Dell U4025QW review: A big, sharp ultrawide with a heaping helping of ports

The Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW is yet another example of how the Ultrasharp line has transformed over the past five years. Once known mostly for its image quality, Dell has in recent years placed nearly equal focus on connectivity and now, with the most recent Ultrasharp monitors, refresh rate. The result is a big, sharp, and extremely expensive monitor that performs beautifully in most situations.

What are the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s specs and features?

The U4025QW’s specifications are unusual. It has a 40-inch IPS Black display with a resolution of 5,120 x 2,160 and a refresh rate of 120Hz. This is a unique combination of specifications that no other display can currently match.

Display size: 40-inch ultrawide

Native resolution: 5120×2160

Panel type: In-Plane Switching (IPS) Black

Refresh rate: Up to 120Hz

Adaptive sync: Yes, VRR

HDR: Yes, HDR10, VESA DisplayHDR 600 certified

Ports: Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C with up to 140 watts power delivery, 3x USB-C downstream, 5x USB-A downstream, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1 (supports up to 5K2K at 120Hz FRL, VRR as specified in HDMI 2.1), 2.5G Ethernet

VESA mount: 100x100mm

Speakers: Yes

Price: $2,399.99 MSRP

But, wow, do you pay for it. The Dell U4025QW is priced at a sky-high $2,399.99. I expect that price will come down significantly within a few months, and perhaps even at launch (Dell has a tendency to set prices high, then mark them down). But since I don’t yet know where the price will settle, I can’t give Dell credit for what might happen.

Further reading: Best ultrawide monitors

How is the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s design?

The Ultrasharp U4025QW has a very clear target; corporations and wealthy home office workers looking for 40 glorious inches of highly functional display real estate. Dell’s design is laser-focused on this demographic. It’s simple and silver, attractive yet inoffensive, modern but classic.

It’s not exciting. But it works. That’s thanks not only to the silver matte finish, which appears handsome in a wide variety of desks and rooms, but also the high-quality plastic materials. There’s not a lot of flex here and, in fact, the monitor is perhaps a bit too heavy. Remember, lift with your legs!

The monitor also has a slight curve, though it’s so subtle that I expect some users wouldn’t immediately notice it. I’m a card-carrying member of the flat ultrawide monitor club (there are dozens of us!), but this is close enough to flat that I never found the curve distracting.

Yet the U4025QW has one unfortunate problem. The stand isn’t great. I expect it’s the same as the stand shipped with other large Ultrasharp monitors (it certainly looks identical), but it seems overtasked when paired with a huge 40-inch ultrawide monitor.

I noticed the display tends to wobble. This happened not only if I bumped my desk, which is normal, but also when I used the monitor’s joystick, or even brushed the display. This also makes the monitor more difficult to adjust, because it tends to slightly give for a moment before raising or lowering. Dell should look into this and consider an upgrade.

Alternatively, a 100x100mm VESA mount is available for attaching the monitor to a third-party monitor stand or arm.

How is the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s connectivity and menu?

Each new Dell Ultrasharp monitor seems to up the ante on connectivity, and the U4025QW does it again. It has a huge range of connectivity that spans everything from Thunderbolt to wired Ethernet.

Let’s start with video connectivity. The monitor has two Thunderbolt ports, each of which support DisplayPort 2.0 and can be used with a USB-C port that has DisplayPort Alternate Mode. One of these also delivers 140 watts of Power Delivery.

The Thunderbolt ports provide access to an array of downstream connectivity that includes five USB-A ports and three USB-C ports. Two of these USB-C ports, and one USB-A port, are located in a pop-out hub that’s found on the display’s lower-left lip. The hub makes it easy to quickly connect a peripheral you might only connect temporarily, like a USB storage drive.

A 2.5G Ethernet port and 3.5mm audio jack round out the options. The Ethernet port is especially useful, since it can be used to provide a USB-C laptop or tablet with wired internet connectivity.

On the whole, the U4025QW’s connectivity is hard to match and likely the best reason to buy the monitor. If you like to, or need to, work with multiple computers, want to easily dock and undock from multiple connected peripherals, or need to add wired Ethernet to a device that doesn’t have it, the U4025QW can solve your problems.

The U4025QW’s Ethernet port is especially useful, since it can be used to provide a USB-C laptop or tablet with wired internet connectivity.

Dell’s menu system also deserves praise. A responsive joystick on the monitor’s lower-right flank is used to flip through well-labeled menus. The available options are extensive and include: automatic brightness, multiple color modes (sRGB, BT.709, DCI-P3, and Display P3), a custom color mode (with adjustment for gain, offset, hue, and saturation), and multiple HDR modes. There’s also a KVM switch and multiple picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture modes. Color temperature control is available, as well, and precisely targets specific numerical values (such as 6500K).

Speakers are included, too. They’re not amazing but provide respectable value and sound fine for less complex content, like podcasts or most YouTube videos. Music and movies will push the speakers to their limits, though, so headphones or external speakers are recommended for entertainment.

How is the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s SDR image quality?

Image quality isn’t necessarily the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s top priority. A monitor like this is as much a hub and command center as it is a display, and it’s likely as many people will use it for spreadsheets or data analytics as video editing. Still, a monitor with a price tag this high needs to deliver visuals that are at least better than average, and the U4025QW succeeds.

