Dell UltraSharp U3226Q monitor review: QD-OLED goes pro

The Dell UltraSharp U3226Q is not your everyday QD-OLED monitor. It's a self-calibrating 32-inch 4K professional display that's purpose-built for content creation duties. It's highly color accurate out of the box, and the integrated colorimeter means that it can test and calibrate itself automatically to maintain that performance day in, day out.

And yes, it's reassuringly expensive. That said, £2,500 is a mere snip in the realms of professional displays. So, if a true five-figure reference monitor is out of scope, and high-end models from rival manufacturers are stretching your budget, you'll probably want to know more.

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Dell U3226Q monitor: Design

The centrepiece of the U3226Q is a 4th-generation Samsung QD-OLED panel. At first, you might not notice what all the fuss is about: 4K monitors are ten a penny, and the 120Hz refresh rate is a fraction of cheaper gaming OLEDs. Delve into the details, however, and there are plenty of interesting features.

Color accuracy is the first string to its bow. Dell claims 99% coverage for DCI-P3 and Display P3, and an impressive 94% of Adobe RGB. Those claims go hand in hand with a wide selection of factory-calibrated modes for DCI-P3, Display P3, sRGB, BT.709, BT.2020, and Adobe RGB with both D50 and D65 white points. HDR support is equally comprehensive with DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification and support for Dolby Vision (Bright and Dark modes), HDR 10, and HLG.

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Dell claims impressive levels of color accuracy straight out of the box: an average Delta E of less than 1 for the DCI-P3, Display P3, sRGB, and BT.709 modes. In my testing, it also managed a very respectable 1.6 in the Adobe RGB mode. That's a good showing from the off.

Self-calibration is the next party trick. Select the relevant option in the menu, and the display runs through the validation or calibration process – and you can choose between Express and Comprehensive calibration modes depending on how accurate you want the process to be.

It's also possible to set up your own specific display profiles. Basic settings for these can be tweaked in the monitor's on-screen display, and if you need deeper customization, you can build your ideal display profile in Dell's Color Management software – or import one from a Calman profile – and upload it to one of the three CAL profiles on the monitor.

Both calibration and validation can be scheduled to run automatically. These can be performed together or individually on a schedule ranging from daily to quarterly, or after every 200 hours of operation. These can take place while the monitor is in standby, or you can ask to be prompted before each run.

The monitor's on-screen display relies on the usual four-way joystick hidden behind the lower right bezel, and this works well. Interestingly, though, Dell has also added a trio of touch-sensitive buttons, which it calls Direct Keys. Bring your finger close to the monitor's lower left bezel, and three little LEDs illuminate to help you locate the three buttons. The buttons default to selecting Color Space, HDR modes, and Input sources, but you can customise these to access other functions in the OSD.

The array of connectivity is equally helpful. The primary upstream USB-C port supports Thunderbolt 4 and offers 140 watts of power delivery. Alongside, a downstream Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port allows for daisy chaining a second display. This gives you the latitude to run two 4K 120Hz displays simultaneously, but bear in mind that your GPU will need to support Display Stream Compression (DSC). There is also a single DisplayPort 1.4 input and two HDMI 2.1 inputs.

An upstream 10Gbps USB-C port gives the option to connect a second PC or laptop, and the integrated KVM switch allows you to share devices connected to the U3226Q's other ports. A further two 10Gbps USB-A ports are located on the rear panel in addition to 2.5GbE Ethernet. Around the front, a little panel drops down from just underneath the monitor's front left bezel – this reveals two 10Gbps USB-C ports and a single 10Gbps USB-A port.

As ever, Dell hasn't forgotten the more practical aspects of the design. The stand provides 150mm of height adjustment, rotates into portrait mode in either direction, and has ample tilt and swivel. The cutout at the bottom of the stand does a neat job of cable management, too – it's not high tech, but it works. You also get a monitor hood in the box to minimise any glare from overhead lighting. This clips on magnetically and stays put even when you move the monitor.

