Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Dell Ultra HD 5K Monitor UP2715K 27-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor

Top positive review

Review of the 5k UP2715k model

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2016

This monitor looks amazing compared to my old HP ZR30w monitors which are 2560x1600 IPS. Setup was very easy, just plug the display port cables in the right order and select the 5k3k input mode and that was it. The color on this monitor is great and I really like how sharp the text is. I'm using this monitor for gaming as well. Some observations I have made that might answer some of the questions you may have about this monitor:

1) If you plan on gaming on this you'll probably need at least two high end graphics cards like the Nvidia 980TI or Titan X. I'm using three Titan X since I'm coming from a triple monitor 7680x1600 surround setup and so far everything is smooth on this monitor. Since I monitor my GPUs it seems like this 5k3k resolution is easier for my three GPUs to deal with than three separate monitors that total to a lesser resolution so that's why you might be able to get away with using only two high end GPUs (search around for 5k benchmarks before you take the plunge and buy this monitor first though in case you have to spend a few grand on GPUs). Also make sure to select the "fast" response time setting in the menu system which will reduce the GTG response time a little bit. Last but not least don't expect all games (or applications) to scale properly at such a high resolution, I play world of warships and can barely read the text on this screen and I have very good vision. So it's good to have a secondary monitor for cases like these (and see #3 below).

2) This monitor appears to be display port 1.2 capable. So that means in order to run at 5k3k @60Hz you must use both display port cables. When use operate this monitor at 5k3k on an Nvidia GPU the resolution becomes the recommended resolution so you don't have to use surround mode in the Nvidia driver, I suspect for AMD GPUs it'll be the same.

3) Often/always the BIOS will not show up on this monitor, at least it didn't for me in 5k3k mode and I have read others are seeing the same thing. So you probably want to have a secondary monitor for that. With such a high resolution monitor you'll probably run into applications that don't scale to 5k resolution anyway so it's in your best interest to have a secondary monitor anyway.

4) The mini display port on the back is only capable of 4k resolution. Since this monitor is DP1.2 you shouldn't expect it to handle 5k3k resolutions over a single cable (that's what DP1.3 is for which no GPUs support at this time).

5) If you use Windows 10 you can adjust scaling per monitor, if you use this monitor with another lower resolution monitor you'll probably need to adjust this to keep the scale on all the displays manageable.

6) Read the manual, practically all the questions asked of this product are well documented here: [...]

5 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Severe light bleeds, otherwise, it's a beautiful display.

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2016

the display is beautiful, thanks to 5K resolution, but there's significant light bleeds in on left side of the screen. It is noticeable even brightness is set to 0. Very disappointing.

2 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Severe light bleeds, otherwise, it's a beautiful display.

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2016

Verified Purchase

the display is beautiful, thanks to 5K resolution, but there's significant light bleeds in on left side of the screen. It is noticeable even brightness is set to 0. Very disappointing.

2 people found this helpful

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TheCrazyCanuck

Review of the 5k UP2715k model

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2016

Verified Purchase

5 people found this helpful

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Darren Cook

Works with OSX 10.10.3 + Mac Pro (Late 2013) base model (AMD FirePro D300 2048MB graphics)

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2015

Verified Purchase

WOW! I finally got this thing to work with my Mac Pro, and it is amazing*.
*context: I am an application engineer who likes a large screen real-estate, and the old Apple 30" DVI monitor was getting a bit pixelated and hard to read after using Retina iPhones and iPads. Especially at the tiny font size I like to use.

But WOW! Setup was a pain and documentation for Macs non-existent (at least, not what I am documenting below). Out of the box, plugging it straight into the Mac with the dual DisplayPort2 (DP2) cables to MiniDisplay/Thunderbolt ports, it was not recognized. So it lost a star simply for that.

