Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34-Inch QHD Ultra Wide 1440p Curved LED-Lit Monitor

Reading the reviews on Amazon and other places with regards to this, and other IPS panel monitors really gets you nervous. Its like a crap shoot as to whether you will get one with horrible backlight bleed or other issues. I wanted a large, ultrawide 1440p monitor for both business and gaming, but did not want to shell out $1,200 clams for a 1440p, 144Hz G-Sync IPS panel. So For a little over $600, and based on most of the reviews, this one looked like a good compromise.Love the way everything is packaged in the Dell box, well laid out and the screen is well protected. All the cables you could need are included (albeit a bit short). Loved the way the screen was so easy to attach to the base with no tools. Fired this baby up using a Display port to Display port cable (not the one that came in the box) and...nothing. Please note that DSP 1.2 is disabled by default in this monitor. So if your computer's GPU has DSP 1.2, you need to enable that in the monitor's on screen menus. I found that out after I switched to the Dell supplied Display port to miniDisplay port cable (which works out of the box). One minor complaint is that you have to stand on your head and have real good eyesight to get the cables all connected to the back of the monitor. But to be fair, all monitors these days seem to be like this.Anyway, either I got lucky, or this is a very very nice monitor. I do use this monitor is a fairly well lit room. But I noticed virtually NO backlight bleed on my monitor. I turned the lights down and started playing the movie, Alien, which has a lot of dark scenes, and barely, and I mean barely, could see slight light from the corners. Not enough at all to be distracting. And I will never notice it in my normal usage (which is not watching movies in the dark on a computer screen. I put up several solid color screens (from white all the way to red and navy blue) to check for evenness, and noticed no banding, blotchiness or other faults. No stuck pixels. The color calibration out of the box looks superb. The monitor comes pre-calibrated. I initially turned down the brightness a slight bit, but made no further adjustments. One issue I did have with the Dell Display software is figuring out how to add pre-sets for software. The dell comes with pre-sets (standard, multi-media, movie, game, and so forth with different brightness, contrast, etc.) for popular software based on type of application. It says to add a software program to the list to drag the application to the list. I don't know if I am dense, but I could not get that to work at all. Minor annoyance, not worth knocking down the rating.Anyway, I love this monitor so much. The colors are so rich with the ISP panel and the images are so sharp (1440p). Text even without zooming is small but very clear. It is so great to be able to open up three browser tabs and line them all up side by side, or have three business applications or windows open at once and be able to read them all very clearly. Like I said earlier, movies pop and there is a depth to them that I never have seen on my 1080p plasma TV. Gaming, especially using 3440x1440 is so awesome. I play a golf game regularly on steam. I was completely awestruck playing this game using the ultra wide screen. Note not all games support this 3440x1440 resolution, but newer games likely will. for super competitive FPS gamers, especially depending on your graphics card, you may be limited by the monitor's 60Hz refresh rate or the 5mps response time and the fact that there is no G-Sync/FreeSync. While there are some folks online claiming you can overclock this monitor to 80Hz, don't bother. While it will display at 80Hz, you will get dropped frames. This monitor was intended for 60Hz maximum refresh rate. But at $600-$700, only the most hardcore gamers will be disappointed. For the other 90% of gamers, 60Hz is plenty as long as you have a decent GPU. I am not a competitive online FPS gamer, so I am perfectly happy. And with a 5mps refresh rate, I certainly cannot detect any lag using my PS4 controller connected to the PC via Bluetooth.The curve is something that I was leery of, but now that I have it, there is no way I want to use flat screens any more. Heck there is no way that I want to use any monitor that is not an ultra-wide any more.In closing, I would say that if you have a decent computer CPU/GPU, and are not a super hardcore FPS gamer, and just want a stunning, immersive display for business, normal gaming, and even for movie watching, for $600-$700 you will feel like you made a smart buy, and saved $300-$600 over those "bleeding edge" ultrawides at the same time.So for business apps, A+, movies, A+, games B+

