Update: Dell Australia has advised that there's been a price revision on the U3011, and will now be sold at AU$1899. The unit should be on sale from September 21.
The oldest of Dell's monitors, its 30-inch 3008WFP, has finally been given an upgrade, and it's a doozy.
Taking a page out of the U2711's rather accomplished book, the U3011 arrives with a colour calibration factory report. Out of the box, Dell guarantees average Delta E of less than five — this is quite impressive for factory calibration. While a Delta E of three is generally considered the point where there's a perceptible shift in colour, compared to most consumer monitors this is impressive. Just like the U2711, it offers control of offset, gain and hue (which includes CMY colours) for more accurate calibrating. To help this along, it has a true 10-bit panel and 12-bit LUT — the very same panel, we're told, as is in HP's ZR30w.
Make no bones about it, at AU$1899 the U3011 is aimed squarely at the ZR30w, and consequently those who need better colours than the norm. Everyone else will likely be much happier with the U2711 — sure it loses three inches and 409,600 pixels (and according to the specs sheet we have, three per cent of the AdobeRGB gamut), but it also keeps over AU$1000 more in your pocket.
A few more things have changed between the 3008WFP and the U3011. Gone is the CF card reader, the composite and S-Video inputs. An additional HDMI port is included for a total of two, and of course the U3011 now adopts Dell's universal black plastic look, along with the touch-sensitive buttons. The anti-glare coating is definitely a lot less "twinkly", although the twinkle certainly isn't gone.
Good news for those who hate waiting: the screen now only takes three seconds to wake up from sleep (compared to the 3008WFP's seven), and input switching seems to have been given a kick too. A brief test showed that while both the 3008WFP and U3011 took six seconds to switch from HDMI to DVI (we're assuming part of this is a Windows delay), going the other way took only two seconds on the U3011, versus seven on the 3008WFP.
Let's take a deeper look at this long-awaited monster monitor.
Want a unique looking monitor? Too bad, all the Dells now look pretty much the same. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Specs at a glance
| Size | 30 inches |
|---|---|
| Resolution | 2560x1600 |
| Aspect ratio | 16:10 |
| Pixel pitch | 0.252 |
| Panel technology | IPS |
| Backlight | CCFL |
| Viewing angles (10:1 contrast) |
H: 178° V: 178° |
| Response time | 7ms G2G |
| Max vertical refresh | 60Hz |
| Connections | 2x DVI, 2x HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, component, soundbar power, 3x 3.5mm line out for surround sound, 4x USB, xD/SD/MS/MMC card reader |
| Accessories | DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, USB upstream, power cables |
Stand and ergonomics
Dell's stand design is now pretty much uniform, the only difference being that larger models like the U2711 and U3011 don't have the capability to pivot 90° into portrait mode. It's still a great stand though, with rack and pinion style height adjustment, tilt and swivel, and a hole through the neck for cable management. As with the U2711 though, you won't be able to remove the panel from the stand unless you have a torx driver. While we do wish that it was easily removable like the U2410, we'd imagine for a panel of this size the extra support the screws provide are needed.
The Dell stand is great, but the sheer size of the monitor means the 90° pivot function has been removed. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Connections
Some legacy inputs are now gone. From left to right: power, 3.5mm 5.1 sound, DisplayPort, two DVI ports, VGA, two HDMI ports, component, USB upstream and two USB ports. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Two more USB ports, and an xD/SD/MMC/MS card reader. Those hoping for CF to make a return will be disappointed. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Buttons and on-screen display (OSD)
The U3011 features a lit mechanical power button at the bottom right, and a proximity sensitive strip above this. Bring the hand near and the bottom button lights up, giving you a perfect in-the-dark interface without having distracting lights all the time. Once you touch this button, the OSD appears on screen, the other buttons light up and are labelled in a context sensitive fashion on screen.
Annoyingly by default all these buttons emit a beeping sound when pressed, which can thankfully be turned off.
Only the power button stays permanently lit. The bottom button only lights up when a hand is near, and touching it will bring up a menu, lighting the other buttons and giving contextually relevant options. It also makes it an excellent interface to use in the dark. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Like the chassis design, Dell has very much settled on the OSD design. This isn't a bad thing — it's still the best consumer OSD we've seen. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Dell's cavalcade of options is carried over to the U3011, offering the usual RGB/YPbPr colour space; brightness and contrast; hue, gain, saturation and offset controls. The "Video" and "Graphics" modes have been removed, with all the presets now available under the one mode menu. Dell offers Standard, Multimedia (which has a red cast), Game (green cast), Movie, Warm, Cool, Adobe RGB, sRGB, xv Mode and Custom Color as preset options.
Scaling options are complete too, offering fill, 16:9, 4:3, aspect and 1:1 scaling modes. Sharpness is available on digital inputs, and picture by picture is there too. Here behaviour has changed a bit — for your source you can only choose HDMI 1, HDMI 2 or component, the secondary picture being provided off any of the other inputs. It's nice to finally be able to have HDMI and DVI side by side, but those hoping for DVI side by side with another DVI connection will be disappointed.
