When comparing Microsoft Surface Pro 4 vs Dell P2418HT, the Slant community recommends Dell P2418HT for most people. In the question“What are the best touchscreen monitors?” Dell P2418HT is ranked 1st while Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Dell P2418HT is:
The Dell P2418HT has two programmable bezel keys that can be programmed to access the most commonly used functions.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great pen support
The (included) Surface Pen has a very interesting set of features - it allows for 1024 points of pressure, has an eraser on top, and when you click the eraser it will open Cortana (Microsoft's new voice assistant). It's magnetized, so it will stick to the left side of the Surface. The Surface achieves all of this via its new N-trig technology (replacing the Wacom technology found in older generation models). There's also palm rejection technology, so whenever the pen tip it close to the screen is will ignore all finger or palm touches.
Pro Laptop-level specs
The Surface Pro 4 comes in configurations from core M up to a core i7. RAM starts at 4GB, and goes to 16GB. Storage caps out at 256GB of SSD storage, which should be enough for most users. These are all specs that can be found in most laptops - even beating out some budget-midrange desktop options.
Pro Good expandability options
The Surface has a USB 3.0 port that can be used for a mouse to be plugged in, or you can plug in a USB hub or Microsoft's own Surface Dock, which has 4 USB 3.0 ports, audio output, Gigabit Ethernet, and two HD video ports. The Surface Dock allows for as much expandability (or more) as most laptops out there. There's also a SD card slot if you need more storage (current SD card sizes range up to 200GB, although this won't be as fast as the internal SSD speeds).
Pro Has programmable keys
The Dell P2418HT has two programmable bezel keys that can be programmed to access the most commonly used functions.
Pro Works well with Windows
Those who work with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 will not need to install any additional software or drivers to run the Dell P2418HT.
Pro USB hub
The monitor’s USB hub consists of two downstream and one upstream USB 3.0 ports which can be used to charge peripheral USB devices or connect them to your computer.
Additionally, the Dell P2418HT supports fast charging.
Pro Flicker-free
The Dell P2418HT doesn’t put additional stress on your eyes because its backlight doesn’t flicker. Monitor’s flickering can cause severe eye fatigue after extensive use.
Pro Excellent touchscreen monitor
The Dell P2418HT is among the best touchscreen desktop monitors in its price range because its picture quality, touchscreen capabilities, connectivity, ease of use, and range of ergonomic adjustments are superior to what the majority of competitors on the market offer.
Pro Good overall picture quality
Not only does the Dell P2418HT offer substantially better picture quality than its competition, its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy are on par with what the best desktop monitors offer.
The monitor’s premium-quality panel allows it to display beautiful images, with reasonably thick and intense blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and realistic mid-tones. Dark scenes look excellent thanks to the monitor’s native contrast ratio of 1138:1 that makes blacks appear rich and deep. Colors pop and look vivid as the panel approaches peak brightness level of 250 nits. The intermediate tones look lifelike thanks to the P2418HT’s near ideal gamma value of 2.23.
Moreover, the monitor’s color inaccuracies are insignificant since its average color error dE of 2.19 is imperceptible.
Pro Well-designed articulated stand
The monitor’s articulated stand allows you to switch between desktop and touchscreen modes quickly. Its heavy base and rigid arm ensure that the monitor doesn’t feel loose.
Furthermore, the stand supports a generous range of ergonomic adjustments that will let you get the best possible viewing angles.
Pro Responsive touchscreen
The P2418HT’s touchscreen panel feels excellent to use thanks to the monitor’s high accuracy and excellent responsiveness. Swiping, pinch-to-zoom, multi-finger, and two-handed operations are also present due to the 10-point touch support.
The panel’s touchscreen resolution of 4096x4096 ensures high accuracy as it gives the monitor more than 16 million touch-spots which are distributed across the 23.8-inch display of the Dell P2418HT evenly.
The touchscreen feels highly responsive because of its low input lag of 35 milliseconds, which is an excellent value for a touchscreen since even the fastest smartphones/tablets are usually noticeably slower.
Pro Good overall picture quality
Not only does the Dell P2418HT offer substantially better picture quality than its competition, its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy are on par with what the best desktop monitors offer.
The monitor’s premium-quality panel allows it to display beautiful images, with reasonably thick and intense blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and realistic mid-tones. Dark scenes look excellent thanks to the monitor’s native contrast ratio of 1138:1 that makes blacks appear rich and deep. Colors pop and look vivid as the panel approaches peak brightness level of 250 nits. The intermediate tones look lifelike thanks to the P2418HT’s near ideal gamma value of 2.23.
Moreover, the monitor’s color inaccuracies are insignificant since its average color error dE of 2.19 is imperceptible.
Cons
Con Expensive
You can find a computer with similar specs for about half the price of the Surface Pro 4. You are paying a premium for the high-end build quality, for the engineering required to manufacture a fully portable computer, as well as for the high resolution touchscreen.
Con Lack of touch-focused apps
Windows has traditionally been a mouse-and-keyboard operating system. Finally, third party apps are starting to become more touch friendly, although it's a long, slow process. The Windows Store still lacks many big titles, which means the only option is to download the regular Windows version of most apps, which are rarely touch-friendly.
Con Unsuitable for gaming
Button presses may feel delayed and disconnected while playing fast-paced FPS games because of its high input lag of 70 milliseconds.
Con Picks up fingerprints
The monitor’s plastic front layer seems to attract noticeably more fingerprints than other monitors that use glass coating.
Con Can’t fight glare
The monitor will not look good in a bright room because its 250 nits of brightness are not enough to fight glare and reflections.
Con Needs calibration
To unleash the full potential of the Dell P2418HT, you’ll need to calibrate it. The calibration procedure will take you around 5-10 minutes since all the key settings are available on the Internet.