if you're looking for a high quality 4k
monitor for either windows or mac os
that will perform
exceptionally well and last a long time
the dell ultra sharp u2720q
just might be your pick my assistant and
i have been testing this screen
for a few months now and we're both very
happy with it
by the way make sure you're subscribed
to my channel because i give away stuff
like this dell monitor all the time
my last giveaway was a brand new m1
macbook air now i'm not going to bore
you with all the technical details or
fancy benchmarks of this monitor
instead i'm going to take you through
some real life usage scenarios
and give you my personal opinion on why
i chose this as my main
4k monitor quick disclaimer i purchased
this monitor with my own money this
video is not sponsored
at all and is entirely my own opinion
here's a sneak peek at some of the
topics we're going to cover
in this video starting with design i
have to be honest
this thing is pretty good looking it's
very minimal and clean with tiny bezels
and no obnoxiously large logo look how
small
the dell logo is at the front the width
of the screen is
very slim and even the back looks nice
the light gray
dark gray and black color scheme means
that this screen will fit in almost
any environment one thing i don't like
however is how the input panel on the
left
side sticks out it looks a bit bulky but
this isn't a huge deal for me and the
fact you get
all these easily accessible ports
offsets
the physical drawback for me now i went
with the 27 inch
screen size as i found that's the
perfect size for me
smaller than that and i feel cramped any
larger and i feel like i'm moving my
head
too much just to look around the screen
my advice to you though is always go a
bit larger if
you're unsure if you think you'll be
okay with a 24 or a 25
inch screen try out the 27 inch because
i think you might prefer it
now the stand not only looks good but
also has a ton
of functions you have a pretty wide
range of swivel
and the rectangular base is extremely
sturdy and is great for storing things
on or even just sitting on top
of something the sturdy base with wide
range of swivel is paired with the arm
making almost any angle or adjustment
possible
just take a look at some of the
different positions you can use
this screen in you can also take the
stand completely off
and mount the screen to a monitor arm
via a vsa mount
moving on to connectivity this is where
the u2720q
shines and is the reason why i bought it
you see this monitor
fully supports usbc connectivity and has
90 watts of power delivery
so if you're using a laptop all you need
to do is plug
just a single usbc cable into the laptop
and you will get an external display
charging at full speed
so just as quick as the charger brick
that came with your device
and also access to any usb devices
you have plugged into your monitor the
monitor also comes with inbuilt speakers
however i do recommend using headphones
or proper speakers
because the in-built options on monitors
are just never the best
in terms of audio quality here's a quick
overview of the ports
starting from left to right ac power
security lock hdmi display port
usb c display port audio line out
so for speakers if you use them and two
usb
3.1 ports you also get this really
useful usbc
and standard usb port on the side which
is great for plugging in
usb drives or other accessories to your
laptop
without having to use an extra hub or
cable
or reach around to access the back of
the monitor i'll go into this in more
detail when we get to this section about
laptop usage
next up we have screen quality again i
won't go
into the nitty-gritty details so do
check out the link in the description
and have a read through the technical
specifications if you want
but my personal experience has been very
positive
whether i'm using windows or mac os
including either a mac mini
or a macbook the colors are just super
bright
very accurate and being able to see
everything at a 4k resolution means that
you can barely see
any individual pixels i've also had no
issues with any blurriness or hard to
read
font viewing angles are also very
impressive as it's an ips panel
and is also anti-reflective coated it's
a 60 hertz refresh rate so you won't be
doing any hardcore fps gaming
however it's totally fine for a bit of
gaming here and there
and i've played games such as fortnite
without any issues
now i use this screen primarily for
productivity tasks
and also video editing it works great
for productivity because coming from a
1440p
and 1080p panels i've found that using a
screen with a
higher resolution such as 4k is slightly
less strain
on my eyes and everything seems clearer
and easier to tell apart
you can also go into the settings of
your device and change the scaling which
means you can make
text and icons larger or smaller to
suit your preference this works on both
mac os
and windows i also like it for video
editing as i seem to get a really
accurate color out of the monitor and i
can play
back my videos in full 4k resolution
before i render them
moving on to what is in my opinion the
most important
section and that is using this screen
with
a laptop okay guys so i thought i would
do a quick little real life test here
for you
so right now i've got a m1 macbook air
and i'm just gonna see how it works with