The U3011 like the U2711 before it has support for six-axial colour calibration (RGBCMY) under the hue and saturation settings, which combined with the gain and offset controls should allow people to screw down their colour calibrations even further than the usual.
While we were unable to find a service menu, even if one exists it is likely it won't be needed — all the options most will require are already exposed in the OSD.
Performance
Lagom.nl LCD tests
After calibrating to a target brightness of 140cd/m² with an X-Rite i1Display 2, and calibrating with HCFR, the U3011 was run through the Lagom.nl LCD tests.
| Image tests | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contrast | Sharpness | Gamma | Black level | White saturation | Gradient | |||||
| Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Slight banding/purple discolouration in the darker end of the scale | |||||
| Inversion pixel walk tests | ||||||||||
| Test 1 | Test 2a | Test 2b | Test 3 | Test 4a | Test 4b | Test 5 | Test 6a | Test 6b | Test 7a | Test 7b |
| Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass | Pass |
Interestingly, our review model of the U3011 performed a little worse in the gradient test than the U2711; however, it gains the notable distinction of being the only monitor we've seen to pass all pixel walk tests. Most fail between one and four.
Input lag
Measured against a Samsung SyncMaster 975p CRT, and using a Canon 40D set to a shutter speed of 1/320, an average of over 60 photographs were taken using Virtual Stopwatch Pro. Timing actually ended up better than the U2711 at an average of 27ms. Switching to game mode didn't reduce this in any way.
Colour accuracy
ΔE is the measurement of how far a measured colour deviates from its expected value, allowing us to determine the colour accuracy of a monitor. While a ΔE value of one is considered perceivable, as long as it's less than three the shift shouldn't be too obvious. HCFR was used to determine ΔE for the monitor.
The U3011 comes with a sheet claiming that that particular model has been factory calibrated to < 5.0 ΔE out of the box for both sRGB and AdobeRGB modes. It's complete with graphs across eight grey samples, and four primary and secondary samples, none of which peak a ΔE of three. It's been tested using a Chroma 7121 and 2326, both much more impressive than our little X-Rite i1Display 2.
Mmmm, calibratey. Somewhere, an English major is crying at this caption. (Credit: CBS Interactive)
Let's see how it holds up with our relatively humble set up.
| Measured levels (sRGB mode) | |
|---|---|
| Contrast ratio | 808:1 |
| Black level (cd/m²) | 0.28 |
| White level (cd/m²) | 223.15 |
| Gamma | 2.21 |
| Greyscale ΔE (sRGB mode) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% | 100% |
| 42.2 | 3.4 | 13.5 | 13.5 | 13.4 | 12.7 | 12.9 | 13.2 | 15.6 | 16.1 | 17.4 |
| Colour ΔE (sRGB mode) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Green | Blue | Yellow | Cyan | Magenta |
| 11.7 | 11.6 | 7.4 | 15.2 | 16.8 | 11.9 |
At least the greys are consistently out... er... (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)
Good grief. We're not sure what happened between the factory and the test lab, but something isn't quite right here. While some of this can be explained away by using different test and calibration equipment to Dell, our U2711 tests weren't so disparate.
We'd better check AdobeRGB performance to see if this is a greater issue. Here Dell claims 99 per cent coverage — we'll see how it does.
| Measured levels (Adobe RGB Mode) | |
|---|---|
| Contrast ratio | 778:1 |
| Black level (cd/m²) | 0.30 |
| White level (cd/m²) | 233.35 |
| Gamma (target 2.2) | 2.19 |
| Greyscale ΔE (AdobeRGB) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% | 100% |
| 40.6 | 0.3 | 9.9 | 10.1 | 9.8 | 9.6 | 9.4 | 9.6 | 11.4 | 12.6 | 13.4 |
| Colour ΔE (compared to Adobe RGB) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Green | Blue | Yellow | Cyan | Magenta |
| 41.2 | 20.7 | 8.4 | 16.3 | 16.0 | 16.8 |
The light grey triangle is the AdobeRGB space, the dark the sRGB and the white triangle the measurements of the U3011 in AdobeRGB mode. (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)
Still not great — given that we have early access to this monitor though, this may not be indicative of out-of-the-box calibration across the range. There could also be some odd things going on between our 8-bit card, the 12-bit LUT, the 10-bit panel and our i1Display 2 — but we saw no such issues with the U2711. AMD kindly lent us a FirePro 3D V5800 to test if our Radeon HD 5870 was at fault; however, this made no difference to the measured results.
