Dell S2725H 27 Inch Monitor w/Speakers Review

Dell S2725H 27 Inch Monitor w/Speakers Review

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: Dell S2725H 27 Inch Monitor w/Speakers [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Large, bright with decent colors and audio.

In the box you’ll find an instruction sheet, weighted base, left-hand back panel, mounting arm, center back panel, 6 ft power cord, 6 ft HMDI cable, and the monitor. To assemble, leave the screen face-down in the box and lower the front panel of the box. Then slide the mounting arm into the slot on the back of the monitor until you hear it click. The button above the bracket allows you to release and remove the mounting arm for easy disassembly. Slightly lift the mounting arm and connect the weight base by aligning its metal posts with the holes on the bottom of the mounting arm. Secure it by fully tightening the thumbscrew before folding its handle flat. Now you can safely lift the monitor out of the box.

The screen measures 24” wide, 14” long, and about 3.5” thick. It has a 27” diagonal and weighs about 11 lbs. On the included mount it’s able to tilt up to 21° back and 5° forward, but the height cannot be adjusted nor can the screen be rotated to portrait orientation. It has a fixed height placing the top edge 18” above your desk surface and while the bottom edge sits 4” above the desk. The top and side bezels around the screen are razor thin as just 1/16 of an inch, while the chin along the bottom is a slim ½” with the Dell logo appearing in the middle. The weighted base is 8” wide x 6.5”long and has a rounded lip all the way around, so you can use it as a tray of sorts. And it’s matte white aesthetic looks simple and clean.

At the back of the screen, the middle section is for use with alternate mounting systems that use the VESA 100 x 100 mm standard. When not in use, you can install the center cover panel for a more seamless look. To its left you have an HDMI input marked HDMI 2, which has built-in cable management and also a cover panel as well. The input marked HDMI 1, Kensington lock slot, and the power port are located on the underside of the monitor to the left and right of the mounting arm respectively. Note that the monitor only supports one input at a time and there is no multi-source mode like picture-in-picture or split screen. Cables may be routed through the cable management clip on the back of the center column to keep things tidy.

The power button is located on the back in the bottom left corner with the 5-way OSD menu navigation joystick above it. Clicking the joystick brings up the OSD menu which has quick access options like brightness and contrast control, color profile, input source, audio profile, and volume. The menu is easy to navigate and the quick functions are also customizable. There’s a tiny white LED power indicator in the bottom-right corner of the panel and that can be toggled off in the OSD menu.

Since my laptop has a 16:10 native ratio, to fill the screen, I had to set its HDMI output to ‘second screen only'. The max refresh rate for the monitor is 100Hz while the max resolution is 1920x1080 pixels, or 1080p Full HD. It has an 8-bit color bit depth covering 99% sRGB colorspace but doesn’t support HDR nor variable refresh rates like G-Sync and Adaptive Sync. The monitor has downward-facing integrated 5W stereo speakers and here’s what they sound like. They’re okay, but don’t have a lot of bass response and the treble ranges can sound thin and echo-y. I do like that they are much louder than the speakers on my laptop but at max volume, audio tends to distort a bit. That said, 100% volume was much too loud for most audio content, and I generally have it set to about 30%. Also note that there is no jack for pass-through audio for use with headphones, so they are better suited for listening to spoken word content like podcasts, movies, shorts, and TV shows rather than listening to music.

This LED edge-lit IPS display has an anti-glare matte coating and 300 nit brightness which works well in brightly lit spaces while minimizing reflections and glare. At full brightness, pure black appears a bit gray, but I found even at 50% brightness, the monitor is comfortably bright with truer blacks, good contrast, and no noticeable “glow” at the margins. One thing to note is that Dell’s “ComfortView Plus” feature is built-in and reduces blue light emissions up to 35% in order to reduce eye strain, but there is no setting to toggle it off. Even so, I didn’t detect any noticeable color impact like a yellowish tint, and I found the colors to be vibrant, well-saturated, and accurate enough to be suitable for digital art and video content creation. The monitor is also suitable for casual gaming, though may not be a good fit for competitive-level gamers even with changing its default 8ms response time to 4ms.

Overall, I found this monitor great for work and casual gaming, whether it’s connected to a laptop, desktop tower, or gaming console. The display is large, bright, and the colors vibrant and accurate enough for content creation. The thin borderless bezels make it ideal for multi-panel setups, and the built-in speakers are serviceable providing utility while saving space.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: Dell S2725H 27 Inch Monitor w/Speakers [Affiliate Link]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog