Hands-On With Dell's Massive 49-Inch 5K Ultrawide Display

[zarmanto]

... it's essentially designed for people who like to use two 27-inch monitors side by side. ...

Actually, I think this beast is also decently comparable to the three older 24-inch monitors on my desk in front of me at work right now; that's 1920x1200x3 for ~6.9 million pixels, compared with 5120x1440 for ~7.3 million pixels. (All Samsung displays, if anyone cares.)

The real sticking point, of course, is that price.

 

[blackcrayon]

I'm still using my 1024x768 VGA DELL LCD. Does anybody really need larger screens?

I love viewing the 640 x 200 "Super hi Res" screen from my Apple IIgs on a 42" monitor...

 

[ijimk]

Could you please link to the Windows and Mac Wallpapers in that one pic? I would appreciate it.

 

[Educe]

This article would have been more helpful and efficient if it had been a comparison of all 3 major brands producing the 49 inch monitors.

Lg,Samsung and Dell have all recently put these out.

Which one wins the feature/usability war?

WITH USB C being the future and focus of a lot of new possibilities, it would also be nice to see more articles remarking on the realities of this new plug and the various cables available.
For instance Apple USB c vs OWC brand USBC vs what comes in some boxes with monitors or hard drives.
Seems there is a Wild West of cables and qualities.

CANT make my OWC cables that I got on Black Friday at decent prices, FIT into ports on some monitors.

This is important info. These cables are expensive.

So far monitors seem to ONLY put 1 USB C port, when at least 2 or more would be of major use.

I STILL find myself needing an octopus hanging off my new MacBook Pro to get anything done other than web browsing.

 

[Joe Blow88]

This DELL Monitor is a SLY CON!

If you are MacBook Pro user the Maximum Resolution that is available is 3840 x 1080 using the USB-C cable! The 5120 x 1440 resolution is an option that has a (low resolution) caveat next to it, ie it's not available.

If you are used to a Retina or 5K iMac or LG display, this display will be a bitter disappointment!

I had forgotten what pixilated fonts looked like on a screen. I feel like I have been taken back to the 1990's looking at a CRT screen.

I like the screen Realestate, however it's a BIG comedown in terms of visual experience. Why the Macrumours reviewer of this Monitor was not forthcoming with this issue is shameful, as it's so obvious what a clunky visual experience it is with the far lower maximum resolution than advertised.

I would request that in the future that he be more forthcoming with such an obvious flaw and DELL for LYING their PANTS OFF in terms of maximum available advertised screen resolution.

I or my company will never buy anything DELL ever again.

 

[jimothyGator]

This DELL Monitor is a SLY CON!

If you are MacBook Pro user the Maximum Resolution that is available is 3840 x 1080 using the USB-C cable! The 5120 x 1440 resolution is an option that has a (low resolution) caveat next to it, ie it's not available.

If you are used to a Retina or 5K iMac or LG display, this display will be a bitter disappointment!

I had forgotten what pixilated fonts looked like on a screen. I feel like I have been taken back to the 1990's looking at a CRT screen.

I like the screen Realestate, however it's a BIG comedown in terms of visual experience. Why the Macrumours reviewer of this Monitor was not forthcoming with this issue is shameful, as it's so obvious what a clunky visual experience it is with the far lower maximum resolution than advertised.

I would request that in the future that he be more forthcoming with such an obvious flaw and DELL for LYING their PANTS OFF in terms of maximum available advertised screen resolution.

I or my company will never buy anything DELL ever again.


View attachment 824470 View attachment 824471

So let's think about this for a moment. You're saying that the native resolution of this monitor (5,120 x 1,440) isn't available on a MacBook Pro and that that MacRumors somehow didn't notice this? I suppose that's in the realm of possibilities, but I think it's much more likely that 5,120 x 1,440 resolution is available, and that that's actually what they tested in their hands-on review. So either there's something unique in your situation where the monitor isn't working with your MBP, or you're misinterpreting or overreacting to the "low resolution" label in the display settings.

Yes, this is not a Retina display. It's got 5,120 horizontal pixels spread across a 49" display rather than a 27" display. This is exactly what Dell advertised, and what MacRumors reported. I'm confused about what the issue is here?

 

[chucker23n1]

(I removed the bold because I don't know why we are screaming.)

This DELL Monitor is a SLY CON!

