Review: Dell P2815Q Ultra HD 28-Inch LED-Lit 4K Monitor

The Dell 4K 28 inch Ultra HD 4K computer monitor has an incredibly high screen resolution, but has some serious problems.

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Serious Mouse Lag

The first thing you’ll notice is the incredibly frustrating lag with your mouse.  It turns out, there’s no fix.  The problem is because of how the monitor works.  There’s a full 100ms delay from when the monitor receives the image signal to when it displays it.  That means that your mouse movements and keystrokes are not seen until at least that delay.

[GARD]

This causes you to overshoot your targets with your mouse (both in games and on the desktop).  It causes a very irritating and frustrating sluggishness sensation, like you’re forcing your mouse through syrup.

There’s a thread on the Dell website’s user forum where many people are complaining about this and Dell’s official response is not comforting.  The following is a response to a customer who purchased it from a retailer who won’t accept it as bad because it performs per Dell’s specs.  At least Dell did provide a direct response to that retailer, explaining that the problem is real.

DellMonitorResponse1
Due to the hardware architecture, the mouse lag is a result of the P2815Q requiring 100 ms to process video data. This cannot be changed with a firmware update. It would require a new architecture from the ground up which we will not do. If you have this complaint, your only recourse is to return the monitor for refund. Outside of the initial 30 days from the invoice date, it will take manager approval to get a refund. Using the Dell service tag number from the P2815Q, contact Dell Technical Support for your region. Explain that we do not have a fix for this complaint. The technician will need to escalate to their manager.

 

Here’s another Dell response on the same thread indicating that the only fix is to return the monitor.

Due to the hardware architecture, the mouse lag is a result of the P2815Q requiring 100 ms to process video data. If you have this complaint, your only recourse is to return the monitor for refund. Outside of the initial 30 days from the invoice date, it will take manager approval to get a refund.
Due to the hardware architecture, the mouse lag is a result of the P2815Q requiring 100 ms to process video data. If you have this complaint, your only recourse is to return the monitor for refund. Outside of the initial 30 days from the invoice date, it will take manager approval to get a refund.

They also explain that they WILL NOT fix this issue.

Stale Colors

Sitting this monitor next to my Samsung UD590 4K monitor of the same size, the colors on this Dell monitor are not as vibrant.  I tried changing the settings to equal those of the Samsung Monitor, but it could not be achieved.

A Little Hope

Back to the mouse problem…  There are several preset options for the Dell monitor, like you’d expect on most modern display devices such as:

  • Standard
  • Movie
  • Warm
  • Cool
  • Game

etc…  As it turns out, if you set it to “Game”, the lag is diminished a little bit.  It’s still unacceptable for my needs, but it MIGHT be enough to satisfy other users.  Unfortunately, that setting also changes the display settings.

You’d think that a preset display setting would have no effect on this, and I thought perhaps it’s just my imagination.  So, I called my teenage daughter into my computer room, and without telling her what was going on, I set the video mode to “Standard” and asked her to move the mouse around (I hid what I was doing by having the Dell dialog on a second monitor that she could not see.  It changed the settings for the Dell monitor).  Her response was that the mouse was laggy.  I then changed to “Game” (again, without telling her what I was doing) and asked if it was better, worse, or indifferent.  She said it was clearly “better”.  Then I set it to “Cool” and asked again.  She confirmed that it was just like the first one… laggy.

My recommendation?

Avoid the Dell P2815Q Ultra HD 28-Inch LED-Lit 4K Monitor.  The lag is just too much to deal with.  And if you’re a gamer, this is an absolute “NO!”.  More like a “HELL NO!”  For non-gamers, it will be frustrating for you too, but if you change it to “Game” mode, it MIGHT be OK for you, but you’ll have to accept the color settings that go along with the game mode setting.

I would also recommend getting a LARGER monitor if you’re going to be using desktop apps if your screen is going to be 4K resolution.  Text, menus, buttons, etc, are crazy small on this thing.  I’d say a 32″ monitor would probably be the smallest you’d want to go.

Alternatives?

[GARD]

If you need a monitor that can rotate like this Dell P2815Q does, I do not have a recommendation other than to choose something else.  If you don’t need rotation, the Samsung UD590 4K monitor has great color and no noticeable lag with the mouse.  However, it does NOT have the ability to rotate from portrait to landscape mode AND it CANNOT be tilted to face down a little.  So if where you place your monitor is a little high, it may be aimed at an odd, upward angle.  It CAN be aimed higher, but NOT lower.

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Best Android Apps to start off 2013

2012-12-26 21.38.05Here are my “Best of” Android apps to start off with in 2013.

I’ll list them by category and explain the purpose of each one and why I’m choosing it.  Each category will be a separate post because, as you can see of the length of the list, it would be quite long if it were all in one post.  Each bulleted category below is a LINK to the article about the apps in that category.  The list of categories below will only have hotlinks to articles for which I’ve completed.  Keep checking back as I post more articles… one for each category below.

Phone/Communication Apps
Finance
Shopping (Everything here is FREE)
Imaging
Utilities
Audio
Games
Calculators
File Management
Security
Geo Location
Launchers
Productivity
Social
News & Reference
Time (Clocks/Alarms/Calendars, etc…)
Networking
Weather

Phone/Communication Apps

These apps have to do with phone calling features or communicating with IM or Texting or live video communication.

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