We start off with brightness, where the U4025QW delivers up to 408 nits. That’s a very competitive figure, as the graph shows, and it means the monitor will remain useful in many situations. Want to use it in a fancy corner office with a floor to ceiling window? It should be fine. And it’s of course more than enough for any home office.

Also, as a reminder, the U4025QW has a handy automatic brightness feature that will adjust brightness automatically depending on ambient light. This feature includes three “brightness range” settings that can help you tune the automatic brightness adjustment to your preference. I recommend using it, because in my experience most people don’t want to bother with fiddling with brightness throughout the day.

The Dell U4025QW hits a respectable maximum contrast ratio of 2050:1 with display brightness set to 50 percent. That’s a good result and roughly doubles the contrast ratio of most IPS monitors that do not have an IPS Black panel. Photos, movies, and games are displayed with a reasonable sense of immersion and depth.

On the other hand, the U4025QW is more expensive than many Mini-LED and OLED monitors. Examples include the Corsair Xeneon Flex and Samsung Odyssey G9. These gaming-focused alternatives lack the U4025QW’s connectivity, though, so you’ll have to decide which is more important to you.

Next up is color gamut, and here the U4025QW posts excellent results. It has a color gamut that spans 100 percent of sRGB, 96 percent of DCI-P3, and 95 percent of AdobeRGB. A handful of monitors score better, but this remains a strong result that’s near the top of what’s available from monitors in 2024.

Color accuracy is also strong, if not class-leading. The U4025QW’s color accuracy is on par with many other monitors and should look accurate to most viewers. It also has a wide range of color adjustments, so it’s possible to calibrate the color to either improve accuracy or fit your preferences.

Color temperature and gamma continue the U4025QW’s streak of good results. It hit a default color temperature of 6600K, which is just a shade off the target of 6500K, and presented an on-target gamma curve of 2.2. This means the default image wasn’t too cool or warm and that content looks about as luminous as it should. The monitor offers color temperature adjustment to tweak that setting to your preference or needs, but gamma can’t be configured in the monitor’s menus.

Sharpness also cuts in the U4025QW’s favor. The monitor’s 5120×2160 resolution isn’t unheard of (I reviewed a 5K ultrawide from LG all the way back in 2018), but it remains the maximum resolution available in an ultrawide (21:9 aspect ratio) display. It achieves a pixel density of 138 pixels per inch (ppi). That’s a bit less than a 27-inch 4K monitor, which hits 163 ppi, but it’s high enough to make individual pixels virtually indistinguishable at a typical viewing distance of two-and-half to three feet.

How is the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s HDR image quality?

The Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW supports HDR and is VESA DisplayHDR 600 certified. That’s good on paper, but HDR performance is mediocre.

Brightness isn’t the issue. The monitor hits a maximum HDR brightness of 635 nits, and its brightness remains stable even when the entire display is lit. That separates it from OLED monitors, which reduce the brightness of their OLED panel when large, bright objects must be shown.

However, the U4025SW lacks the contrast to make HDR work well. It doesn’t have a dynamic backlight, so increasing the brightness of any portion of the display also increases the brightness of the entire screen. That’s a problem when viewing a starry night sky or a neon sign in a cyberpunk alley. Areas of a scene that should be inky black will instead be a hazy gray.

So, while HDR is supported and works okay, it’s far from ideal. I don’t recommend the U4025QW if HDR is high on your list of priorities.

How is the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW’s motion performance?

Surprisingly, the U4025QW’s motion performance is noteworthy. It provides a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. That’s not a record, of course, but remember: The monitor has a resolution of 5120×2160. Delivering 120Hz at that resolution is impressive.

The monitor also supports Adaptive Sync though, like other recent Dell Ultrasharp monitors, the details are a bit odd. It officially lists “support for VRR as specified in HDMI 2.1,” which would seem to suggest it only functions over HDMI. That’s not the case. AMD FreeSync functioned without issue alongside my Radeon RX 7800 video card, even when connected over DisplayPort.

Motion clarity is good, but not great. Fast-moving objects show good detail with only minor motion blur and pleasing fluidity. But some fine details, like small text or a subtle texture pattern, will be illegible or obscured. The motion clarity on offer here can’t hold up to the best monitors for motion, like a 240Hz or 360Hz OLED monitor, but it’s good enough for most 3D games and provides a subtle boost to perceived fluidity on the Windows desktop.

Is the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW worth it?

The Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW is an excellent monitor for people who want a big display that can serve as the centerpiece in a complex setup that most likely includes multiple computers. It has an incredible array of ports that spans Thunderbolt, USB-C, up to 140 watts of Power Delivery, and 2.5G Ethernet. That comes alongside great image quality and reasonable motion clarity.

The U4025QW isn’t a good choice for HDR content, however, and it suffers a stand that seems overmatched by the display’s size and weight. Pricing is also a concern. The retail MSRP of $2,399.99 is far higher than competitors like the LG 40WP95C-W, which often retails under $1,400. Dell has several advantages over LG, but that’s a big price gap.

Even so, the Dell Ultrasharp U4025QW has a purpose. It’s an obvious pick for people willing to pay for a flagship office and productivity monitor with all the bells and whistles and future-proof connectivity.

Monitors