Dell 240Hz Gaming Monitor 24.5 Inch Full HD Monitor with IPS Technology, Antiglare Screen, Dark Metallic Grey - S2522HG

First off - this monitor is amazing. BUT when I plugged it in via HDMI from my Lenovo Thinkpad the resolution was unbearable. This is the same problem with any UWS HD monitor especially if you are using it for work (which I am). I searched countless articles and videos on how to resolve and nothing worked but I figured out the solution so Im saving others my pain. First my laptop is corp issued, under powered and locked down to the point that I cant download .exe drivers. To fix the problem I bought a Startech.com Display port adaptor which has a small GPU installed in it to increase the resolution (about $100 on Amazon). Out of the box the Startech solved the problem but I did have to install the Display port driver from Displayport.com, and thankfully display port offers 3 different formats for the driver including .MSI which bypassed my .exe block on my corp computer. The monitor works perfectly and is totally game changing. So if you are stuck trying to drive it with an old or underpowered laptop get yourself the adaptor - was literally plug and play out of the box with the driver install and the monitor is perfect.

I had a 32 monitor which after three years went south. I wont name the manufacturer because the monitor was very good and I enjoyed the sharp text, etc., and I chalked most of the going south to our power grid. I retrieved my 27 ooolder (not a misspelling) monitor and used that monitor for 5-6 months. I finally decided that my old eyes deserved something better so I started looking for monitors From previous research I know that by and large Dell monitors are very good. I settled on this monitor and am not sorry at all. The text is very very sharp, photos (that Ive worked on - graphic designer) are very true to the original and in a couple of cases better and thats without any calibration. Im not a gamer and this monitor is probably wasted on me but . . . . . . I did give it 5 stars for gaming and as stated, Im not a gamer so take that into consideration. I kind of wanted a curved monitor (reason totally unknown except I thought they looked cool) and am not disappointed. I have to admit I think the curved monitor is a little over rated but then again Im using it 95% for graphic design work. Recommend? Yes.

I bought this monitor to replace 2 10 year old 21 1080 dpi monitors. I was concerned there wouldnt be enough real estate on the 34 curved monitor. I had nothing to worry about. The images displayed were smaller due to the improved resolution but they were so crisp they were easier to see. I just finished a 10 hour day staring into this monitor and suffered no eyestrain. I didnt have to turn my head as much or as often to see the information, resulting in no neck strain either. I use this monitor for business, not for gaming.

I had it for about a month so far OK

Replacing a 42-inch 2K Fire TV that I used as monitor. I am not really a gamer, mostly I use it for work. So far, I regret the decision and its not because of any issue with the monitor (maybe one ... more on that later). I thought the Ultrawide would allow me to work more effectively .... however, its much smaller than to old TV. I used to be able to work without my readers. The type face on this is so small, I need to wear readers. If I expand the font, then the lack of space become apparent. It appears to be a nice piece of equipment, but the simple fact is that did not know what I was buying in to. The only issue, this is an ultra0wide and very modern. I work from home and use my companys Dell laptop. The driver loaded is for generic monitors and it does not recognize the wide aspect. Getting the driver has been a bit of a pain. It will happen but something to think about if you are going this route. In any case I own it now and need to make it work. Will update here as I go forward.

This is my first curved monitor and I like it. I dont use it for games, but it works great for my everyday work station.

