The emphasis these days is very much on mobile computing. You could spend all day working away on your laptop, your tablet, and your phone; peering into a handy - yet small - screen. And then you make it back to the office or to home and you sit down at a full-sized, glorious monitor. Ahhh... The difference is very noticeable, and there are no better ways to work than before a large, clear display. Monitor fans rejoice - we've found a pretty amazing one. We check out the Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor (S2719DC).
Monitors aren't very sexy, are they? It's easy to overlook them as necessary pieces of tech because they are designed to blend in - to place the importance upon the computer or device connected to them. So it takes a lot for a display to really grab our attention, and not just because it's massive, is a weird shape, or has a ultra high resolution. Because the Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor (S2719DC) is none of those things.
As the name suggests this is 27 inch monitor, with a USB-C port, that is 'ultrathin'. Again, great naming there, Dell. Inspired.
First the size. Those 27 inches make it a pretty standard dimension for modern 'work' displays. Refreshingly the monitor weighs only 11 lbs, so moving it around and setting it up is far easier than other models of screens of this size. The display itself boasts a fairly average 2560 x 1440p IPS LED edge-lit screen, in the 16:9 aspect ratio. Sitting down to it won't blow you away at all, and this is definitely not a gaming monitor, having the bog-standard 60 Hz refresh rate. So... why do we love it so much?
Well, turn it around and you'll the other two selling points: the USB-C port and the thin casing. The Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor has a few ports, including a headphone jack, the power port, a HDMI 2.0 and two USB 3.0s. The USB-C sits proudly in the middle of them all, and means that you can hook up your laptop and draw a charge from the display, as well as projecting your screen image. We love how USB-C allows this, as it cuts back on the tangle of wires normally found on workstations.
The thin-ness struck us most. As the thinnest part, by the edges of the screen, the Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor is only 0.2 inches thick. Seriously, that's damn thin! At the thickest part, in the centre by the ports, it is only 1.1 inches, so the whole unit is extremely slender. The first time we had it set up, people passing would stop to comment on it.
The general aesthetics of the unit are also very pleasing, and the back panel, in lovely brushed aluminium - not plastic, reminded us of the Dell XPS laptop range, with clean expanses of metal and the neat Dell logo shining away. The gently curving stand also seems like it might be too small to support the weight of the screen, but it works very well and helps in reducing overall footprint.
One slight beef with the stand - you can only adjust the screen's tilt. No elevation and no rotation. We weren't too fussed about this, but those of you who prefer a far higher screen might have to place it on a few stacks of paper. To be fair to Dell, the loss of these adjustments is probably why the stand is so slender. We definitely prefer that.
Using the Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor (S2719DC) was a real pleasure. Again, if you only use your relatively small laptop screen for day-to-day working, we heartily recommend you at least try something like this for a while. All that extra screen real estate makes multiple tasks faster and clearer, while watching full-screen media on it was great. As we said earlier, this is not the highest def screen, and it certainly isn't 4K (unlike this one, also from Dell). But it's good - damn good, in fact. Clear, crisp, bright, and clean.
You might not think that forking out a large wad of cash for a monitor is worth it, especially considering you could get a fairly decent laptop for the price given below. However, if you spend long hours staring a screen, and if you take pride in the appearance and layout of your desk, we heartily recommend the Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor (S2719DC).
£399.99
Available from www.amazon.co.uk