this monitor so screen wake time
compatibility plugging stuff in all that
kind of stuff
now this does work exactly the same no
matter whether you're using a
m1 macbook or an older mac i've tested
this for the 2017 macbook pro
all the new m1 macs and even some
windows devices and it all works pretty
much
the exact same so first things first
let's open up
my macbook air and we'll plug in the
dell
monitor and you'll see that it is
actually
fairly quick to wake the screen sort of
get up and using it
so it's probably about four to five
seconds probably even less
you can see right there we are ready to
go and there's absolutely zero issues
now if you guys are wanting to use a
wireless keyboard and mouse
with a macbook all you need to do is
just close the screen
and then if the particular monitor
you're using
goes to sleep just click your mouse and
your keyboard your wireless mouse and
keyboard a few times so press a few
buttons or click the mouse a few times
and it will wake and you'll be able to
use it now like i've said in this video
the really cool thing about this
particular monitor is it acts as a usb
dock
and also a charger so you can see here
in the battery section we are fully
charged
uh charges just as quick as it does if
you're using the
30 watt power brick with the macbook air
or the 60 watt with the pro
so what we'll do now is we'll actually
plug in an external
drive so i've just got a t5 a samsung t5
ssd here
and if we actually do a disk speed test
what i'm going to do is i'm actually
going to test it first of all plugged
directly
into the macbook and then plugged into
the dock
to see if we can get any kind of
differences in the speed
so if i select the t5 ssd in blackmagic
disk
speed test so again this is plugged
directly
into the mac itself and you can see
we're getting around
340 megabytes per second write speed
and the read speed is going to be
something similar so it's going to be
around 380
so again not the fastest this isn't
exactly like a high-end
drive but that's really all most people
are
ever going to need so what we'll do is
we will stop that
and then now we're going to unplug the
drive from the mac
and we're going to plug it into the
monitor
okay so that's plugged in and we'll just
test that it is coming up
yes it is we can see it right there so
remember
340 megabytes per second right
and 380 for read so let's
make sure we've got it selected we do
and start okay so you can see right off
the bat it's
it does lose a little bit of speed so
we're losing about 30 or 40 megabytes
per second
write speed and then we're losing around
the same for the read speed so around
70 to 80 megabytes per second now that's
definitely not a
huge change i don't think you'll
necessarily even notice that
bear in mind you actually have to come
into the settings of the screen
and you actually have to change the usbc
prioritization to high data speed
over high resolution because if you've
got high resolution selected
you're probably only going to get about
30 or 40 megabytes per second read and
write speed
off whatever you've got connected but if
you change this to high data speed
you'll be able to
almost max out the speed of whatever
you're plugging into the
screen but again guys if you have like a
really high-end
drive you're probably not going to want
to plug it into the screen you'll
probably want to plug it into the mac
but for everything else it's totally
fine just using the inbuilt usbc
hub on this monitor anyway that's it for
me for now let's get back
into the video now in terms of price
this is probably the main
negative of this monitor you can easily
pick up a basic
4k monitor from other cheaper brands at
much
lower cost now i wouldn't class the dell
u2720q
as a budget option but i also don't
believe it's too expensive
for what it is either many of the
cheaper 4k monitors out there either
have
no usbc functionality meaning you can't
even charge or even connect your laptop
unless you use a hdmi or displayport
cable
and a converter or are just plain ugly
looking or made with
really cheap components i've been using
dell
ultra sharp monitors for both in the
office at my nine to five job
and also at home for about five years
now
and i've never been let down dell also
has a pretty good warranty as well
and one way to also think about it is
that you're not just getting a screen
but a hub and also a charger you also
get all the cables you need
in the box as well in conclusion the
dell
u2720q is a really high quality monitor
with awesome build design and comes with
all the ports
cables and functionality you could ever
need from a monitor
but it can be a little pricey at the end
of the day though if i'm going to be
staring at a screen for eight plus hours
a day
i want to invest in something that's
going to work well
and that i'm going to enjoy looking at
and that's why
after a lot of research i settled on
this particular dell monitor
and almost two months later i'm still
very happy with my decision
and i think you will as well if you are
interested
in checking it out make sure you do
check the link
in the description anyway guys thanks
for watching this video hope i answered
some of your questions
or shed some light on this particular
monitor if you have any questions or
comments leave them down below but apart
from that
i will catch you guys in the next one