first of all i wanted a ultrawide because i play games watch youtube and browse web. i thought instead of having multiple monitors it would be more simple to just have one wide monitor for multiple tabs open. i mean i literally could play a game on one side of the screen and watch twitch on the other. at the same time! here’s the thing tho: after a while i realized that it is much more enjoyable and functional to just have 2 monitors. one on the side that can have a tab open to look back to. in all honestly it was cool for first couple weeks but after a while it became very cumbersome to have such a wide screen. and also games don’t quite run correctly when they are in a window mode, at least for me it seems my framerate was suffering and vrr suffered and would glitch like bad. i have a nvidia 3080 btw. i read on reviews that this monitor doesn’t work well with gsync and honestly it doesn’t tbh i saw a lot of flickering ngl. i know it could be on me not having setting perfect but if ur someone who plug n play could b an issue for u too… especially when playing games windowed ok so going off that topic, basically when i first unboxed this monster of a monitor i was coming from a 24” 60hz 1080 dell glossy screen finish monitor. and i was blown away. just putting this screen in front of you without even turning it on is really cool. the curve and ultra wide size is no joke. it’s like putting vr goggles on for first time. it genuinely feels like ur driving a race car simulation set up where u are fully immersed. now i wanna say as cool as this is. after the first couple weeks it genuinely became more of a cumbersome aspect than a cool one. i mean u remember getting your first console or your first car and after a few weeks instead of being happy u own it every day u complain about little things or just get used to it? ya everything is like that but this is even further to where i considered returning it. i mean i couldn’t tell why i didn’t like it but looking back now i realize it’s that when we use our eyes to see things most of the time we keep our eyes straight and move our head. we aren’t chameleons where we move our eyes all around. ik this sounds funny but it’s true. i found that even tho i had a huge wide screen i never really saw it. our peripheral vision is genuine but it’s not good enough for this use case. i found that instead of enjoying the wider screen. i was more unsatisfied with the lack of height of the screen, because hear me out: when our eyes are straight forward we are going to see the top and bottom of the screen more than the left and right side. so i started wishing that i actually had a taller screen. now i took it upon myself to do research and i found a website that compares screen sizes. it turns out that a 34” 21:9 ultrawide monitor is the exact same height of screen as a 27” 16:9 normal size monitor. now you might not be able to understand what i’m saying but it’s like taking a medium size monitor such as 27” and all u do is pull the sides out. it basically means that the ratio is no longer balanced. although the immersion was great with the curved wide screen. i started thinking it would be much more enjoyable to have a curved “normal” screen such as a 32” 16:9 or even a 27” 16:9. now when i compared a 32” 16:9 monitor to a 27” 16:9 and 34” 21:9 on the website, it turns out a 16:9 32” is taller in height screen wise than both of the other two, while the horizontal length is in between those 2. again, a 27” 16:9 and 34 21:9 monitor have the exact same screen height. just different width. so what i’m getting to is that if you want a “big immersive experience”... i do not recommend buying a 34” 21:9 monitor. i just don’t. i recommend buying a 16:9 monitor. either get a curved 27” 16:9 or a curved OR flat 32” (or bigger...) now i want to talk about gaming. i came from 1080p 60hz 24” dell monitor so i thought i would be way better at my favorite games like fortnite and rocket league and etc. but the weirdest thing was that somehow i was worse. i finally realized why. it’s because when you have such a big screen you can’t actually see everything that’s shown on the screen at once. ironically the small size of the 24 was making me play competitive games better. go figure. ya sure the immersion of the 34 was great. i mean playing fortnite in ultrawide for first time was like logan paul putting his color blind glasses on for the first time. i was questioning my entire life, “how have i never tried this before?”, i kept asking myself. now as enjoyable as this was, it was equally and extensively more impractical. think of it this way: the reason i wanted ultrawide for gaming was not just immersion for playing story games like the witcher or gta or whatever. no, i wanted it for a competitive advantage. quite frankly i wanted to “cheat”. when u have more horizontal space on a screen it means u can literally see more of the game around you. now i thought this would help me, obviously. i thought that when i was behind a wall in fortnite or whatever game, that i could peak around the corner without the enemy seeing me and i could basically just screen