The Glorious Goldilocks: Dell’s 25″ U2515H

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I really liked the new 27″ Dell UltraSharp monitor, but with the 25″, it’s love.  There’s a certain synergy between the resolution and the new 25″ size that makes the whole experience greater than the sum of its specs.  Here’s my opinion in a chicken scratch nutshell.

There's a certain synergy between the resolution and the 25" size that makes the whole experience greater than the sum of its specs.
Goldilocks 2015

The 27″ version seemed great until some color uniformity issues started to bug me. TFT Central’s detailed review of that monitor described similar issues with their test sample, so it’s not just me.  Thankfully, this new U2515H does not suffer the same problem, and is overall better than its big brother in every way.  Though the hallmark “IPS glow” is present, light bleed is nearly non-existent, and the improved pixel density is noticeable in unexpectedly good ways.  With a solid 3-year warranty from Dell, this will be my monitor of choice for a while.

A note about small fonts and Rick James:  If you have less than stellar vision, a larger monitor might seem like a no-brainer, but in this case the higher PPI text of the 25″ is commensurately sharper, making the 27″ seem just a little fuzzy by comparison.  From old monochrome CRT’s to Apple’s current crop of Retina displays, like a Super Freak, this new Dell monitor is my all time favorite. It has enough resolution to effectively use modern browser zooming, yet the pixels are just the right size such that a one-pixel-wide font shows up clean and bright. Text looks fantastic. Games look stunning and will run fluidly at full resolution on mere mortal-class graphics hardware.

Between the new 27″ and 25″ Dell UltraSharps, I’m a little surprised to unequivocally prefer the 25″. Both have the same excellent design, stand adjustments, slim bezel, and the best anti-glare coating I’ve ever seen. But, even if you win the display lottery and get a perfect 27″ specimen, the higher pixel density and convenient, comfortable size make the U2515H a very attractive alternative. It’s the only 25″ 2560×1440 monitor currently available in the U.S., but it definitely won’t be the last.

8 thoughts on “The Glorious Goldilocks: Dell’s 25″ U2515H

  1. Nice thoughts and reasoning on the 25, just wanted to add the quite substantial price diff as another pro.

    But, just to have another con, 2560×1440 is not a resolution modern games will run smooth at with less than a GTX970 or similar..so that could be a case when one would choose a 1080 or 1200 screen instead. Gamers on a budget to only replace screen or GPU.

  2. You can always lower your in-game resolution or just drop the graphic detail until you upgrade your video card. When you’re not playing games, you’ll be able to enjoy the better resolution.

  3. I agree — hopefully Apple releases an external 25inch monitor at 3840×2400 pixels. A nice display that is large enough (1920×1200 effective desktop) but also provides sharp smooth text. Ideally it would be a display so that I wouldn’t hitch my monitor to my computer as I rarely want to upgrade them at the same rate (iMacs annoy me).

  4. I’ve got 2x U2515H, run both at 2560×1440 on MacBook Pro 13inch early 2015 and I am very happy. Not 4K but fantastic experience and quality.

  5. I saw your post on the 2001FP. I’m finally going to replace my two 2001FP. Out of curiosity, how much wider ARE your new U2515s over the 2001FP?

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