Here are the things I may or may not have had to do to get it set up (aka some of this may be superstition), and/or here is a process you might try:
1. Reboot your system with your old monitor attached first, unchecking "reopen windows" because you'll be possibly doing this a few times and you don't want any extra problems. Check for software updates, apply any and restart. Maybe repeat until booting up seems "clean" with no more updates.
2. Reboot again, and hold down Option-Command-P-R to do a PRAM reset; wait for the second startup sound, and then release the keys. Maybe repeat until booting up seems "clean" (no extra stuff going on, though Option-Command-P-R may make the Apple logo and startup thermometer appear every time...I don't know).
3. Try a force-shutdown then startup cycle. That is, press and hold the power button on the mac pro until the computer shuts off. Press it again to boot up. Maybe repeat (and/or repeat steps #1 and #2) until this process seems "clean" as well.
WARNING: step 3 is inherently risky of course, you are force-powering off the machine and bypassing the shutdown cycle. Hence why you should have unchecked "reopen windows" in step 1.
- Explanation: The main reason for points 1-3 is that force reboots while headless may be necessary - it was for me. Then at one point I re-attached the old monitor to see what was going on, and discovered my machine had booted into FileVault Recovery mode once, requiring me to change my password. A second time it booted into Recovery Mode, requiring me to re-select my startup disk. After that, my system had reverted to 10.10.2. (!). Installing the updates to 10.10.3 again took a 2gb download-reboot-install, then a 1.5gb download-reboot-install. Better to get this stuff out of the way first if you can, it'll save you some headaches with the monitor running as 2 different displays, one of which is invisible. :)

Finally the fun part:
4. Shut down. Disconnect your old monitor. Connect the dual DP2 cable to the two monitor outputs, and the mini display ends to the mac (I used the top row of thunderbolt ports, though it probably doesn't matter). Also connect the USB3 cable to the mac. (Why? My old Apple 30" had an adapter with USB which drove the monitor and wouldn't work without it connected. It seemed possible the Dell might tell the Mac a thing or two about itself over USB as well so I plugged it in. This is probably the superstitious part. ;-)
5. Power on the monitor. Use the monitor Menu buttons to make sure the Dual Input/DP(5K3K) option is selected.
6. Power on your mac, and hold down Option-Command-P-R, let it make the startup sound twice, then release the keys. See what happens. If nothing displays after a while (you should have a feeling how long a reboot takes by now, so give it twice the time maybe), force-shutdown the mac and boot it up again. If that doesn't work maybe try the Option-Command-P-R trick once more.
7. If you are lucky, go "ooh, aaahh" at the beautiful new display that appears. :) If not, happy fiddling like I did until you can get it working.

UPDATE 3 weeks later:
A) The monitor does not always like to wake when the computer has been asleep for awhile, requiring a force-reboot. I wound up setting my sleep timeout to be a few hours, and turning my screensaver back on just so I could get through a work day. Which I don't mind, the screensaver is beautiful on this thing.
B) With the Mac Pro + D300 graphics, fade in/fade out on semi-transparent overlays was very sluggish (using an app called Moom), and desktop switching transition effects are also slow/stuttery. I wound up adjusting my Moom settings to have no transparency, setting desktop switching to no transition effect, and turning off other OSX transition effects in various system settings panels. This removed the sluggishness for normal desktop operations. BTW this does not seem to affect video, I saw no problems playing 4k and 5k videos full screen. So I'm happy, but your mileage may vary with this graphics card. I expect the higher models would be fine.

UPDATE 8/10/2016:
Still loving this monitor. I'm on OSX 10.11 by now. Once in a blue moon things misbehave, the monitor will be dark. (This may have happened after a couple of major system updates, or sometimes over the weekend if I've left things on; it won't wake up Monday Morning.) Things generally seem to have improved as the OSX versions have climbed, so Apple must be working out any incompatibilities with this monitor.

FYI I've found that unplugging one of the two mini display ends will drive the monitor as a 2300k display, which is good enough to resolve any problems during startup. Once the system is up, I can plug in the second mini display cord and it will flip back into 5k mode.

20 people found this helpful

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Cody Russell

I'm making that clear because a lot of the reviews on here seem to be for the 4K version and it seems like Amazon doesn't distin

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is a review for the 5K display, the UP2715K. I'm making that clear because a lot of the reviews on here seem to be for the 4K version and it seems like Amazon doesn't distinguish things very well.

