My Dell UltraSharp 2709W (Review / Test)

Ergonomics

Stand

Unfortunately, the stand of Dell’s UltraSharp 2709W isn’t quite as cool as an Ergotron Neo-Flex or the one of Samsung’s SyncMaster 245b. In contrast to these, it does not provide a pivot function to turn the screen upright. With 27” it also does not fit on a Neo-Flex stand anymore, although there might be other third party stands which can support 27” displays.

It is doubtful whether a pivot function would be that useful with such a large monitor anyway. Since I couldn’t test it, I can’t tell. With a 24” screen a pivot function was quite usable and useful. With 27” the monitor would be extremely high in an upright position, though. This might render the upper are useless.

The option to tilt the screen downwards is limited to only 3 degrees. I already consider the usual 5 degrees which most monitors offer as barely enough, so 5 degrees are – in my humble opinion – not enough. Fortunately, this downside is not that dramatic with the 2709W, because the viewing angles are quite good. With cheaper displays, the image quality suffers significantly when you cannot align them perfectly, but this problem does not apply to the 2709W.

Also limited is the upwards tilt, but it should still be enough for any normal use. It only showed a bit limiting during installation because it made it a little harder to plug in all the cables.

The height adjustment works flawlessly, smoothly and fast. There are no screws or other fastenings to loose and you can just push the screen upwards or downwards. On my desk, the monitor is constantly in the highest position and I would have wished for a higher end position. It’s not that troublesome, though, because with the overall height of the 2709W, the additional height adjustment doesn’t make that much difference anymore.

The swivel function also works flawlessly and smoothly – although the benefits of this function still elude me. I have never used it, yet.

Non-Mechanical Menu Buttons

The menu buttons mentioned earlier are not mechanical buttons but work by somehow electronically sensing the presence of a finger in front of them. Most fingers that is. I had massive problems to get my finger sensed in the beginning. This lead to some bizarre situations where I would put fingers in all possible angles, distances and pressures in front of or on the sensor in the hopeless attempt to open the menu – while my flatmate succeeded constantly on the first attempt.

After a while I discovered a trick which greatly improved my chances of calling the menu. I just need to press on my thumb in my closed fist and can then use the menu quite reliably with my thumb afterwards. Don’t ask my why that helps (increased blood flow?), but it helps.

Interestingly, the problem lessened significantly over the time. I can now trigger the menu almost always without previous thumb-pressing.

Another small but not dramatic annoyance is the brightness/contrast menu of the Dell UltraSharp 2709W. I always have trouble telling which control (brightness or contrast) is active, because the color codes are a bit ambiguous. Grmpf. 🙂

Other than that, the menu is all right and poses no trouble for me.

Next page: System Requirements & Conclusion

6 replies on “My Dell UltraSharp 2709W (Review / Test)”

Hi

I realy liked your review, was wondering if you could give me some advice on this monitor, im looking at either buying the dell 2408 or 2709, the monitors are nearly equaly priced here is australia and a 27 inch sounds really tempting.

i am concerned about the brightness as you have claimed, i will be using the monitor for everyday use and also CAD use, is there a differnce in the brightness control between the two montiors, i also dont want to be getting a hedache from prolonged use on the 27 inch. is there any qaulity difference in regards to text sharpness on the 2709 compared to the 2408 ?

Thankyou in advance.

G

Hello Gerrie,

I’m sorry, but I cannot compare the UltraSharp 2709W with the 2408. I have never seen the latter one in real life. The 24″ Dell that I have used was a different model.

But I can tell you that I have been using the 2709W for quite some time now and I did not develop a chronic headache or something. 🙂 I always use the screen at its lowest brightness setting, which is a little too bright for darkened rooms, but not headache-bright. During daylight, the screen is dark enough.

Greetings,
Florian

Can you really not reduce the brightness of the monitior? that would seem quite a strange thing for the manufacturers to do.

It puts me off that monitor as I find very bright monitors do make my eyes tired much faster at night.

Thanks for the heads up I might go for the samsung instead now.

You can reduce the brightness, just not as much as with for example the Samsung monitor. The Samsung can get pretty dark, while the Dell UltraSharp 2709W just varies between blindingly bright and normal bright. 🙂

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