The 16.9-pound cabinet is supported by a stand that offers 60 degrees of swivel, 26 degrees of tilt, and 4.5 inches of height adjustability, and the rear panel contains VESA mounting holes for wall mounting. There are four function buttons, a Power switch, and two 9-watt, down-firing speakers embedded in the lower bezel. At the rear of the cabinet, facing downward, are two HDMI inputs, a full-size DisplayPort input, a mini-DisplayPort input, and a full-size DisplayPort output that can be used to connect multiple monitors in a daisy-chain configuration. They share space with an audio output, two USB 3.0 downstream ports, and a USB 3.0 upstream port. The curved 34-inch monitor offers stunning immersive viewing experience to make your presentations, games and movies explode off the screen. Its sharp WQHD 3440 x 1440 resolution helps to bring your content come to life in precise colour detail, and its extensive connectivity options guarantees outstanding usability. After calibration, the Dell 3417W accuracy is excellent. The calibration was done on the 'Custom Color' picture mode, which was already good out of the box, but the calibration helped to fix the minor issues. Both the white balance dE and color dE were brought down under 1, which is under what most people would notice any irregularities. The colors are a bit more precise than before calibration, as they are now mostly on targets, as before calibration, the red, green and yellow were a bit over-saturated.

There’s some good news here, in that 3,440 x 1,440 is a relatively high-end resolution, and there’s plenty of connection options to hold you over through several video connection revisions. These traits should make the Dell relatively future-proof if you can tolerate its image quality shortcomings.There’s two 9-watt speakers in the U3417W, and honestly they’re not too bad as far as monitor speakers go. They’re still fairly worthless for gaming, so you’ll need another set of better speakers or a headset, but they’re decent enough for watching videos. The on-screen display is handled by four small buttons underneath the right side of the monitor. The buttons are easy to use, and stand out enough that I never found myself screwing up the navigation through various menus. The biggest upgrade to this year's Dell-branded S-series displays is the elevated aesthetics, giving it a look that's just as clean and almost as premium as Dell's upgraded Alienware monitors. With minimal bezels on the top and side edges and a new Platinum Silver color, the S-series looks more modern and minimalist. Creatives will appreciate the wide color support of these panels -- all three panels support 99% of the sRGB color space alongside AMD FreeSync technology. Dell’s Ultrasharp monitor line includes three-year warranties, and the U3417W is no different. Of course, that doesn’t cover accidental damage, and the U3415W sports the same warranty, so there isn’t much of an incentive there. Our Take title=More%20Expert%20Tech%20Roundups&type=articles%2Cvideos&tags=tech-roundup&count=6&columnCount=6&theme=article Calibrating a monitor is often a good way to improve its weaker points, if those are color accuracy or gamma. Unfortunately, it can’t help the Dell’s poor contrast ratio, or low maximum brightness.

The monitor also has many features that make it useful as a shared display between two sources. It has both picture-in-picture (PIP) and picture-beside-picture (PBP) modes, each with a few sub modes; for example, the PBP Aspect Ratio mode shows both inputs side by side but preserves their aspect ratio, even if their aspect ratio is different. The monitor's EDID even has a (1720x1440) entry so an input can fully cover half the screen in PBP mode.It’s not all bad. Its color accuracy is a little high comparatively, but still close enough for almost all users — only photographers and digital artists are likely to notice the difference. Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. See how we test. No. While Dell’s ultrasharp lineup, and even the older U3415W, can compete with the best monitors around, the U3417W falls short of our benchmarks in a number of key areas.