So, right off the bat it's the one of the most beautiful displays I've ever seen. I wish I could just stop the review right there.

I bought it in order to work on high-dpi support for a Windows application I develop, and with some tooth-pulling and hair-yanking I did manage to finish that work. So now I want to get rid of this display. I have major, major problems getting this display to turn on correctly when my Windows machine starts. Sometimes it starts up just fine, like you'd expect it to, but all too often the computer starts but the display just goes into sleep mode and there's absolutely no way to get it out of sleep mode. You can power cycle the display, unplug/replug it into the computer all you want.. nope. It's not going to work. The only two solutions I've found are to either 1/ physically unplug the power from the display, then plug back in or 2/ power-cycle the computer itself (yeah, hold down its power button and force it off, then turn it back on.. which is probably not good for it) and then hope that the next time it works. It seems to be totally random. There was a time where every morning for about two weeks it worked perfectly and I had no issues, but other times where every single time I need to use the Windows box I need to power-cycle it a dozen times until the Dell 5k finally starts working correctly.

The other problem that happens, and this is less common, is that the resolution doesn't get detected correctly or something, and Windows starts up horizontally stretched across this monitor and a non-existent, phantom second monitor (so in other words, I'm only seeing half of the login screen and it's distorted because it's being stretched too wide).

I also have a recent Macbook Pro with two Thunderbolt ports, and I'm able to connect this display to that Mac just fine. So far I have had zero issues with that, so it's possible that all the problems I'm having are actually problems with either Windows 10 or my NVIDIA card, and not with the Dell 5k. I am using a very recent NVIDIA card, and I read somewhere that it's supported (which was the reason I bought it, specifically to use this display).

So overall I'd say, if you *need* a high dpi screen to work on some software for Windows and you've already got a desktop computer setup as your development machine, this display will work but it will be an infuriating process. If you just want to get a high-dpi screen for casual use, not because you absolutely must have one, in a Windows environment.. do not buy. If you want a 5k to use with a Macbook Pro.. your mileage may vary, but so far I've had no issues.

=== UPDATE ===

In my review above I was using a PNY XLR8 GeForce GTX 970. I have since updated my Windows desktop to an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Since updating to that video card I have not seen any of the issues I described above. Right now the display is operating absolutely flawlessly.

21 people found this helpful

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Music Fan

The screen is beautiful. It's crisp and clear

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2017

Verified Purchase

The screen is beautiful. It's crisp and clear. The downside is you'll almost certainly have to magnify the resolution 150 or 200%. This would be much better at 30-32"

The other downside is it occasionally doesn't wake from sleep. To fix it you have to unplug the monitor then plug it back in. When I do that, it messes up my desktop icons. My OS is Windows, so perhaps the monitor works better on other OS's. It's monitor specific, as this doesn't happen with other monitors on the same system.

I like the monitor, but I think Dell should do a much better a 1500-2000 monitor (depending on when you bought it).
As for Jan 2, 2017, it looks like it's not in stock, so maybe Dell has a replacement coming out.

2 people found this helpful

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Heather

Stopped working after 1 1/2 years, no replacement even though I purchased the warrenty...buyers beware

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2018

Verified Purchase

I purchased this 06/2016 and it worked great up until now. Half of the screen is discolored. I purchased the extended warranty, so I contacted DELL for a replacement. It has been over two weeks and still no replacement. They offered a lesser monitor 4K for a replacement, however I purchased this one for an oral surgery practice to read 3D xrays. The lesser monitor would not give the same results. They say they do not have another one in stock for a replacement. I've also been contacted by them saying I requested a refund, which I did not. I only want the SAME monitor I purchased and purchased the warranty on. I received another email this morning stating, "That’s our best option for the meantime". What's the point of purchasing a warranty if I cannot get the same monitor I purchased?

