Laptop Mag Verdict

With an impressively slim design, excellent brightness and color accuracy, and support for HDR video and games, it's easy to recommend this 27-inch display.

Pros

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Attractive, slim design highlights the impressive display
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Dual HDMI inputs work with multiple video sources
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Offers bright colors and impressive color accuracy
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Includes HDR support for video and game content

Cons

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Port selection limited to HDMI
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Mild over-illumination
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No built-in sound

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Dell makes some great monitors, but the 27-inch Dell Ultrathin S2719DM stands out. The aptly named Ultrathin will wow you with its slim design, but once you power up the 2560 x 1440 display, you'll be more impressed by the excellent brightness and color quality. With the S2719DM's elegant design, great performance and HDR support, it's not hard to recommend this monitor.

Design

The Ultrathin's design is all about the display, a 27-inch IPS panel that features a refined version of LCD backlighting. Thanks to Corning Iris glass, the thickness associated with traditional edge-lit backlighting has been reduced, and the lighting consistency has been improved significantly. Surrounding the panel is Dell's trademark InfinityEdge bezel, which measures 0.2 inch along the top and sides and 0.3 inch along the bottom.

Desktop monitors tend to be black plastic with bulky designs and chunky corners, but the S2719DM offers a sleek alternative. The display chassis is made of plastic with a silvery finish and a gently curving back panel that tapers down to a very slim 0.2 inch thick. Even at its thickest point, the monitor earns its Ultrathin name, measuring just 1.14 inches.

Dell's trademark InfinityEdge bezel measures just 0.2 inches along the top and sides and 0.3 inches along the bottom.

A graceful stand, also made of sturdy plastic with a silver finish, holds the monitor aloft. The stand measures less than an inch and a half thick and has a trapezoidal footprint that measures 9 x 6.5 inches. The permanently attached stand lets you adjust the angle of tilt but not the height of the display.

For simple cable management, the stand has an oval cutout, which you can pass power and video cables through.

Ports and Interface

On the back of the S2719DM's slim, silver chassis, you will find four connections: a power connector, two HDMI ports and a 3.5-mm audio jack. We would like to see support for other video inputs, such as DisplayPort or Thunderbolt 3, but HDMI is a relatively ubiquitous standard that shouldn't pose a problem for many people.

The dual HDMI inputs allow you to connect more than one source to the monitor, letting you switch between a desktop and a laptop without having to fumble around to replug a connection in the back of the monitor. It can also support other video sources, such as a gaming console.

Display modes and screen settings are navigated with a four-button cluster located on the bottom edge of the screen chassis, near the right-hand corner. The menus are straightforward, with settings for brightness, contrast, color modes, HDR and aspect ratio.

Performance

Despite the S2719DM's edge-lit backlight, the 27-inch Ultrathin has extremely consistent illumination. This is largely due to the use of Corning Iris glass, which offers edge-lit backlighting with better consistency and less physical bulk than traditional LCD backlights.

This panel also offers great color, thanks to Dell's CinemaColor technology. When viewing high-resolution test videos, we saw bright colors and sharp details. For example, in the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, the rainbow-hued stones in Thanos' gauntlet glowed brightly, and I could make out small mechanical elements on Peter Parker's new Spidey suit.

In the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, the rainbow-hued stones in Thanos' gauntlet glowed brightly, and I could make out small mechanical elements on Peter Parker's Spidey suit.

Though the S2719DM is not billed as a gaming monitor, the settings on this display allow you to shorten the response time to 5 milliseconds, making it a decent performer for all but the most competitive gamers. We tested the monitor with Hitman, where dark scenes in a Paris fashion show looked realistically shadowy but were never hard to discern, and the sun-drenched beaches of Sapienza were marked by bright, blue skies and lush, green plant life.

MORE: The Best Gaming Desktops Available Now

Injustice 2's superhero fighter makes the most of HDR with glittering armor and glowing elements on everything from a movie marquee in Gotham to the crackling electricity of the Flash's speedy powers. In addition to the vivid colors we already expected, these little highlights brought out the added depth afforded by HDR.

Lab Test Results

The 2560 x 1440 display also performed very well in our lab testing, where we looked at the color gamut, brightness and color accuracy using our Klein K-10A colorimeter.

The brightly backlit display reproduces 129.8 percent of the sRGB color space, giving it some of the best color support we've seen on a basic desktop monitor. This is virtually identical to the color gamut of another Dell monitor, the wide-screened P3418HW (129 percent), and better than even some performance-minded gaming monitors, like the LG 34UC89G (126 percent).

Thanks to the monitor's HDR support, it can reach 600 nits of brightness when displaying HDR content.

The brightness is also impressive, averaging 380.8 nits in regular use. Thanks to the monitor's HDR support, it can even reach 600 nits of brightness when displaying HDR content. Compare that to the 27-inch BenQ GL2760H, which, at 288 nits, is the brightest budget monitor we've seen. It's even on a par with the Samsung CHG70 (364.8 nits), a gaming monitor with similar HDR support.

Finally, the S2719DM has extremely good color accuracy, with a Delta-E rating of 0.08 (where zero is a perfect score). That's one of the best color-accuracy scores we've seen, edging ever so slightly ahead of its 24-inch sibling, the Dell Ultrathin S2419HM (0.1) and topping premium displays such as the Samsung CHG70 (0.09) and the LG 34UC89G (1.08).

Audio

The S2719DM's audio support is limited to a headphone jack, which passes through audio provided via HDMI. That's suitable for plugging in headphones or desktop speakers, but the 27-inch monitor has no speakers of its own. This is not a significant loss, however, as speakers would disrupt the superslim profile of the monitor.

Bottom Line

If you want a display that's as slim and elegant as your premium Ultrabook, the Dell Ultrathin S2719DM is the monitor to get. The overall design is great, but the real star of the show is the 27-inch display, which wowed us with its excellent brightness, consistent backlighting, great color and support for HDR content.

While the S2719DM is only a few inches larger than the 24-inch Dell Ultrathin S2419HM, it manages to eke out slightly better performance numbers. All told, it's among the best displays we've tested and a smart choice for anyone who wants a great display with no distractions.

Credit: Laptop Mag