Dell U3417W FR3PK 34-Inch QHD Ultra Wide 1440p Screen Led-Lit Monitor, Single

You can find lots of reviews online that tout this as "best in class" or best bang for the buck, as well as reviews comparing this to the older 3415 and larger 3418 models. Everything is true, the picture quality is simply superb and this is a very well designed monitor. I have this thing connected to a LOT of devices. Highly recommended!!My connections are as follows: MacMini on HDMI, Desktop PC with NVIDIA card on HDMI, Desktop PC with NVIDIA on DP to DP cable, and MacBook Air or Dell Laptop on the mini DP (requires manual cable switching between the laptops). I also have an old video surveillance system with a VGA to HDMI cable that can be manually swapped with the Desktop/HDMI as needed. There are no video splitters, mergers, converters, or hubs.The unit comes with 2 full size DP inputs, and I was unclear that you could not use both as DP1 and DP2 inputs. This is not the case. Using Dell's online forums I got a quick response and screenshot from the owners manual validating that the 2nd DP port was only an uplink port, to drive 2 monitors with one graphics card, through the DP in and out via the DP out. DP#2 is essentially and output only, but not clearly labeled as such. The unit ships new with a bright orange cap covering up this port, so that should have tipped me off. This feature is only useful if your graphics card and other monitor support it, since you could do a wraparound dual 34" screens. Big shout out to Chris on the customer forums. Dell phone tech support was actually willing to send me a new monitor, but obviously mine was not doing anything wrong. The monitor comes standard with a generous 3 year warranty.Part of learning that I was wrong about this monitor not having 2 DP inputs, I also learned that the DP input (or maybe the format in general?) has some I/O quicks. For example, you can not really go from a HDMI output on a graphics card, in to the DP input with a cable. Most HDMI-DP cables are one directional not bi-directional - and that direction is DP out to HDMI in. So you can go from the DP out of the NVIDIA card to the HDMI input of your Monitor, but can't go HDMI out or VGA out to DP in. Not sure why the specification is limited, since it seems logical that someone would want to leverage the DP input on this (and other) as an additional "traditional" HDMI type of connection. Think of an example where you have a bunch of things with HDMI out (Mac, PC, Xbox, PS4, Switch, etc.) and no DP out from those. This monitor would essentially limit you to the 2 HDMI inputs and you would have a minDP and 2 DP ports on the back of this monitor that could not be utilized (even though logic would say, hey, there are 5 things on the back of this monitor that look like they should be video inputs)!Another interesting tidbit for Mac users. My MacMini is a late 2012 model, so it does NOT allow the user to connect via miniDP (a.k.a Thunderbolt 2) to miniDP as the PRIMARY video output. Interestingly, you CAN use the miniDP (TB2) as a secondary output, but only after the HDMI out of the Mac is connected and active as the primary output first. It would have been nice if Apple supported either/or HMDI or miniDP/TB2 as the "primary" video out. HDMI out of the MacMini works great and looks great at full 3440x1440 resolution, but only at 30Hz. I don't expect to do any 60/120Hz gaming on a mac with a 6 year old integrated video output. I don't watch Apple store 4K/60Hz videos/movies/shows on this machine.I am almost certain that the newer MacMini as well as some iMac and the cylindrical MacPro all support Thunderbolt 2 to miniDP for primary video output. The MacBook Air certainly works fine in this regard. Apparently Thunderbolt 3 to miniDP has it's idiosyncrasies, so if you are a Mac user you need to do some homework. I think Dell makes a better Mac monitor then Apple (certainly way cheaper and more flexible).The gaming experience on a pretty old and basic NVIDIA g-Series 9800 graphics card is very good. The 34" screen is very immersive with minimal lag for casual gamers and playing some basic fighting, driving, arcade, adventure and FPS games. Curious how a new/real/current graphics card would look, I'm sure it would be amazing, but I'm not dropping $350 when most of my gaming is on consoles. At least not until I start fooling with VR and with VR the external monitor no longer matters, LOL.The main reason I bought this monitor was multi-screen productivity, I do a lot with Protools, Ableton Live, and some pro audio and video (Mac and PC) applications. The ability to open up the Mix and Edit windows, while having plugins and virtual synths (Live, Reason, NI Komplete, Akai MPC, Arturia, and Spectrasonics) all on the screen at the same time AND to be able to still open word/excel docs, notes, and web browsers is just superb. Sure, any 34" 3440x1440 will enable this, but the font detail, color accuracy, and overall clarity of this monitor is simple excellent for $600. Again, highly recommended!!

I normally don't review items, just a personal preference, but feel I need to in this case for the Dell U3417W 1900R UltraSharp 34" Curved Monitor I purchased.First, a shout out to Amazon customer service. I received my initial order for this monitor on April 21, 2017, two days after ankle surgery, so I couldn't open up and install the monitor, needing to let it sit in my living room for just over 6 weeks before being able to do so, because I could not walk for that long. The box was in very good shape from shipping, so I wasn't worried and it's a Dell monitor, so I didn't think anything of it.Well, I finally got to open and setup my new monitor, last Saturday, 3 Jun 2017. Monitor looked perfect, no problems visually to it at all. I was very excited to be able to hook it up after so long, but after doing so and turning it on I was devastated to see that the lower left hand corner had a tear (the only way to describe it) of about three inches long, inside the monitor. I was heartbroken and sick over it. No visual damage "anywhere", but inside the screen was torn. I called Amazon in dismay, because my opportunity to return the monitor expired on 21 May 2017. I explained my situation to the Amazon customer service representative and was very pleasantly surprised and how understanding and helpful he was as well as the supervisor he was communicating with. They not only authorized an exception to the deadline of being able to return the monitor of 21 May 2017, but also arranged to have the monitor picked up and put in a replacement order for me.THANK YOU AMAZON FOR YOUR EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUPPORT. I'M EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!The replacement monitor was unfortunately not scheduled to be available for delivery until around the end of June, but I was OK with that. However, on Monday, 5 Jun 2017, I noticed that it was being prepared for shipment and I received it via FedEx today. Unbelievable! Wow!I proceeded to open the monitor TODAY, set it up and connect it to my system and it's working BEAUTIFULLY. Dell did a REALLY good job with this. It's crisp and clear edge to edge and EXTREMELY suitable for what I'm using it for, programming. I'm running all my virtual development environments on here and my VMware guests are now running with a screen resolution of 3436 x 1327. There are no defects I can find on the screen what-so-ever. I'm VERY HAPPY! Dell monitors are a good bet anyways, but this is outstanding.

I use this mostly for reading PDFs with 2 page view or writing with reference on the side. Working on Excel is wonderful as well. Text is sharp even at 100% scaling - I use 125% to make things bigger and clearer. Gaming and watching 21:9 videos are superb on this extra widescreen. I was deciding between this and a 32 inch 4k monitor. The 4k resolution, although with clearer text, would have punished frame rates and lacks the "wrap around" immersion the Dell gives you.No dead pixels were found and the fit and finish is good. The height adjustable stand helps with posture and it came with all the wires for each port.My only complaint is the monitor makes noises at random. It sounds like "pops", "cracks" or "snaps". They occur every 5 minutes and get more frequent when switching from a dark to white background. I thought it was thermal expansion causing the plastic to snap but the noises correlated with dark to white transitions, leading me to think there is a problem with the power supply.This seems like a common issue with Dell monitors after Googling the issue. They recommend me to look for sparks behind the monitor and plug directly into the wall outlet instead of my surge protectors. The monitor works fine otherwise and I will update my review if a solution is found.