Dell UltraSharp U3011 Pro Reviews

IPS panels are beginning to come down in price and grow in popularity (the two are related), and even though Dell's U3011 is older than some, it's one of the best performing monitors we've played with to date. We did notice a slight amount of light diffusion where a faint halo of light would appear around white squares on a black background in DisplayMate, but it was a minor issue at best and one that didn't seem to affect real-world performance. Color uniformity was splendid, white and black levels were accurate, and small sized fonts were both crisp and clear.

The Dell UltraSharp U3011 is an incredible piece of technology. Its maximum resolution is awe inspiring to see when playing games, either a fast paced FPS or more strategic games like Civilizations 5. There is just something about having your vision filled by a screen, so large you find yourself having to move your eyes in order to focus properly on action in the corners. In the strategy games you have the advantage of seeing significantly more geography that you do on a smaller screen. Something similar happens in FPS games which give you a larger viewing area, you won't be seeing behind you but you will be seeing more than your smaller screened opponent. With the H-IPS technology behind this display you can also forget your worries of the ghosting that was the bane of early generations of large screen LCDs. At no point was gameplay effected negatively by having tracers follow quick moving players or scenery.


The U3011 is initially a tough choice, but we're fairly convinced it's a good pick, if not the primary choice. For $500, users get three more inches of vertical viewing area, a larger resolution and lots more connectivity. It's simply the ideal choice for a power user in those cases where sheer flexibility and performance trump everything.

The U3011 is an all around good performer, though I find myself wishing that contrast and Delta-E were just a bit better so it was an unequivocal winner in all the right areas. That said, it does have a number of advantages over the HP ZR30w, namely an OSD, a wealth of input options, and audio pass through. Where the HP ZR30w bests the U3011 is with its excellent display arm which feels subjectively sturdier and beefier, and its slightly better color performance and input latency. Heck, maybe there's something to be said for not having that display controller SoC.

The Dell UltraSharp U3011 doesn’t come cheap, but it crams in a huge number of useful features, great image quality and low input lag. Factor in one of the more lenient pixel-fault policies on the market – one bright pixel is all you need for a replacement monitor – and the U3011 is a seriously tempting buy.