Five stars for Dell’s P2418D monitor


Working at night: the making of this blog post

I had to put in a good word for Dell’s P2418D monitor (earlier post here) after the multiple negative reviews left by one person.
   If I had to write something negative, it would be about their website blocking me from submitting my positive review by claiming I was using an ad blocker. I wasn’t. But I do have ‘Do not track’ turned on and I wonder if that is doing it.
   Eventually I got the review through on my eighth attempt by using a vulnerable browser: one with no privacy plug-ins, allowing all cookies, with all the default tracking that Big Tech likes.

After reading another reviewer’s multiple entries, I had a few doubts about this monitor, but I’m glad I bit the bullet anyway. I bought mine in 2020, so they may have ironed out the bugs.
   First up, the QHD resolution is a great thing to have. Windows 10 automatically scaled everything 125 per cent for me, and the programs that were a bit fuzzy were easily sorted—you just go into the properties and make sure that they use their own magnification and not the OS’s. I’m actually more productive as a result of being able to see the finer detail. I work in publishing and it’s great to be able read the smaller copy on a spread. Before I would have to zoom in and out to do a lot of my work.
   I don’t really need 27 inches as I don’t want to move my neck to see the different corners of the screen: 24 is plenty for me. I actually have a feeling 27 inches would decrease my productivity, but that’s just my personal preference.
   I’ve noticed no backlight bleed, the edge is fine for me and the desktop appears normally. As to the prompts that appear when the monitor goes into sleep mode (one source of complaint for one reviewer)—for me it doesn’t sleep for ages (it must be my settings) and when it does, I’m usually out of the room. In three weeks I’ve seen those prompts once.
   I had a problem with the driver—Windows’ security settings prevented me from opening the executable—but I was able to open it using an elevated command prompt. The controls you need for resolution, brightness, contrast, etc. are in there, too, if you don’t wish to fiddle with the buttons on the front of the unit itself.
   All the cables are included (USB 3 downstream, Displayport, power), and it’s been great having USB ports on my monitor. It’s allowed me to tidy up the external HDs a lot (I run three). Going from DVI-D to Displayport has been useful, too—I know I shouldn’t notice 1 ms improvement in speed but I really sense that I do!
   The blue-light-blocking comfort mode means I don’t get sore eyes if I work late, another bonus.
   I’m glad someone makes QHD at this size—in fact, I know Dell does 4K at this size, too. But QHD is fine for me—of the programs not using Windows’ scaling, I don’t want the menus to get too small! A great investment to my everyday computing.

   Hope that redresses the balance a bit more for Dell. I get that the other person is annoyed, but stick it all in one review, please!


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2 thoughts on “Five stars for Dell’s P2418D monitor

  1. “Eventually I got the review through on my eighth attempt by using a vulnerable browser: one with no privacy plug-ins, allowing all cookies, with all the default tracking that Big Tech likes.”

    Dell should reimburse you for the monitor after all the hard work you put in to giving it a positive review. ;)

    This underlines one of the huge problems with giant technology companies and most other big corporations, they are so addicted to gathering data for their surveillance capitalism that they forget about usability and all the other things their customers value.

  2. I wouldn’t object to being reimbursed, Bill! And I completely agree with you on surveillance capitalism. It’s got to the point where surely the detriments outweigh the benefits, where customers can get pissed off from all the snooping that makes them unable to achieve what they set out to.

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