When comparing LG 38UC99-W vs Dell Ultrasharp U2415, the Slant community recommends Dell Ultrasharp U2415 for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” Dell Ultrasharp U2415 is ranked 4th while LG 38UC99-W is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose Dell Ultrasharp U2415 is:
The Dell U2415 is an excellent solution for those who use display daisy chaining since it has a dedicated DisplayPort Out.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Excellent general purpose monitor
Impressive amount of on-screen real estate, excellent picture quality, exceptional connectivity, and great color accuracy puts the LG 38UC99-W above nearly all competitors in the market.
Pro Supports 85W charging over USB-C
You can charge your laptop and have display output through a single cable thanks to the monitor's USB-C port.
Pro Features On-Screen controls
You can access all the general features of this monitor using your mouse and a keyboard thanks to the LG’s On-Screen Control software.
Additionally, the On-Screen Control offers many screen split presets.
Pro Perfect for multi-tasking
Having enough display real-estate to fit three vertically aligned Google Docs windows comfortably, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent tool to boost up the productivity in everyday office duties, CAD/CAM applications, and many other fields.
Pro Excellent for watching movies
Acing the near-cinematic aspect ratio of 21:9, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent companion to watch movies because you won't see the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when watching most movies.
Pro Has a pair of good speakers
The LG 38UC99-W features a built-in 20 Watt stereo speaker system which sounds fairly well compared to the 4-10 W speakers the competitors at this price point offer.
Pro Exceptional connectivity
This monitor beats most of its premium competitors in terms of connectivity because it features a USB-C downstream port which has multiple parallel functions. First, you can use it to access the monitor's onboard USB hub. Second, it can be used for charging a USB type C compliant laptop. Finally, you can use it to receive video and audio signal from a computer.
Additionally, the LG 38UC99-W has two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, and an inbuilt Bluetooth module.
Pro Supports dual linkup
You can connect this monitor to two computers so that each machine use half of the on-screen area. This might come in handy for those who frequently use a stationary desktop computer and a laptop.
Pro Great picture quality
Only the best monitors can match the LG 38UC99-W's contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy, as the monitor features one of the finest IPS panels in the industry.
The LG 38UC99-W displays beautiful pictures, with deep and rich blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and good-looking intermediate tones. Despite the fact that the monitor's native contrast ratio is only 1000:1, the dark scenes look deep and intense as the backlight of the 38UC99-W can drop below the brightness level of 0.15 nits, which only the best monitors can do. Colors pop and look vivid, as the 38UC99-W can sustain its brightness above the 300 nits mark. The mid-tones look lifelike thanks to the monitor's near perfect gamma value, which is only 1.3% off from the ideal value.
Moreover, the monitor's color inaccuracies can't be seen by the human eye because it only has an average color error dE of 2.12.
Pro Supports daisy chaining
The Dell U2415 is an excellent solution for those who use display daisy chaining since it has a dedicated DisplayPort Out.
Pro Has a USB hub
The monitor’s integrated USB hub consists of four downstream USB 3.0 ports that you can use to charge peripheral USB devices or connect them to your computer. The single upstream port offers high data transfer rate typical of USB 3.0.
Pro Looks good
While other gaming monitors tend to look overly aggressive, the Dell U2415 looks somewhat professional because of its clean and simple design that allows the monitor to blend in almost any working environment.
Pro No signs of image retention
The Dell U2415 was tested to be free of image burn-in problems that are common among monitors in this price range.
Pro Can be used in portrait mode
The Dell U2415 does an excellent job even when used in portrait mode because of its superb vertical viewing angles that are superior to what the overwhelming majority of competitors in this price range offer. When used in portrait mode, the monitor’s colors and shadows start to shift only when the viewing angle becomes greater than 25 degrees.
Pro Adjustable
Setting the monitor according to your workspace needs is simple because the stand supports all the key ergonomic adjustments, including height, tilt, pivot, and swivel.
Additionally, you can mount the Dell U2415 on a VESA 100x100 compliant monitor stand.
Pro Factory calibrated
Out of the box, the Dell U2415 displays 99% of the sRGB colors, which is an extremely rare feature for a monitor in this price range.
