Dell Unveils 5K Desktop Monitor With Almost 2x The Pixels of 4K Display at Price of Just $2500

What’s 27 inches across and has almost twice the pixel count of  4K monitor? Dell’s new UltraSharp 5K monitor Model UP2715K, that’s what. With a resolution of 5120×2880, the 27-inch monster has seven times as many pixels as your 1080p monitor, or four times as many as your 2560×1440 (1440p) monitor. It has a PPI of 218, which puts it on about par with the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (2880×1800). It will goes on sale around Christmas time for $2500.

The Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor, is, unsurprisingly, a workstation-grade piece of hardware. It has all the usual trappings of a professional monitor, such as Dell PremierColor calibration, and an anti-smudge/anti-reflective coating. There’s six USB ports and a media card reader, too. Curiously there’s also two integrated 16W Harmon Kardon speakers for some reason — presumably because Dell thought you should get a little extra if you spend $2500 on a monitor.

At 5120×2880, Dell’s new monitor has a total pixel count of 14.7 million (14,745,600 to be exact). A 4K monitor or TV, by comparison, clocks in at just 3840×2160 – 8.3 million pixels. Your puny 1080p monitor or smartphone has just 2 million pixels. 5120×2890 at 27 inches works out at 218 PPI — comparable to high-res laptops such as the Asus Zenbook or Apple Retina MBP, but lower than the 300+ PPI of modern tablets and smartphones. Most importantly, though, 218 PPI is more than double your current 22- or 24-inch desktop monitor, which is probably sitting at around 100 PPI.

If Dell’s UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor really is a tiled display, then that just reaffirms that is for professional users who need as much resolution as possible — and not for gamers. With 2880 vertical pixels, the Dell 5K screen will be amazing for looking at entire websites or page layouts without having to zoom or scroll. 5120×2880 is close to the resolution of top-end DSLRs, too. I’m sure some gamers will be tempted to pick one up, but considering the poor state of 4K gaming — both in terms of raw GPU grunt and software support — and the fact that the Dell 5K monitor has almost twice the number of pixels, you better have one hell of a rig. Two Radeon R9 295X2s ought to do it.

he Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor should be out in time for Christmas, priced at $2500. Yes, it seems those high-res desktop monitors, which have been surprisingly absent for so many years, are finally coming.