If you are MacBook Pro user the Maximum Resolution that is available is 3840 x 1080 using the USB-C cable! The 5120 x 1440 resolution is an option that has a (low resolution) caveat next to it, ie it's not available.

"Low resolution" is likely macOS warning you that, despite the amount of pixels, the density isn't particularly high.

As can be seen in your screenshot, you could go to the equivalent 2560x720 resolution and get Retina drawing, but it wouldn't really help with the pixel density.

If you are used to a Retina or 5K iMac or LG display, this display will be a bitter disappointment!

Yes, I suppose. Keep in mind, though, that those are nowhere near as wide. You do get a lot more screen estate, but at the cost of far lower density.

Why the Macrumours reviewer of this Monitor was not forthcoming with this issue is shameful,

I don't know about "shameful", but I do agree they should've made this clearer.

I would request that in the future that he be more forthcoming with such an obvious flaw and DELL for LYING their PANTS OFF in terms of maximum available advertised screen resolution.

They really aren't lying at all. You're expecting something they didn't actually advertise.
[doublepost=1551823890][/doublepost]

I think it's much more likely that 5,120 x 1,440 resolution is available, and that that's actually what they tested in their hands-on review. So either there's something unique in your situation where the monitor isn't working with your MBP, or you're misinterpreting or overreacting to the "low resolution" label in the display settings.

Yeah. My guess is macOS has a threshold of resolutions (as in pixel counts) after which it clarifies that the display can only display them at low density, as opposed to high DPI. It should be a little clearer about that.

I also feel that a Mac-centered website should make it clear that, in 2019, a fairly expensive display does not in fact offer "Retina"-like resolutions.

 

[zarmanto]

... My guess is macOS has a threshold of resolutions (as in pixel counts) after which it clarifies that the display can only display them at low density, as opposed to high DPI. It should be a little clearer about that. ...

I concur; macOS does not necessarily offer a very clear indication of this screen's capabilities. It's not a high-DPI screen... it's just a ridiculously wide standard-DPI display. Of course, the vagueness of Apple's terminology is obviously because there just aren't very many "ultra-wide" displays like this one on the market; it's a fringe case. But yeah... a more accurate labeling could probably be accomplished by changing the term "low resolution" to "low-DPI". Not that this would have helped Joe, of course, since he had apparently already made the purchase before seeing this misleading verbiage.

That said: I would venture to guess that Joe's primary issue herein is really just a lack of knowledge about the nature of these tech specs. If we plug the spec values from Dell's website into a dot-pitch calculator (such as this one) we can quickly determine that this screen has a 108-ish DPI. In contrast, "high-DPI" screens commonly have DPI values in excess of double that density, which includes all of Apple's MacBook and iMac Retina displays.

The data necessary to discover all of this is readily available; it's just not abundantly clear unless you're at least a little bit of a geek.

 

[Joe Blow88]

I concur; macOS does not necessarily offer a very clear indication of this screen's capabilities. It's not a high-DPI screen... it's just a ridiculously wide standard-DPI display. Of course, the vagueness of Apple's terminology is obviously because there just aren't very many "ultra-wide" displays like this one on the market; it's a fringe case. But yeah... a more accurate labeling could probably be accomplished by changing the term "low resolution" to "low-DPI". Not that this would have helped Joe, of course, since he had apparently already made the purchase before seeing this misleading verbiage.

That said: I would venture to guess that Joe's primary issue herein is really just a lack of knowledge about the nature of these tech specs. If we plug the spec values from Dell's website into a dot-pitch calculator (such as this one) we can quickly determine that this screen has a 108-ish DPI. In contrast, "high-DPI" screens commonly have DPI values in excess of double that density, which includes all of Apple's MacBook and iMac Retina displays.

The data necessary to discover all of this is readily available; it's just not abundantly clear unless you're at least a little bit of a geek.

Thank you to the three replies in regards to my post on the Dell 49" U4919.
I don't have any serious technical qualifications in regards to the deeper aspects of a monitors specifications.

However I would like to point out that I actually own one these Dell 49" Monitors and by the sound of things you guys have never even seen one in the flesh and so I have direct experience with it and have used many different monitors over the last 25 years.

Why I accuse Dell of Lying is that this monitor will not display the advertised resolution of 5120 x 1440, even though it is selected in the System Preferences resolution options, in addition on the "About this Mac" Display info dialogue box it shows quite clearly that it is only displaying 3840 x 1080 over the 49" width and I feel that's one of the reasons that Text looks more like Lego Text than a modern smooth text, a claim that Dell also advertises on their site how clear and crisp text is displayed on this monitor, which I very much disagree with having experienced the highly pixelated text myself.