peak everywhere. well let me just keep it real, it doesn’t actually help you in any way. imagine in a 15 minute match i may peak around a corner in fortnite like 1 or 2 times, i just never actually found myself using this “feature”. and when i did i didn’t think it actually resulted in me “winning the fight” or having a real advantage. but not just that. i actually found it may diminish my skill and experience. for example, i found myself being more lazy in the game. it required less input from me to look around. but this is not smart because instead of having good spacial awareness and flicking your mouse side by side to see what’s to your left and right i could see it all at the same time. but what this means is that you’re essentially multi tasking. and we should all know by now multi tasking is essentially doing multiple tasks with little to no success. i was overwhelmed with on screen input and found myself playing worse somehow. i realize now that it’s better to have a smaller screen to be able to focus on the whole screen at one time (instead of a small portion of a big screen) so that you can concentrate much better and therefor execute tasks to fruition even though it might not look as cool or immersive. now i know it’s better to swipe your view point by way of your mouse or joystick than with your head/eyes. the amount of time it takes to look to the left or right of screen with your head or eyes is longer and more cumbersome than if u had a smaller 16:9 screen and just moved your mouse (or controller) to the left or right to see what’s next to you. now ik i might sound crazy or i’m making a stretch but that is genuinely my thoughts on why i play worse. (even with higher refresh rate 144hz) even after i got my aw2721d and gigabyte m27x 1440p 27” 240hz monitor, i realized that i play a little better and am more focused on a 24” size because of the small size. now i’m not saying it’s worth going 1080p just to have a small screen. let’s be real 1440p is a lot better for story games battle royals n desktop use so u might as well be at 27 and get used to the size. but i mean still the smaller the better. now imagine going 34” now the next reasons why i loved this monitor were also it’s biggest downfall. when compared to my ips 24” 60hz 1080p monitor, i was impressed, to say least, of the black levels. just when i had spotify open on my desktop the black parts of the tab were actually so black it looked like a void and when i moved the spotify tab over to the ips panel all i could see is grey black. this va panel ruined standard ips for me lol. it really made a difference back to back. not just a little better but it made it more enjoyable to just use the pc. i loved it. and even though va panels supposedly don’t “pop” the same as ips as far as colors i would say i almost think it’s possible they pop more because of the sheer level of contrast. a red color might be more red on a ips. but compared to light grey black levels, a bright red looks meh. whereas compared to deep black levels, a medium red would look bright and punchy, do you understand at all? and also i’d like to mention. The colors also looked really good. i didn’t notice it was “va” or anything like that. i wouldn’t complain about the colors of this va once i had the right settings on it. i think va blacks are worth it. but here’s the problem. now va has bad viewing angles right? and i didn’t know exactly what it meant till i tried it. when ips panel is not exactly on center with your vision what happens is that u see ips glow or backlight bleed where basically the dark parts of the corners become a lot lighter when viewing from sides. this is annoying but it doesn’t affect the actual colors. now if you don’t view a va panel from directly head on perfect center it’s the actual colors that are affected. it’s literally like they got washed out like chalk on the sidewalk. i can’t stress enough how big of an impact this makes. on ips it’s a gripe, an annoyance, whereas on va it’s a down right issue, it’s a legitimate deal breaker. and i mean that. now you might think, well why wouldn’t i be looking straight at my screen? if i’m looking the correct way the va panel won’t matter. i’m sorry but even i was corrected here. you see because the monitor is not small like 24 inches the edges become off axis from your straight line of sight. now this is why va panels are curved. so that it corrects the line of vision to go straight to your eyes. now here’s the good and bad. yea it does work and it pushes the edges to be straight to your eyes from the middle of screen to the very side. and yeah it makes a immersive cockpit feel. but here’s the downside. you not only have to be looking from straight on, you have to be an exact distance away from the monitor for there to be no off axis viewing of the corners. now what does this mean? basically this monitor has a curve. some are 1000 some are 1500 this is 1800. now u might think it’s smart it’s not as crazy of a curve of 1000 but here’s the problem. i found that i had to sit back away from the monitor from a distance farther than i actually wanted to. when you are