This is the Dell PremiereColor UP3221Q. It looks just like any other monitor, right? Why does it cost RM38,259 – now discounted to RM18,749!!! Well, to answer that question, we will have to be blunt – this monitor is not meant for consumers like you and me.
It’s meant for professionals that require the utmost color accuracy with zero downtime on their monitors. That is because this expensive monitor comes with a built-in colorimeter at the bottom of this monitor.
So, I was contemplating how we should review this monitor. I mean, our work here doesn’t require Hollywood level of color accuracy, and for us to do a color accuracy test on this monitor is… pretty pointless since it has a self-calibrator anyway. It’s by Calman, by the way.
However, we can highlight what sort of features the Dell UltraSharp 32 HDR PremierColor Monitor – UP3221Q has and why it is so expensive.
Okay, so unboxing and setup are as simple as ever. You can check out our previous Dell monitor reviews to know more about the installation process because it’s the same for this UP3221Q. What you need to take note of is the weight of this god damn monitor because I thought I was way out of shape to the point that I can’t lift a 32-inch monitor.
Turns out, the shipping weight of this entire monitor in the box is 24.33kg. Most of the weight comes from the monitor itself, and it’s just unwieldy to grab and hold since this is a big monitor.
The installation process is the same as any other Dell monitors that we’ve tried previously, though. that’s excellent.
Once everything is set up, we can see the IO ports – we have a bunch of them here.
- AC power connector
- Stand lock feature
- 2x HDMI
- 1x DisplayPort
- Audio-Line out
- Thunderbolt 3 Upstream
- Thunderbolt 3 Downstream
- SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps downstream port
- External Colorimeter port
Okay, so the number of ports is amazing but remember, this monitor is for professionals. The standard HDMI and DisplayPort here are self-explanatory of course, but the Thunderbolt 3 upstream and downstream ports are meant for daisy-chaining a few of these monitors together.
You connect the Thunderbolt cable from your computer to the monitor’s upstream port, then connect another Thunderbolt cable from the downstream port into the second monitor’s upstream port, and so on.
So, how is it like to actually use this monitor? Well, as we mentioned earlier, this monitor’s value comes from the color accuracy and the built-in colorimeter. To make full use of it, this monitor also comes with very advanced firmware.
We’ve shown all the OSD menu settings in the video and it’s difficult to be shown in the article, so watch our video instead.
There are a few notable highlights, though. Because this is a professional monitor, the brightness is properly calibrated and actually shows up as cd/m2 – which is actually nits – instead of the usual brightness %.
But what’s important here is the self-calibration feature. The calibrator that is built into the monitor is located at the bottom part here, and it will pop itself out like a sprinkler and calibrate the monitor for you.
Because of how monitors tend to lose their color accuracy as we’re using it, the OSD menu has a feature to make it automatically calibrate itself. We can set it to calibrate automatically every 200 hours usage or after every quarter.
We can also schedule it to calibrate regularly – for example at 2am when (supposedly) no one is using the monitor so that we can come into the studio in the morning, knowing that the calibration is done and the color is accurate.
We can even select what color profile the monitor should calibrate for! And we can also select how fast the calibration process should be, as shorter calibration time is mostly not as accurate as a slow one.
Should you buy the Dell UltraSharp PremiereColor UP3221Q?
This is not an easy question to answer. I’m not in any position to make comments about this monitor since this monitor is literally overkill for our use case anyway. If you watch this video until this point, then I congratulate you for watching a video about a monitor that is a price of a car.
But, for big businesses that require the best color accuracy out of a monitor – this is a worthy investment.