In addition Dan the Macrumours Reviewer makes the statement in his video review at 00:10s that this is 5120 x 1440 resolution display, there is no mentioning of the issue of maximum available resolution to a Mac User or issues around this as he did with issues around LG 34" 5K display and using it with 2018 MacBook Pro's that he also reviewed.

I did not expect this display to have as fine a text detail as a 27" 5K or Retina display, however as a consumer I do expect that advertised screen resolutions are available as specified and that if someone of the caliber of Macrumours reviews said Monitor that as a duty of care to their members that this would be confirmed by them!

 

[Oumuamua]

would this work with my Mac Pro (see signature)?

Does it work togehther? Really wanne know!! THX

 

[panjandrum]

I'm looking into purchasing a single 32:9 monitor (not for myself, for an education admin who currently uses dual 2560x1440 screens) and am actually seeing quite a number of reports that 5120x1440 displays are not working properly on a variety of Mac hardware even though it technically should as it is within Apple's specs, which indicate single external displays up to 5120x2880 are supported.

Just wondering if there had been any progress on this front? Anyone using these screens without issue?

 

[paulver]

I'm interested in one of these high res monitors to replace my current dual display, but am unsure whether my MacBook Pro Retina 13" Early 2015 can drive the resolution. My machine has the thunderbolt 2 and HDMI ports.

Is that what is driving the display in your pic, or a more up to date model?

 

[panjandrum]

I'm interested in one of these high res monitors to replace my current dual display, but am unsure whether my MacBook Pro Retina 13" Early 2015 can drive the resolution. My machine has the thunderbolt 2 and HDMI ports.

Is that what is driving the display in your pic, or a more up to date model?

According to Apple the specs for that model are as follows, so you would probably have to setup one of these ultra-wides using the 2-display mode, where your Mac sees two 2560x1440 displays connected. That's far less than ideal due to the way modern versions of MacOS function (you can't, for example, actually span a window across displays like you used to be able to do back when the MacOS wasn't fustercluck of idiocy). So unless you desperately want to do this I wouldn't bother. Just stick to your dual-displays.

• Dual display and video mirroring:
  Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, at millions of colors

 

[F.A.D.]

Hello,

I'm really interested in this kind of display. The big question here is:

Which Mac does adequately feed this display?

I have read a lot of threads from guys with a MacPro 6.1 that could not run it natively but had luck with an eGPU (RX580).

I myself own a 5.1 with a 7950 but thinking of upgrading to rx580, Vega 64 or even Radeon VII since it has native driver support in the 5.1 via 10.14.5 now (pixlas mod or external power-supply provided).

These cards could easily feed the number of pixels of course but from all the threads I read through the OS seems to add its fair bit of quirkiness to the table when it comes to select the resolution in the system preferences.

Tools like http://resxtreme.com or https://manytricks.com/resolutionator/ seem to make life easier from my research.

I would like to reduce the efforts for the people shipping it to me and pick it up again if this would not work on a 5.1 with a current generation GPU. So:

Does anyone has tested this successfully with a current generation GPU on a MacPro 5.1?

Thank you very much in advance!

Best regards!

David

P.S.: Still using two of my now very dated 23" Apple Cinema Displays which show its age (red fringing on the sides and high sensitivity to burn-ins after 15 minutes or even less)

 

[MarkC426]

Have you actually seen one of these in real life?
Firstly it is not a 5k display, but they are very narrow in the height, about a third less than a 27 inch qhd.

 

[mode11]

Have you actually seen one of these in real life?
Firstly it is not a 5k display, but they are very narrow in the height, about a third less than a 27 inch qhd.

Have you seen one in real life? They are exactly two 27" displays side by side, with no bezel in between.

Proof: http://www.displaywars.com/27-inch-16x9-vs-49-inch-d{32x9}

I'm strongly considering one of these displays. If they go below £1000 and will definitely work with my RX580 in macOS, I'll be extremely tempted.

 

[MarkC426]

From what I have read I thought there where issues with MacOS extending across the full width, without additional software.

 

[mode11]

Think that's an issue with 13" MBPs or something.

 

[poopfeast360]

I bought this monitor and I concur with the angry comment from the other user above, MacOS is unable to display the native resolution, it is capped at 3840x1080.