Wow is all I can say. I've had this for exactly 5 hours and I am stunned. For perspective, I am coming from a ~5 year old Samsung 22 inch that was great in all ways, but I started to get the itch for more real estate / higher resolution. I first tried a 28 inch that didn't work out. It just looked bad compared to my old 22 and was a minor resolution jump. Everything was just a little bigger on the screen. Also, I have a relatively old graphics card in my 3 year old computer that on paper only handles 2560x1600, so I was skeptical that it could handle this monitor's native 3440x1440. But I read online in a few sources that most cards capable of 2560x1600 can handle WQHD, so I took a leap of faith.Yes, 2560x1600 graphics cards can drive this monitor, not necessarily at gaming speeds, but for normal office use. In addition to my 3 year old graphics card handling this monitor, my 2009 Macbook Pro gets full resolution as well through the miniDP cable (included). I don't really know why, but the 6 year old MBP looked especially good on this screen, more than my 3 year old PC. My primary use for this is going to be spreadsheets and other document heavy use, so resolution and screen space are premium for me. For this purpose, this screen looks ridiculous good. First the space is equivalent to 2 of my old 22 inch screens side by side, without the annoying bezel down the middle. This allows me all kinds of flexibility on having multiple spreadsheets, emails, pdf's, browsers open all over the screen. This is a huge time saver. That is the most important, but on top of that, the screen just looks great. I read about the IPS bleeding on the corners, but it is not noticeable when in the sweet spot (vertical angle wise) in anything more than pitch black. Speaking of sweet spots, the curved screen is actually very useful for this office productivity application. I can't say that it makes much sense in large screen tv's with multiple people watching, but in a desktop with wide relative scanning of the screen for a single viewer, that makes perfect sense to me now. Anywhere you look on this super wide screen, it's always at the perfect angle. Everything on the screen itself looks incredible.Besides the most important parts I covered above, this monitor has a bunch of bonuses that I didn't realize the importance of. It comes with all of the cables you need to get up and running. The stand is very functional and robust. The gas (I think) lift is very easy to use and it swivels easily even though this thing weighs 20 lbs. It has standard Vesa mounting points for wall mounting, something I am considering doing. The bezel is thin and just looks good. The usb 3.0 hub is awesome. I normally have 2 computers hooked up sharing peripherals, so this is perfect for that. It auto switches your keyboard, mouse, headset, and other usb devices between both computers. All you need to keep from having to unplug things is to have a second usb upstream cable (only comes with one for a single computer set up). I have my PC hooked up via HDMI and USB, and my MBP is hooked up via MiniDP and USB. Thunderbolt monitors can I/O the usb peripherals and the monitor through a single port so that is a consideration if you want the ultimate cable minimalism. Another nice thing is the Dell 3 year warranty that I hear is excellent service.Yes I love this monitor, but there are a couple of downsides. No thunderbolt like the LG WQHD monitor. Only one HDMI input. 2 would be nice for hooking up a gaming console, but if I really needed to, I guess I could get an external switch or just unplug - not elegant solution. Also, the jury is still out on the durability. My Samsung is still going, so I hope this lasts as long or until technology passes it. Like all shiny new toys, I can't see why I would want to replace this in the next 5 years. Hope it lasts at least that long.[edit 7/30/16] I had the urge to update because of my high satisfaction with this monitor. I now have a PS4 hooked up with an hdmi switch in addition to the 2009 Macbook Pro (DisplayPort) and 2012 Alienware x51 (hdmi). They all work flawlessly. The PS4 does not have any content supporting the wide resolution so I get bars on the sides but I don't notice them while playing. I'm going to hook up a 2016 Dell XPS laptop through the other DisplayPort when it arrives. Besides the previously mentioned great display quality for normal productivity work and casual gaming, the thing i really like is the switching between sources as well as the switching usb hub. Now that I'll have 3 computers hooked in, I need to get a little creative with sharing usb devices. This is still one of the best productivity products I've ever purchased. Highly recommend especially for those with more than one computer.