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Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor

What'south 27 inches across and has almost twice the pixel count of your puny 4K monitor? Dell'due south UltraSharp 5K monitor, that'southward what. With a resolution of 5120×2880, the 27-inch monster has seven times every bit many pixels equally your 1080p monitor, or 4 times every bit many as your 2560×1440 (1440p) monitor. It has a PPI of 218, which puts it on most par with the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (2880×1800). When it goes on sale effectually Christmas time — for $2500 — it will finally replace IBM's mythical 13-twelvemonth-quondam T220/T221 as the highest-res desktop monitor.

Updated @ 14:45, Oct 16: Apple has announced a 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display. Yous get a 5K display and a complete computer… for $2,500.

The Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor, to requite its full name, is, unsurprisingly, a workstation-class piece of hardware. Information technology has all the usual trappings of a professional person monitor, such as Dell PremierColor calibration, and an anti-smudge/anti-reflective coating. There'due south six (!) USB ports and a media card reader, too. Curiously at that place'southward also two integrated 16W Harmon Kardon speakers for some reason — presumably considering Dell thought you should get a little actress if y'all spend $2500 on a monitor.

Read our featured story: No, TV makers, 4K and UHD are not the same affair

At 5120×2880, Dell's new monitor has a total pixel count of 14.seven meg (14,745,600 to be exact). A 4K monitor or Tv set, by comparison, clocks in at just 3840×2160 – 8.iii one thousand thousand pixels. Your puny 1080p monitor or smartphone has just 2 million pixels. 5120×2890 at 27 inches works out at 218 PPI — comparable to high-res laptops such as the Asus Zenbook or Apple Retina MBP, but lower than the 300+ PPI of modern tablets and smartphones. Most importantly, though, 218 PPI is more than than double your electric current 22- or 24-inch desktop monitor, which is probably sitting at around 100 PPI.

Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor, side, portrait mode

Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra Hard disk 5K monitor, side, portrait mode

Equally for how Dell got to 5K when everyone else is just starting to hit 4K, we have to do a footling guesswork. Every bit far as we're aware, no 1 is actually making 5120×2880 panels, especially not at 27 inches diagonal– and then what nosotros're probably looking at is two 2560×2880 panels squished together as a "tiled display." This is the same arroyo that nosotros've seen with some 4K monitors, which utilise 2 1920×2160 panels rather than a single 3840×2160 unit. In the case of Dell'southward 5K monitor, it is probably driven via 2 DisplayPort 1.2 connectors with Multi-Stream Transport (MST).

Read: Nvidia quadruples brandish resolution past stacking 2 cheap LCD panels on top of each other

IBM T221 monitor

The 22-inch IBM T221 3840×2400 LCD monitor, circa 2003. Merely at present, 11 years later, will there finally be another desktop monitor with comparable resolution.

If Dell's UltraSharp 27 Ultra Hard disk 5K monitor actually is a tiled display, then that just reaffirms that is for professional users who need as much resolution as possible — and non for gamers. With 2880 vertical pixels, the Dell 5K screen volition be amazing for looking at entire websites or folio layouts without having to zoom or whorl. 5120×2880 is close to the resolution of pinnacle-end DSLRs, also. I'm sure some gamers will exist tempted to pick one upwards, just because the poor state of 4K gaming — both in terms of raw GPU grunt and software support — and the fact that the Dell 5K monitor has most twice the number of pixels, y'all amend have one hell of a rig. Two Radeon R9 295X2s ought to practise information technology.

The Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra Hard disk 5K monitor should exist out in time for Christmas, priced at $2500. Yep, it seems those loftier-res desktop monitors, which take been surprisingly absent-minded for so many years, are finally coming. If yous'll excuse me, I'm going to go and start writing a letter to Santa.