works great with Macbook Pro, January 18, 2011
By KP See all my reviews Looked at many monitors with reasonable color gamut in the 27 30 inch size which could be matched with my late 2008 15 inch Macbook Pro (5,1). Major uses are photography, web design and general office productivity (office, writing papers, electronic medical records). I looked at the NEC 3090 series and the NEC and Dell 27 inch monitors also. I have experience with the Barco and Eizo monitors at work in the radiology department (where the is the sporadic Dell). Here are the things that sooner or later sold me on this monitor.

1. Comes with displayport. This is big on a Mac. It was easy to use a mini displayport to displayport cable (about $15) to get the monitor working with my Macbook Pro. Full resolution off the bat with no sleep/wake issues, no software to install. There are many serious issues using DVI D with the 2560×1600 screen resolutions on both the movable and desktop macs. Not the fault of the monitors, but the fault of Apple and their implementation of video cards. You could use up hours online reading about the problems with cables and adapters. Nobody looks to be able to get them to work reliably. Check the NEC site for the new as they posted technical bulletins on this subject and things may changed. Price of the monitor wasn’t an issue for me, but the possible time trouble shooting problems was. I hate computer maintenance and trouble shooting (which is why I am on a Mac and wish I could ditch all the PC’s in the office).

2. Good color gamut, comes reasonably calibrated, easy to calibrate more with an x Rite eye one display 2. That IPS technology is heads and shoulders above TN screens for any serious photography work goes without saying. Covers a good part of the Adobe RGB spectrum (and all of the S RGB spectrum). As of early 2011, the mac OS isn’t able of twelve bit color from end to end (OS, software, hardware, output) so to some extent, you can not use all the potential of the hardware calibration of the NEC Spectraview system now in time. People get pretty obsessed about this kind of stuff, but the bottom line is that majority pictures are seen on computer screens which have never been calibrated and won’t be as good as this Dell (or the NEC) nor can you control the lighting conditions under which someone will view one of your prints. On the side from the most calling for color accurate uses (you’re making commercials for coke, printing good art for sale), this monitor will get you 99 of the way to where you have to be. Nobody will ever notice the last 1 (unless they are a geek on a photog forum with lots of spare time). If you really need the best in color management and have the hardware that can take benefit of this, go with the NEC, Eizo or another high end screen.

3. Lots of connection alternatives. USB, speakers, HDMI/DVI D (I do not use), etc. Many may think about it sacrilege to have these kinds of connections on a professional monitor. I think about it convenient. Less cable clutter.

4. Price. Not cheap, but it’s about $1000 less than the NEC which uses the same panel, but different hardware (in fact all the high end 30 inch IPS panels come from the same manufacturer). Typically may be found for between $1150 1300.

5. Screen isn’t too big. I sit with my face about 2 3 feet from the screen. No neck problems so far. I do like the added screen hight that 1600 pixels gives you. Works well with the conventional 3:2 slr format. As well, by the time you add the menu bar and many of the control panels in Lightroom or Photoshop, you tend to loose many of working space on the widescreen (16:9) type monitors. I did not like the feeling that I worked on a panorama the whole time. I worried that I could have to sit miles back, but this isn’t the case. No real drop off in light and the looking at angle is good.

This is a much better choice if you considered an Apple 27 inch display Apple has a much, much inferior color gamut, reflective screen which may be an issue in bright rooms, alike price and lack of other connection alternatives make the Apple somewhat restricted. The Dell really was plug and play for me.

Hope this review helps and saves you many time (esp. If you have a Macbook Pro). Hard to go wrong with the Dell or NEC.

PS No difficulties with Mid 2008 13 inch Macbook Pro. Somewhat of a surprise due to integrated graphics, but no glitches. Full resolution with the minidisplayport to displayport adapter.

---

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars almost perfect monitor., November 13, 2010
By Joe Blow “Joe Blow” (San Francisco, CA United States) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) () An excellent monitor. The colors are perfect, the resolution is the highest you may be able to purchase now at the 30 inch size (I surely wish someone could break through the 2560×1600 resolution barrier at this size). The monitor is much lighter and produces little heat compared to the Apple 30 inch LCD I have had for about five years. The image quality is only a small improvement over the now old Apple 30 inch. So it is not a useful upgrade if you already have the Apple monitor. About the only thing I can think of that may be improved (without changing the basic specifications of the device) is the startup time, which is about 15 seconds. The monitor is calibrated before shipping and a calibration report is provided with the monitor. One small complaint is that the monitor’s bezel is rather lightweight plastic and the look of the monitor on the side from the real panel is not that remarkable. I have not tried the fitted scaler so far, so I can not comment on that, but testing labs have said it’s quite nice. As well, my nVidia GTX 470 has no displayport, so I have not tested that either. The refresh rate is not blazing fast, but so far it handled gaming also or better than any other monitor I have used (but I have not tested the gaming particular panels). The blacks are about as good as they may be and the good matte surface is a good balance of sharpness while suppressing annoying reflections. I have a window behind me which can lead to unpleasant reflections in the early afternoon, but this monitor handles those about also as I think is possible. I guess the biggest negative is the price. This monitor costs as much now as I paid for my one of a kind Apple when it was 1st released. This is five to six years afterward and every other size of monitor available (including many good 27 inchers) dropped off a cliff, but not this monitor. It should be priced maybe 30 less than it’s at current.

---

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars costly but worth it, December 1, 2010
By S. Eckert See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) Out of stock here? I bought mine direct from Dell, three year exchange warranty and the same price with seasonal discount, delivered free inside a week.

I’ll let others go on about the technical details, but I have never been happier with a monitor. When shopping, I had trouble figuring out why this one was more than the HP variant. They sell the same screen with inferior electronics (which will not scale pictures, do not have RGB and VGA inputs, etc) for a somewhat lower price. Without monitor scaling, as this one DOES have, you may not be able to see the computer’s boot sequence without a separate monitor. Check out the array of inputs and you will understand the price difference. It comes with a dual link DVI cable that worked using my present EVGA/NVidia 9500GT video card. Vista automagically went to full res when I plugged it in. For watching movies in another room, I bought a 50′ VGA extension cable ($29 at Frys), which is plugged into the video card’s other output. Same screen, different input port, still more pixels than HD using VGA and a 50′ cable! it is light enough to carry easily from room to room. The tilt/swivel/elevate stand feels a bit bouncy but it does not tip over.

By the way.. it is BIG! I went from a 21″ CRT running 1600×1280 to this one with twice the pixels and more than twice the viewable area. High res on that old monitor was on occasion a problem because fixed pixel icons may be too small, but this percentage of size to resolution looks “right”. That old monitor was state of the art Sony Trinitron unix workstation stuff when it was new. This monitor’s colors are far more vivid, blacks are far more black, everything as you could expect. Except maybe the looking at angle: when I stand up there is a pretty bad change in image and I can notice the difference across the screen when I line my head up with one edge and look over toward the other edge from 2′ away. I think the light is great, others think it is too much. I suppose it depends if you sit beside a big sliding glass door like I do!

---