Let's see if calibration can get us a little closer to target. First, we need to get those greys under control.
| Measured levels (sRGB mode) | |
|---|---|
| Contrast ratio | 371:1 |
| Black level (cd/m²) | 0.37 |
| White level (cd/m²) | 137.30 |
| Gamma | 2.30 |
| Greyscale ΔE (sRGB mode) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% | 100% |
| 40.8 | 5.0 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.5 |
| Colour ΔE (sRGB mode) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Green | Blue | Yellow | Cyan | Magenta |
| 38.4 | 52.6 | 4.0 | 7.0 | 49.3 | 32.7 |
Greys: fixed. Green: nuts. (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)
Zero and 10 per cent aside, the greys are now sublime. IPS as a technology impedes us from getting better blacks. A side effect though is that our colours are now whacked — let's see if we can compromise and bring them all into line by tweaking the gain, offset, hue and saturation.
| Measured levels (sRGB mode) | |
|---|---|
| Contrast ratio | 351:1 |
| Black level (cd/m²) | 0.38 |
| White level (cd/m²) | 133.37 |
| Gamma | 2.18 |
| Greyscale ΔE (sRGB mode) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% | 100% |
| 38.1 | 4.8 | 1.2 | 2.0 | 2.6 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 1.7 |
| Colour ΔE (sRGB mode) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Green | Blue | Yellow | Cyan | Magenta |
| 5.9 | 3.1 | 3.4 | 5.1 | 6.5 | 7.1 |
A little compromise goes a long way. (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)
Whew. Now that's a lot better, even if the greys took a slight hit. It took a few hours to get this far though, with a lot of menu wrangling. We'd love it if Dell would merge its gain, offset, hue and saturation controls into the one OSD menu, separated only by colour. It'd make tweaking a lot easier, and it certainly has the real estate to do so.
We're confident we could get these numbers down further, but the amount of effort required is large. We found ourselves constantly wishing for a more sophisticated system like NEC's SpectraView II.
HDMI performance
While a monitor might have an HDMI port that's no guarantee it'll display images as expected. We hooked up a PlayStation 3 and checked for 24p capability, as well as judder and ran the HQV Blu-ray test to see how well it coped with an interlaced source and noise.
| 24p capable | Understands YUV | Mission Impossible III Scene 11 judder test |
Mission Impossible III Scene 14 judder test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | Very slight judder | Very slight judder |
| HQV noise reduction score |
HQV video resolution loss score |
HQV jaggies score |
HQV film resolution loss score |
HQV film resolution loss - stadium score |
Total score (out of 100) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 (no noise reduction, 25 with adaptive noise reduction) | 20 | 20 | 25 | 0 | 75 (90 with adaptive noise reduction) |
HDMI video performance is on par with the U2711: excellent for a computer monitor. There's still a slight judder present in the MI:III scenes, but nothing that's likely to have you yelling at the screen unless you're an absolute purist.
Viewing angles
Viewing angles were taken with a Canon 40D in spot metering mode, with only shutter time adjusted to obtain a good exposure.
IPS technology continues to have the best viewing angles around. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Backlight uniformity
Backlight uniformity was measured by placing HCFR into free measure mode, displaying a completely white image and recording the brightness along a 5x3 grid on the screen. This should be considered a guide only, as backlight uniformity is likely to change from unit to unit.
Nothing amazing here, but then again, nothing too wrong either. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)
Light bleed
As a high-level monitor, the U3011 has no light bleed whatsoever. It does, however, fall victim to the "white glow" effect, something endemic in IPS displays. No polariser has been used to mitigate this.
It's important to note that the effects of light bleed will likely change from monitor to monitor, regardless of make.
Other issues
The panel itself is quite deeply inset, and the inset bezel is a shiny black, meaning that during bright scenes you may notice the screen's reflection on the bezel, which will be distracting for some.
Power consumption
We measured power consumption using a Jaycar mains digital power meter. It's important to note here that due to limitations of the meter, measurements are limited to values 1W and greater, and are reported in 1W increments.
All measurements, screen brightness and contrast were set to 100 per cent, and a test image displayed.
| Juice Box |  |
|---|---|
| Maximum power draw | 153W |
| Power-saving mode | 12W |
| Off | 12W |
While the U2711 managed less than 1W while in power-saving mode and when off, it seems the U3011 still draws a good whack of power. The specs sheet claims less than 2W, something our sample at least did not hit. Max draw of course is incredibly large, but given the size of the screen we're not surprised.
Dell offers a three-year warranty, including next-business-day exchange.
Dell's dead pixel policy alters depending on what monitor you have bought. For the U3011, you'll only need one bright subpixel to get a swap out; but if you have a dark pixel, you'll have to wait for another five to be eligible for a swap over. You are able to return any monitor within 15 days of the invoice date to Dell; however, the user pays shipping in this instance.
Conclusion
The U3011 is massive and sublime. It's by no means cheap, but you're paying for the panel. For those who can justify it, it brings much needed improvements over the 3008WFP. For those who can't, go for the U2711 instead.
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