looking at the monitor from close up it really surrounds you and gives a great feeling of being in a cockpit or a simulation right?. well once u back up a foot or two what happens is now you see the top and bottom of the screen. now ur looking at a wide screen instead of looking into a wide screen. and it just doesn’t work. it diminishes the whole experience. and hear me out, this is where the vertical height of the screen really stands out as a weak point. it’s just not tall enough. it’s not a good ratio and i’m sorry to ultrawide lovers out there. but if you want an ultrawide 21:9 monitor this means to me that you HAVE to go ips. (so that you can sit in close to the monitor) i’m serious. the viewing angles are a deal breaker here. i found myself playing chill fun games even like age of empires but kept being disappointed and distracted by how all sides of the screen had these bland and dead colors. imagine red being brown. that’s what it’s like and it RUINS the ultrawide. i mean why on earth are you buying a 21:9 screen so that you can have more horizontal screen, and then that extra screen is rendered useless and cumbersome because it’s washed out because you want to sit closer to be immersed into the screen? sure you can sit farther back or put it on a monitor arm and keep it far away… but for me to essentially be strapped into one exact seating position feels really limiting. it feels like you’re just not getting what u paid for, it sucks quite frankly. i’m sorry. now i haven’t tried them yet, but i think something like a 1000r curve 32” or 27” 16:9 for a VA panel could actually work. this is because the sides won’t. e as wide as the 21:9 and it is chore strongly curved inward for you to be able to sit closer. but again, i haven’t tried it so i can’t say. now also let me get to next point. those deep black level lovers out there such as myself there is hope for us. now i recently got two 1440p 240hz ips 27” monitors from gigabyte and alienware. and no joke as much as i like them, as good as they are, they’re terrible grey level blacks and ips glow and ips back light bleed ruin these displays. now i don’t wanna be super gloomy but it’s a genuine issue. and i don’t hear enough people talk about it. reviews online basically dismiss it as just a “side affect” of ips technology. and u know what. we don’t have to accept it. the same way we don’t HAVE to accept matte screen finishes. so even tho the va black levels made a great picture quality, the sheer size of the sides of the monitor became cumbersome, not only for every day use of browsing the web but of playing games. i felt like it took up too much of the desk for just casual browsing and then when i wanted to take advantage during games it just made me play worse and i noticed the corner colors washed out a lot. so i would think regularly about how i’d rather have a taller display and a secondary monitor on the side. i also started thinking about 4k because i could notice the pixel density a lot on this 1440p display. on a 34” screen 1440p is just not enough. so over time i started to dislike the dell 34” 21:9 more and more and then one day fate took it’s turn. all jokes aside, there was an earthquake where i live.a very strong one that shook everything in the whole house. the earthquake was genuinely so strong it shook and knocked over my dell 34” uktrawide monitor…. idk what it hit but it hit something… and now half the screen is literally shattered. not physically but internally somehow. when i turn the screen on it has red and green lines going horizontally across the screen and 1/4 the left side of the screen is cut off and amd turned to static like an old tv lol. so this really was a blessing and a curse. i lost $400 :( but it also gave me an excuse to get a new monitor.. which i was excited for! now here’s my recommendations for everyone reading: if u swear by 21:9 ultrawide and u don’t really care what i say or u want to try it for yourself. go for it. really go for it. but i strongly encourage you not to get this one. please just get an ips ultrawide. or a va with a stronger curve. because this screen is so wide the viewing angle issue is much more of an issue than a smaller screen and this 1800r curve isn’t strong enough to fix it. maybe a 1500r curve would be enough but i haven’t tested it, like on the new coolermaster 34” ultrawide VA has 1500r curve but honestly i’d guess it’s probably pretty similar. i’d go ips for 21:9 so u can really sit in your display. now i personally wouldn’t even recommend that because i think you’re better off getting a curved 27 or 32” 16:9 monitor for immersion but that’s just me. or u can get a big flat display like the 40” innocn, however it’s only 1440p and let’s be honest at 32” or above you really do need 4k. and to that you should probably have a rtx 3080 if u want to run 4k 144hz. so u can go 4k if u play easy to run games or mostly use your monitor for media consumption. (unless u have an expensive graphics card go crazy) (but also u can always run a 4k monitor on 1440p for games). so pick what u want, live your life king. now if u are like me. u play games u watch