2 people found this helpful

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Marhkco

Nice Monitor - IS NOW - Mac Compatible (almost)

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

UPDATE 04/14/15: With the new system update - OS 10.10.3 - this monitor is now able to use the 2 wire hook-up and achieve 5K! I had to restart my computer twice for some reason, but it does work. The volume control on the Mac still has no control over the speakers on the monitor (which I don't use anyway) - so, not 100% Mac compatible - but close. So, 5 stars for a great looking monitor.

No doubt - well made, beautiful picture, minimal glare, no obvious dead pixels. Instructions are a bit minimal, but not too hard to figure out how to set it up. Internet (not Dell !) is helpful for information. As noted you will get no hand-holding from Dell. Their web site, worse their support techs have no clue! My intention with this monitor was to run it with a late 2013 Mac Pro (AMD FirePro 700 GPU). This has been a long strange trip! Image is fine grained and beautiful, but no 5K. Best I can get is about 4K. (3840x2160@60Hz). Using 2 cables as suggested by Dell to overcome the Display Port 1.2 inability to carry 5K - doesn't work. I'm currently using one cable and for general computing, 1920x1080 is sharp and perfectly adequate for most of my needs. I should note that I called Apple and spoke with 2 techs. One billed himself as the senior tech on duty. Unfortunately, no help here either. The video driver to combine the feeds on this card doesn't exist as yet. Strange that AMD has released an update to one of its PC retail cards that will permit exactly what I want. Maybe Apple will come along? More likely they will wait for DP1.3 (ThunderBolt 3) and then come out with a new MacPro and a new monitor to take advantage of this so as to provide 5K.

Other features - the monitor has speakers - a bit tinny sounding but functional. Note, that the volume is Not variable by the mac controls. There is a nice USB 3.0 hub on the back of the monitor. There is an SD card slot on the left side of the monitor - I have not tried it. Overall well constructed although I didn't even unpack the stand. I easily bolted the monitor to an Ergotron arm. (great product, BTW).

So, In summary, overall a nice monitor. Poor documentation. So I wasn't sure if it would even work with my rig. Said to be Mac compatible - only about 75% true. Would I buy it again? I probably would. It is a nice monitor but probably overpriced for what I got. This would probably be great on a PC with the right GPU.

Note that from a geek point of view I did apply the WindowServer.plist update as noted on the net. I'm also aware of the option click on the "scaled"
button in the System Pref Display. I tried all combinations on the Thunderbolt ports with the 2 wire set-up. (same card, different cards together, different port combinations). The monitor is set up to function and is aware with the 2 wire hook-up - and has that as a selection. However the Apple software and video drivers just don't support the 5K over 2 - DP 1.2 ports.

20 people found this helpful

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B. Ala

Great. Only 4 stars (not 5) because

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

Great.

Only 4 stars (not 5) because:

1. It is outrageously expensive.
2. I can't remotely control the contrast, brightness, etc., like I can with the builtin Retina 5K monitor on my Mac.
3. There is some light bleed around the edges of the screen, slightly more than the Mac Retina 5K, mostly visible when screen is 100% black and not being viewed straight on.

But, it works great. Once the settings are manually set carefully enough, and you orient yourself to be basically in front of it, it is 98% as good as the Mac Retina 5K. Remember to plug in both channels of the DisplayPort (ThunderBolt connectors on Mac), because without dual cable (x dual channel = 4 channel) support, it will not display at full 5K resolution, and everything will look like ass crap. It's easy to forget this when you temporarily use the ThunderBolt port for something else. I have a disk drive with two ThunderBolt ports that I daisy-chained with the monitor in the last position on one ThunderBolt port, and the other ThunderBolt port goes directly to the monitor, so it still gets all the channels (I think at least) -- and it is working great. I literally do not care whether I use the Dell or the Mac native monitor for anything I do: they are equivalent. It is the same cost as a whole new Mac Retina 5K, but if you don't want to manage a whole nother computer, remember that Mac stopped letting you use another Mac (the Retina 5K anyway) as a display device; that's why I stuck with getting this monitor rather than just getting another Mac.

