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 bought this monitor because I do video and 3D work and needed a bigger monitor for productivity reasons. I upgraded from a 24 inch 1080p monitor, and this brings a whole new pc experience. The first thing I noticed after setting up this monitor was it's size. It perfectly fills my field of view, and the extra pixels on either side (21:9 vs. 16:9) are so nice to have. I used to have a small 25 inch ultrawide monitor, and it really didn't leave a good impression on me. This monitor changes that. The Dell U3417W will blow you away. I find that the pixel density on this monitor is perfect. It's not overly sharp, and is a nice upgrade from 1080p. With 1080p I could just make out the pixels, but with this monitor everything feels sharp and natural, including small text, an issue on my previous display. I'm also very pleased with the color accuracy of this monitor. I do a lot of photoshop work, and there's absolutely no color banding with this display, even when going from solid black to white over a large distance, something that my last display couldn't do. The colors are also accurate with a 99% of sRGB, which I appreciate. I've also done some light gaming on this monitor, and the field of view increase as well as the monitor taking up my peripheral vision makes gameplay so much more enjoyable, even with the 60hz refresh rate. This panel also doesn't have any ghosting or image retention, even when viewing bright white objects for long periods of time.But the real reason this display shines is watching movies in 21:9. Movies like The Dark Knight Rises and The Force Awakens look great on this display, and it totally changed my movie experience. I don't think I'll watch movies on any other screen than a movie theater from now on.In conclusion, this monitor is excellent if you need accurate color, large screen real estate, and upgraded pixel density from 1080p. The only downside of this monitor is it's 60hz refresh rate that isn't the best for gaming. Despite this, this is in my opinion the best ultrawide monitor for color work under $750, and if you've never experienced ultrawide 21:9 before, get ready to be blown away.