movies. even for spotify lol, u know deep blacks are worth it… but u don’t know what size to get? i would recommend u look at mini led ips. now oled is out there and va is out there. but from what i’ve researched 2023 is the year for mini led. there is innocn 4k 27 and 32 m2v. they will give u black levels and ips quality. there is cooler master gp27q which will give u mini led 1440p 27 ips and gp27u gives you 4k 27 ips. and then ktc has a 27” 1440p va and 4k ips 27” monitor. the ktc 27” 4k mini led is the same one that’s in coolermaster gp27u. ok now i wanna say if u only care about gaming. like u wanna have best advantage in cod or fortnite or valorant go with a 24” and at that point u have to stick with 1080p but it’s worth it. u can get the zowie 2566 360hz or the 2546 240hz or acer nitro 390hz or even a viewsonic 31 something 240hz is really good for backlight strobing and u will play best on those. but if u want what i want and that’s more height than a 27” u have only one choice. 32”. it’s big. i know it’s a lot. but go 32” and go 4k. go mini led. ips 144hz and u can’t go wrong. i know it’s a lot of money. but innocn 32 m2v is $850 on amazon right now. that’s what i went with. i haven’t received it yet. but i’m genuinely confident it’s the answer. now if money is an issue… if u don’t have $900. if u have $500 go with a 1440p 27” monitor. don’t bother with 240hz. just get a curved va or get a mini led for the black levels. the coolermaster gp27q is $500 and will give u an insane hdr experience. the ktc is $500 and va so i would be weary of it for the viewing angles. now if u only have like $300. u can get the viewsonic 240hz ips or the acer nitro 390hz ips for between $250-350. and if u want ultrawide go for the va coolermaster 34 if the 1500r curve works better or just get an lg ips. anyways i know it’s long review and i’ve never done it before but i wanted to warn u. even as cool as ultrawide is. it’s just not worth it. get your “dream” monitor. and then put a cheap 24” 1080p monitor next to it. i mean seriously. having 2 is better than 1, i promise. honestly what i could recommend is u could even get a gorgeous display like a 1440p 27” mini led for $500 for story games and youtube/movies as your main, and then get a 24” 1080p 240-360hz for $300 for your second which can obliterate first person shooters and you would have the ultimate setup. i just got the 32” 4k innocn m2v because after using an ultrawide 1440p 144hz dell 21:9 34” i was so impressed by how massive it was, i fell in love. but then i fell out of love because of the quirks and impracticality the 21:9 format presented. but then after trying to switch to 27” 1440p 240hz ips for getting the “most competitive edge” because i play games i’m not the best but i enjoy winning and i wanted to have most smooth experience and best chance to win. but after thoroughly testing 240hz vs 144hz i swear to you there is a very hard time telling any difference. if i was shroud i would need 240. but i’m not and never will be. i would rather get deep inky blacks and better picture quality to enjoy my monitor when i’m not playing games 50% time. and after using 27” i felt like it was harder to be as competitive in games as my 24”. even tho the 24” is only 60hz being able to get right up to screen and still see every part of screen helps a lot for vision and reaction. and 27” felt like i was goldilocks didnt fit quite right. it is nice don’t get me wrong. it’s bigger than 24 and it’s 1440p but i felt like i am missing something. i can never quite get the viewing distance right. its not mini led and it’s either too far away and looks small or it’s up to my face and i can’t see corners of screen and they get washed out from ips glow. so this leads to what i believe to be the cure to my disease. if i go 4k 32” 16:9 144hz. i will get the added height of screen over both 27 and 34 21:9 sizes which i wanted. and i won’t have to be looking side to side and it will have 138ppi clarity because of the 4k while maintaining 144hz and i can then lay back in my bed and watch movies and youtube because it’s basically a tv at 32 inches. idk if you guys forgot but 32” used to be a normal size for tvs btw. and with the mini led tech it is darker than a va panel. i mean i hope i’m not wrong once i get this thing in the mail. but i hope i could help steer u guys in a better direction. peace and love your best self, j

I was forced to buy another monitor after my 160HZ HP decided it was time to go after 5 years of hard use and this was the perfect replacement. the IPS panel is a game changer when you want to do literally anything on it other than gaming. the screen brightness is solid and the colors are very good. If you have an Nvidia graphics card do some color correction with the built in software to get the best results out of this monitor. Cheers!

so far no dead pixels and its good for me at least

After Burn-in streaking wasnt a problem on my monitor. However the 144hz refresh rate at full res and HDR needs displayport. Ive got it connected to a laptop with only HDMI out. The monitor is able to run it at 100hz and with HDR well.