Pro Flicker-free
The Dell U2415 doesn’t put additional strain on your eyes since its backlight doesn’t flicker. Monitor flickering can cause severe eye fatigue over extensive use.
Pro Good for occasional gaming
The Dell U2415 is an excellent companion for those enjoying a casual round of CS: GO or LOL in between working hours because the monitor offers reasonably high responsiveness and well-handled motion.
It's works good even while playing fast FPS games as the monitor’s input lag of 9.1 ms is barely noticeable by most players.
Furthermore, the Dell U2415 makes motion appear free from artificial motion blur thanks to its full pixel response time of 6 milliseconds which allows each pixel of the Dell U2415 to change their color within only six milliseconds.
Pro Good for bright rooms
The Dell U2415 does a great job in bright rooms, where its 275 nits of peak brightness and light matte screen finish diffuse reflections and fights glare efficiently.
Pro Suitable for professional photo editing
The Dell U2415 is an excellent tool for the photography professionals who work in the sRGB color space. Not only does it support the entire palette of sRGB colors, it also can display those colors with high accuracy since it’s average color error dE is measured at only 0.45. Even the highest-class media professionals will not be capable of perceiving such minor color error.
Pro Decent picture quality
The Dell U2415 is among the best monitors in the sub-$200 range since its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma and color accuracy are on par with what the best monitors in this price range offer.
It displays beautiful images with rich and well-balanced blacks, accurate colors, and realistic intermediate tones that gives the picture some extra intensity. Dark scenes look deep as the monitor’s high-quality IPS panel offers a native contrast ratio of 1064:1, which combined with the monitor's overall color uniformity gives its blacks a good push towards high-intensity levels. Colors pop and look beautiful thanks to the monitor’s high peak brightness of 275 nits, which combined with the panel’s low average color inaccuracy allows the Dell U2415 to display crisp and life-like colors. The monitor’s mid-tones look realistic as its gamma response is only 1% away from its perfect value.
Moreover, the monitor’s average color inaccuracy dE of 0.45 ensures that only professional photosensors can spot its color inconsistencies as those are very minor.
Pro Good for mixed-use
The Dell U2415 offers exceptional color accuracy, high adjustability, decent responsiveness, and high resolution which, combined with its good overall picture quality makes it one of the best monitors in this price range.
Pro Higher resolution than FHD
The Dell U2415 has 11% more pixels than a regular FHD monitor which will come in handy when working with large, high-resolution photos.
Cons
Con Very expensive
For the same price as this monitor, you can buy three decent 27-inch ultrawide monitors.
Con Bluetooth indicator is inconvenient
The monitor's Bluetooth indicator occupies the on-screen workspace. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove the indicator while using the Bluetooth speaker option.
Con Has an external power brick
The external power supply unit of the LG 38UC99-W might cause inconvenience especially if you want to mount this monitor on a wall since the PSU is quite bulky.
Con Wobbly
The stand isn't rigid, so you might observe some minor wobbling if your work desk is flimsy,
Con OSD is quite messy
The on-screen-display of the LG 38UC99-W does not have any programmable shortcut keys and is quite hard to navigate.
For example, to enable or disable the motion blur reduction feature, you’ll need to press more than 15 keys because the menu goes very deep.
Con Unsuitable for gaming
Gaming just doesn't feel responsive because of the monitor's massive input lag.
Con Requires calibration
To get the most out of the monitor’s performance, you need to calibrate it. The procedure will take you 5-10 minutes as the monitor’s optimized ICC profile is available on the Internet.
Con Lacks speakers
Not a huge dealbreaker, but it's something to consider.
Con Not suitable for Adobe RGB content
This monitor is not the right tool for those who work with Adobe RGB as it supports only 70% of the Adobe RGB colors.
Con Doesn’t look good in a dark room
In a dark room, you can notice some minor backlight bleeding that occurs towards the lower part of the screen. Backlight bleeding appears when the panel can’t absorb the 100% of the monitor’s backlight and limits the monitor’s use in a dark environment.
However, this is a widespread issue for the IPS panels in this price range.