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Jan 09, 2024

Dell UltraSharp 43 4K USB

The Dell UltraSharp 43 4K USB-C Monitor (U4320Q) is a $969.99 productivity

The Dell UltraSharp 43 4K USB-C Monitor (U4320Q) is a $969.99 productivity monitor that takes a more classic form than some of its compatriots. While many large-screen monitors (that is, ones bigger than 40 inches) for business or gaming have ultra-wide or super-wide curved panels, the U4320Q's screen is flat, in an ordinary 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. This allows you to display more of a document vertically, or more spreadsheet rows, than screens with a wider format. Its form may be traditional, but nothing is stodgy about its wealth of ports, including a USB-C connection that can charge a laptop, and its support for displaying multiple video sources in discrete windows onscreen at the same time. It's a fine large-screen pick for business power users.

The U4320Q's 42.5-inch screen (measured diagonally) employs in-plane switching (IPS) technology and has a UHD (aka 4K) native resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 pixels. Its pixel density of 103 pixels per inch (ppi) is fine for typical office use. And while that kind of measure is okay for casual photo or video editing, you will want to get a display with a higher pixel density for editing detailed graphics or photos.

You will need a wide desk or table to hold the U4320Q. Including its stand, it measures 25.8 by 38.1 by 9.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 38.8 pounds. The stand has some modest ergonomic features: You can raise the screen up to 2.4 inches, swivel 40 degrees in either direction, and tilt 5 degrees toward you or 10 degrees away. If you prefer to wall-mount the Dell U4320Q, holes in back can take a VESA bracket (not included).

Like many of today's midrange and upper-echelon business monitors, the U4320Q has no lack of ports. We'll start with USB: It has one upstream USB-C port, which allows for data and video transfer in DisplayPort over USB-C alternate mode and can provide up to 90 watts of USB power delivery, letting you power and/or charge a laptop that's connected to it. There's also a downstream USB Type-C port and USB Type-A ports for connecting a mouse, a keyboard, an external hard drive, or other peripherals.

The lack of a pivot mount in the stand makes most of the ports—downward-facing in back—hard to reach, though one USB-C and one USB-A port are located on the monitor's side for easy access. You would be advised to attach HDMI or DisplayPort cables before you move the U4320Q into location; it will be a lot harder to plug them in when the monitor is upright and in place.

Rounding out the connectivity picture are HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 inputs (two of each), and a 3.5mm headphone jack. About the only port commonly found on what have come to be known as docking-station or USB-hub monitors is an RJ-45 Ethernet jack. Unless your connected laptop itself has an Ethernet jack, you'll have to make do with its Wi-Fi for connectivity. This monitor won't help you there, though some other models will.

With Dell Display Manager software (a free download), you can tile and view programs in both preset and custom layouts, so you can multitask to your heart's content. The software supports input from up to four different PCs on the different display inputs, so you could, say, monitor a render task on another PC while working on one or more other computers without screen-switching. Alternately, you could mirror your laptop's screen in a window on the U4320Q while working on your desktop PC. The extra vertical space compared with an ultra-wide monitor makes it easy to arrange windows both horizontally and vertically.

You navigate the U4320Q's onscreen display (OSD) menu system via a row of four small function buttons on the bottom of the monitor near the right-hand edge. Alas, they're not as convenient as the mini-joystick controllers of the Dell UltraSharp 27 4K USB-C Hub Monitor (U2723QE) and many other recent business monitors.

I tested the U4320Q's brightness, contrast ratio, and color accuracy using our standard test gear: a Klein K-10A(Opens in a new window) colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G(Opens in a new window) pattern generator, and Portrait Displays' CalMAN 5(Opens in a new window) calibration software.

Dell rates the monitor's luminance at 350 nits (candelas per square meter), and it fell a bit short of that—297 nits—in my testing. That's still bright enough for most any business use—including photo and video editing—as well as gaming, provided that you're not using the U4320Q in a room that's flooded with ambient light. The display also did better than its rated 1,000:1 contrast ratio, with a measured score of 1,187:1. (See how we test monitors.)

According to Dell, the U4320Q covers 96% of the sRGB color space. In my tests using the default standard mode, it outdid that, essentially covering the full space (see the image above). The panel also covered 82.7% of DCI-P3, a color space geared to digital video, as well as 82% of the wider Adobe RGB gamut popular for preparing photos for printing. These numbers are fine for what the panel is, but it cements it as more of a productivity model than a color-expert one for creative pros.

In the subjective, ad-hoc portion of our testing, we view a select group of test-standard photos and video clips. Stills looked sharp, with accurate colors and good detail in both light and dark areas. Videos also looked great, with vivid colors and good retention of detail in a variety of scenes.

The U4320Q is the largest-screen productivity monitor that we have reviewed in several years. Before the pandemic, we had reviewed several high-quality 49-inch business monitors, the Dell UltraSharp 49 Curved Monitor (U4919DW), the LG 49WL95C-W, and the Philips Brilliance 499P9H—the latter two are PCMag Editors' Choice picks, and all three are ultra-wide, curved panels. They are good for viewing documents like many-column spreadsheets at a glance, or for parking palettes of tools off to the side of your main working window.

The Dell UltraSharp 43 4K USB-C Monitor (U4320Q), though, offers a traditional, wide-screen alternative, just in XXL size. Whether you go for it, or one of the ultra-wide models, is largely a matter of business need and personal preference. But if you have the desk and the workload to justify the big view, the U4320Q gives you a TV-size IPS panel with full sRGB color coverage and an abundance of ports.

Dell's big, bold UltraSharp 43 4K USB-C Monitor (U4320Q) packs a large 4K panel in standard widescreen format, letting you tile windows both vertically and horizontally—even from more than one computer.

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