If there's a complaint to be made here, it's that the build quality could be better. Reach out and adjust the monitor with a single hand, and the panel moves smoothly enough, but the hollow feel of the monitor's body and light creaks don't exactly match the sleek charcoal grey look. Compared to pricier professional panels we've handled, the U3226Q feels rather lightweight.

Dell U3226Q monitor: Display quality

The U3226Q looks great where it matters, though. This is in no small part due to Dell's decision to use an AGLR (Anti-Glare Low-Reflectance) screen coating to banish glare. With sunlight streaming in through a skylight, there was none of the usual magenta tint exhibited by other QD-OLED monitors I've seen recently. Blacks still aren't as deep and punchy as the best glossy WOLED panels, but the lack of tint and overall glare suppression is really impressive. What's more, there's still plenty of punch despite the matte anti-glare finish – it's more semi-matte than the grainier full matte coatings you may have seen on some LCD displays. For a professional monitor, it's a great fit.

Another routine complaint levelled at OLED monitors is text clarity – or more specifically, the lack thereof. This is caused by OLED panels having unusual subpixel arrangements – something which can cause fringing and fuzziness around text. Technically speaking, the 4th-generation QD-OLED panel in the U3226Q uses a far tighter subpixel arrangement. Practically speaking, the result is that text clarity is vastly improved. Set side by side with a previous generation panel, even image clarity looks very slightly more 'in focus'.

The subjective impression is that of a supremely color-accurate display. Colors look super saturated yet natural, and this was borne out by all of my testing. The average Delta E in the sRGB, Display P3, and DCI-P3 modes was less than 1, as claimed, and it reproduced the far larger Adobe RGB palette with an average Delta E of 1.6. If you need accurate results in SDR, the U3226Q delivers.

HDR looks great, too. Highlights have oodles of punch, and we recorded a maximum brightness of around 1,030cd/m2 on a small 2% window. This drops to around 550cd/m2 once you get to a 10% window, but this is still a very solid performance. Bear in mind that you'll need to use the standard HDR 10 or Dolby Vision profiles to achieve maximum peak brightness, however – as its name suggests, the DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500 mode limits peak brightness to 500cd/m2.

Uniformity is near perfect. Brightness and contrast varied by no more than 1.5% across the whole display. This is an order of magnitude better than LCD-based displays. Given that the colorimeter is measuring only one tiny spot on the bottom of the panel, it's reassuring to know that the panel response is so consistent from corner to corner.

You might think that motion clarity would suffer given the mere 120Hz refresh rate, but the U3226Q puts in an impressive performance nonetheless. There isn't the silky smoothness of displays with 240Hz refresh rates and black frame insertion features, but motion looked markedly cleaner and smoother than other 120Hz QD-OLED panels I've had on the desk. It is a shame there isn't an official AMD FreeSync or Nvidia G-Sync certification, but VRR is still there if you want it. Frankly, though, given the presence of VRR flicker, you may want to leave it off. Even with framerates remaining well above 90fps, I found the flickering distracting enough to prefer it disabled.

Dell U3226Q monitor: Is it worth it?

It's all a question of priorities. For more casual use, there's no two ways around it: something like Dell's £600 S3225QC provides a similarly large 32-inch 4K canvas, and its 3rd generation QD-OLED panel is color accurate enough for most users – amateur content creators included. If it's an affordable taste of QLED and Dolby Vision HDR you're hankering for, that's a great option.

What cheaper displays like the S3225QC don't do, however, is promise to maintain that out-of-the-box color accuracy over time – and this is where displays such as the UltraSharp U3226Q justify the outlay. The self-calibrating design offers a level of set-it-and-forget-it simplicity, which means you can just turn it on, get to work, and trust what you're seeing, day after day, year after year. If that level of accuracy matters to you or your business, then it's safe to say that the UltraSharp U3226Q is worth the investment.

Dell U3226Q monitor specifications