Here's hoping slowly some of those issues I identified will be solved in future display devices. For now, I already own it, and find it to be a beautiful display experience.

3 people found this helpful

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B. Macleod

Great image quality, questionable design

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

Dell has created a pricey but serviceable 5K monitor. I have this monitor setup with a late 2013 Mac Pro running OS 10, and Windows 10 running under bootcamp. I had to restart a couple of times when setting things up, but overall it's stable. After waking from sleep-mode the Mac does not always respond. This has necessitated keeping the Mac in constant wake mode with a screen saver. If it falls asleep when in Windows 10 a reboot is necessary. I don't believe this is Dells fault. Hopefully better Apple drivers will emerge as more of these monitors get into circulation. The screen quality is absolutely fantastic, but the package housing design is so-so. My biggest gripe is the placement of the USB and video jacks. To see what you're doing you literally have to be under the monitor and looking up. Forget plug-and-play, it's stab-and-pray. Everything is recessed into the back slot. (Check out the Amazon photos, do you see any female receptacles)? This makes for a clean look when you're setup and good to go. I personally won't be doing a lot of plugging and unplugging, so for me it's not that big of a deal. But i you need access to the back ports regularly, you're in for a frustrating time. Other than that, and the fact that it's $500 overpriced, it's fantastic when set up and in use.

Pros: Killer image quality, and at the time of this review its the only option for an external 5K solution. If you have a Mac Pro, this is it.

Cons: Expensive. Poor access to cable receptacles. Buggy behavior when coming out of sleep mode on a Mac Pro.

Verdict: Bleeding-edge solution for the Mac Pro, but it's worth it for the jaw dropping image quality.

2 people found this helpful

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TJW

Even better than Retina 5K iMac

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2016

Verified Purchase

I happened to be in the market for a new desktop machine in October of 2014, the week the original Retina 27inch 5K iMac came out. I got it. For nearly two years, it served wonderfully and unbeknownst to me, spoiled my eyes, badly. Fast forward to September 2016, at only two years, my iMac dies (my fault, don't ask). I replace it with a lightly used Mac Pro with no monitor. Here's where the disappointment begins. I tried a number of monitors, nothing could even come close to the 5K iMac my eyes had become used to. A mid priced Samsung 4K from Best Buy worked, in that, it showed a decent image on the screen, but it felt like crawling, after driving a sports car for two years. Once you've become used to a well built flush 5K display, you just can't go back. The Samsung had this horrible, awful plastic bezel that made the Mac menu bar reflect. It felt like I was in a third world country. Touch the display image on a plastic screen? My goodness, the distortion, the blur, the flimsy craptasticness of it. The 4K Dell looked good on paper, the little brother to this one, but finding one in stock was hard plus I was concerned about not having a flat/flush all glass surface. So, for double the price, I figured what the heck, I'll try the UP2715K. After a week and a half, I have zero regrets. The monitor is stunning. It is better, yes slightly better, than the 5k iMac. The build quality is fantastic. Not quite up to Apple standards, but it sure won't cramp the style of a shiny trash can (late 2013) Mac Pro driving it. The monitor came with a pair of connected mini display port to display port cables, very simple connection to two of the Mac Pro's Thunderbolt 2 outputs. (They do not need to be on separate buses by the way, I used the bottom two, which are on the same Thunderbolt 2 bus). A nice bonus: the cheesy "Acoustics by harmon/kardon" logo is absent. Many online reviews and images on some e-tailer sites depict it. Mine has no such thing, nor does the box make reference to it. There are internal speakers, they are adequate, but if you care about sound you'll likely buy external speakers with a subwoofer anyway. Until (if?) Apple releases a follow up to the Thunderbolt display, the Dell UP2715K is absolutely, positively, the way to go as for a 5K display for a Mac Pro that will please your eyes to the level (and just beyond) of the Retina 5K iMac.

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Dell Ultra HD 5K Monitor UP2715K 27-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor

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Dell Ultra HD 5K Monitor UP2715K 27-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor

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