Review: Dell UltraSharp 32 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor

Can you imagine a Dell product without the iconic DELL logo blaring back at your face? Well, change is afoot as the PC company continues its journey to make the perfect office monitor. The UltraSharp 32 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor (U3225Q) is another excellent entry in Dell’s elite computer monitor line, and I’ll happily celebrate the subtler branding.

But is this the best monitor you can buy? Well, it doesn't employ OLED, which is a hot trend right now. But with its “enhanced” IPS (in-plane switching) Black panel, over-the-top connectivity, and classy look, you won’t find a better flagship office monitor.

An ‘Enhanced’ Dell Monitor

If you’ve seen a high-end Dell monitor, you’ve seen this one. It’s a 32-inch, 16:9 monitor with a silver back, stand, and base. There are a few things I can appreciate about this one though.

First is its relatively thin, black bezels. Most Dell (even UltraSharp) monitors have a strip of plastic as a bottom bezel to house the Dell logo, always staring you in the face. That’s absent here, making for a much cleaner look. It has all the other helpful bits you'd expect, such as a wide range of adjustments, including tilting it to go into a vertical orientation, straightforward cable management built into the stand, and VESA support.

But image quality is what makes it distinct. Dell has been championing “IPS Black” for many years, an LG technology that improves the contrast of IPS panels, a way of competing as an alternative to OLED, which is often more expensive and can cause issues like screen burn-in. For a while, Dell was alone in its IPS Black implementation, but now other companies like BenQ and HP have come along.

The U3225Q, however, comes with the next-generation IPS Black, which cranks up the contrast even more. How much? Well, from 2,000:1 to 3,000:1. That’s not OLED levels of contrast, but it sure is a massive improvement to the IPS of yesteryear. You won’t be able to hit that contrast ratio at 100 percent brightness, but the U3225Q still manages to get some record-setting contrast for an IPS panel. I didn’t have last year’s U3223QE model on hand to compare side-by-side, but the numbers speak for themselves. This is simply the best IPS panel I’ve ever seen, at least in terms of increasing contrast. The benefit of this is darker, richer looking blacks that don't just look grey. Colors also look a bit more vibrant too.

As for brightness, the U3225Q manages to crank out up to 417 nits. Anything over 300 nits is considered bright enough for office work, but that extra 150 nits ensures it’ll be bright enough even if your desk gets drowned out by sunlight every afternoon.

There are two other important factors to mention here related to brightness. Like a few prior Dell monitors, this one includes an ambient light sensor—like your smartphone or laptop, the monitor automatically adjusts the screen brightness according to the ambient light in the room. In theory, it’s a convenient feature and it does a great job of brightening the screen in a well-lit room. However, it's a bit too overzealous on dimming the screen in darker rooms. I ended up turning it off to adjust the brightness manually.

The second important feature here is the anti-reflective coating. Conventional matte displays, while good at blocking reflections, tend to reduce the perceived brightness, contrast, and overall screen quality. Dell’s new solution here is what it calls a “low reflectance panel” with an anti-glare coating. It’s not nearly as subtle as Apple’s nano-texture screen, but I like the way this refracts unwanted light more than other solutions.

Why Not OLED?

The enhanced IPS Black technology is impressive. But Dell has also been a proponent of QD-OLED, the more advanced backlighting tech that gets all the accolades and headlines these days. Not only did Dell lead the charge with the Alienware 34, but it also debuted a non-gaming 32-inch QD-OLED this year, the Dell Plus 32 QD-OLED. I haven’t tested it yet, but I was excited when I saw it at CES this year.

It can produce real HDR performance no IPS screen still can—IPS Black included. Yes, the U3225Q is rated at DisplayHDR 600, which is better than most of the HDR400 IPS panels. But if you’re a video editor or someone who likes to game and watch movies on their monitor, you’re probably better off with the Dell Plus 32 QD-OLED monitor or one of its competitors coming this year. That’s especially true since it’s slightly cheaper than this UltraSharp and even comes with a pair of built-in beam-forming speakers. This UltraSharp has no speakers at all.

I recorded an average Delta-E of 1.45 on the U3225Q in the default sRGB mode and 1.05 in Display-P3. That’s decent, though OLED screens also deliver better color performance than even the best IPS panels. Either way, this monitor is good enough to not get in the way of the occasional graphic design or photo-editing job and could certainly be improved with some calibration.

Entertainment and content creation have never been what the UltraSharp explicitly line is designed for. The U3225Q is for the people who spend their days in video calls, multitasking in apps, and running spreadsheets – not necessarily editing video or playing games. That’s not to say the color performance is bad. It covers 100 percent of sRGB, 91 percent in AdobeRGB, and 99 percent of the P3 color space. The U3225Q is also brighter in SDR than most OLEDs, with some tapping out below 300 nits.

The U3225Q is sharper than most OLED monitors in this price range too, including Dell’s options. That said, it isn’t quite as sharp as a monitor like the Apple Studio Display. With its 5K resolution and smaller 27-inch screen size, Apple’s monitor has an unbeatable pixel density of 218 pixels per inch. Dell does have its own 6K 32-inch panel, the U3224KB, which gets closer to matching the Studio Display’s sharpness, but both of these monitors are significantly pricier than the U3225Q.

Ports, Power, and Panel Speeds

The port selection on the U3225Q is god-tier. It’s got every port under the sun, including plenty of upstream and downstream USB-A and USB-C. But the U3225Q has three standout inclusions when it comes to connectivity.

The first is single-cable power delivery of up to 140 watts for connecting to laptops. Many Thunderbolt hub monitors include power delivery in USB-C, but this is one of the few to allow for up to 140 watts of power, meaning it can even handle laptops with discrete GPUs without losing any performance. It also has an included RJ-45 Ethernet jack for hardwired internet connections and a KVM switch to support multiple PCs.

Perhaps my favorite feature, however, is the front-facing, pop-down port module on the bottom left side of the monitor. Once revealed, you can access two USB-C ports and a USB-A port. It's super handy when you need to give your phone or pair of headphones a quick charge. And when you don’t need it, the module is hidden completely. Genius. Put all that together, and you don't need a separate Thunderbolt dock or USB hub at all.

I can't forget the 120-Hz refresh rate. This is the first time Dell has introduced an UltraSharp with a 4K screen at 120 Hz, and it’s glorious. If you’ve used a 120-Hz monitor before, you know how it elevates the entire experience of using your PC. Now, you no longer have to choose between a high resolution and a high refresh rate—a huge step up.

That’s exactly what the U3225Q feels like, a step up from the monitor you’re probably reading this on right now. It’s a step up in terms of price too. But this time, you get what you pay for.