I have a 2018 13" MBP; Apple states that the MBP supports up to 5120x2880 on a single monitor, that is not true...

There are several thread on this issue on the Apple.com support forums and no solution.

Quite shocking, my crappy Dell work laptop under Windows 10 is able to use the native resolution...

 

[panjandrum]

OK, so the problem does not appear to be the MacOS but some hardware limitation specific to the MacBooks, even though these monitors clearly fall within Apple's specs (Are we surprised? No, we are not. Display support on Macs has always been quite crippled compared to Windows unfortunately.) It is also not limited to the Dell display.

In the past 3 days I have installed two very large curved monitors for clients. The LG 38WK95C-W (3840x1600) and the Philips Brilliance 499P9H 49" (5120x1440).

In both cases I installed them to older MacPros (a 4,1 and a 5,1) with updated video cards (Radeon rx580 and rx560). In both cases the displays, connected via. DisplayPort (full size - no adaptors) worked at full resolution wish zero issues.

Then I setup the Philips on a brand-new MacBook Air with Retina display via. the recommended USB-C connection. It's a definite failure. Despite having only half to total resolution that is officially supported by Apple, the display will not run at the full native resolution. Using ResXtreme I was easily able to configure the correct 5120x1440 resolution, but it is clearly not actually using that resolution. At a guess the MacBook Air is still spitting some other, lower, resolution to the display - probably 3840x1080, and then downsampling the higher, correct, resolution down to 3840x1080. It's a terrible, blurry, unusable mess.

I'll do a bit of troubleshooting, but in all likelihood this will go back to Amazon in a couple of days.

On another note, the LG is definitely the monitor I would choose between the two. The extra vertical workspace is great, and the curve is perfect and natural for a chair you aren't going to move. The picture is also much, much nicer on the LG. The problem with the Philips 32:9 ratio is that it is actually too wide to comfortably use with the amount of curve it has (the display is not curved enough for the width - it doesn't, for example, come anywhere close to the angle you would use with two 2560x1440 displays at, side-by-side in a "V" configuration). To actually use the entire width of the Philips you would really need to roll back and forth to use the full workspace, whereas with the LG the entire workspace feels absolutely natural.

If we return this and try the LG I'll be sure to come back and let you know if that one works out.

EDIT: Don't know how the MacRumors staff got any of these to work with their MacBook setup, or if they simply failed to notice (???) that the display was blurry, but either way it would be great if they could pop back and add that information to the article!

 

[panjandrum]

Well, the Philips is on the way back to Amazon after their tech support verified that this is a known problem with Macs only. He was under the impression that this bug has hit ALL of these ultra-wides, not just Philips.

I believe we are going to try ordering the The LG 38WK95C-W and hope that it works.

 

[kdekorte]

I just got the LG 49WL95C (49" UltraWide). My 2017 15" MacBookPro drives it at 5120x1440 with no problem this machine has a Radeon Pro 560 in it. The brand new 2019 13" MacBook Pro I got for my wife only drives it at 3840x1080. My guess is it is a driver issue as based on the specs of the 13" MBP it should be able to drive a 5K display. I hope Apple issues a fix for this as it would be really nice to only use one cable to connect my Mac to the display.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/c3q1y4/49wl95c_on_13_macbook_pro_with_mac_os/

 

[panjandrum]

I just got the LG 49WL95C (49" UltraWide). My 2017 15" MacBookPro drives it at 5120x1440 with no problem this machine has a Radeon Pro 560 in it. The brand new 2019 13" MacBook Pro I got for my wife only drives it at 3840x1080. My guess is it is a driver issue as based on the specs of the 13" MBP it should be able to drive a 5K display. I hope Apple issues a fix for this as it would be really nice to only use one cable to connect my Mac to the display.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/c3q1y4/49wl95c_on_13_macbook_pro_with_mac_os/

It will be interesting to hear if anyone tries the Catalina beta and whether or not that resolves the issue.

On my end, the LG arrived and it works perfectly well at 3840x1600 over USB-C on the 13" MacBook Air w/Retina display.

 

[anthony11]

This is the biggest downside and something the review should have pointed out. I'm not going back to non-Retina or under 220 PPI display. The review should have commented on text quality as that's something that 10.14 users on non-Retina displays complain about (subpixel anti-aliasing removed in 10.14).

First world problems

 

[chucker23n1]

First world problems

An Apple customer demanding higher than average quality? Unheard of!