With a wide selection of input ports, good color accuracy, an ultra-wide aspect ratio, sharp WQHD+ resolution, and a clean interface that can easily fit in at home or in a professional environment, the Dell UltraSharp U3821DW monitor is certainly an attractive monitor to own.
Overall assessment
Dell The UltraSharp U3821DW is a curved 38-inch ultra-wide monitor, which is why it looks quite wide. Looking at the front, you have fairly minimal bezels with the Dell logo taking up a small space at the bottom center. It will still be relatively painless if you want a multi-monitor setup unless you want a truly seamless one.
The stand does not come pre-installed so you will have to install it yourself. It is a fairly sturdy piece of metal consisting of two parts; base plate and metal bar. You don’t need any tools and assembly is quite easy as there is a ring on the base plate to keep the metal bar properly attached. It follows the same color scheme as the screen itself, which is gray. There’s enough space on the baseplate to fit a gamepad or two if you want.
Moving to the rear, you have the Dell logo as the centerpiece, right above where the stand will be installed. Below it, you have all the ports for the display, which we’ll get into later. The power and navigation buttons are similarly located in the lower left corner for easier access. Here, you can actually tell that the screen is curved.
Overall, the Dell UltraSharp U3821DW monitor looks attractive but is definitely a monitor that looks more suitable for an office environment. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy one for home use. It has an overall clean look and I’m sure no one is going to complain about how it looks… apart from the space if you’re lacking in that area.
Efficiency
The brightness of the screen when measured at 100% brightness in Standard mode is 304.6cd/m2, and it appears the screen is running at 80% brightness by default, measuring at 276cd/m2. There’s no HDR here in case you were wondering, and we’ll be conducting our testing in Standard Mode.
Since this is an ultra-wide monitor, I decided to run a screen uniformity test in a 3×5 grid format to get a better understanding. 6 out of 15 zones here exceeded the recommended tolerance while the rest exceeded the nominal tolerance. The central area is not included as an area used for reference. I certainly have no complaints here as through my own eyes it seems to be across the board.
By default, the Dell UltraSharp U3821DW has good color accuracy. After calibrating it with Spyder5 and DisplayCAL, the white point was lowered slightly, with the average Delta E figure being slightly worse but the maximum Delta E figure showing a significant improvement.
As for the range and volume of the color gamut, it doesn’t seem to be much different before and after calibration. Overall at 99% sRGB, 83% Adobe RGB, and 92% DCI-P3, it offers a relatively wide color gamut range and should be adequate for most content creators unless you have specific needs for Adobe RGB or DCI-P3.
User experience
The Dell UltraSharp U3821DW is designed for productivity, and the ultra-wide aspect ratio is there to help you maximize it. You don’t get fancy features like HDR, G-SYNC, FreeSync or anything like that. It’s simple and I enjoy using it but in the end it depends on what you’re using it for as I wouldn’t play games on it. For starters, you get a robust range of ports with some clearly designed to make your life easier.
You get DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI ports, so you have more flexibility in how you plan to use your display, especially in a multi-monitor setup. Then you have the RJ45 port so you can get a stable LAN connection with ease, and the USB-C port not only supports DisplayPort 1.4 but also has Power Delivery up to 90W. This means you can charge the ultraportable laptop using just the USB-C port.
You then have an audio line out and a bunch of USB ports with one supporting Charging 1.2, providing 15W of power to charge a smartphone or tablet your. This is especially great because the number of plugs you need to use becomes less, thus allowing you to have less cords and clutter overall.
Towards the bottom left corner of the back of the screen, you have the power button and navigation stick. It’s simple and efficient to navigate through the monitor’s OSD. Speaking of which…
The OSD itself is your standard Dell user interface, relatively simple. For the most part, you may need some time to get used to it but once you know which setting belongs to which section, it will be very easy to use it in the future. There are also several configurations you can use depending on what you are using the monitor for but I find most people use Standard and ComfortView most of the time.
If you don’t have a pair loudspeakerheadphones, or your own audio device, I strongly do not recommend using the built-in speakers of the Dell UltraSharp U3821DW ultrawide monitor. The volume is decent but it lacks the dynamic range and crisp detail that would give you an enjoyable listening experience. It sounds so simple that you should buy a relatively affordable Bluetooth speaker for a better overall experience.
The Dell UltraSharp U3821DW offers some flexibility in how you want to use the monitor as it tilts, swivels, and is height-adjustable. The metal stand itself provides some space for you to comfortably place phone your smart phone while charging. If you want, you can swap it out for a VESA mount as it supports standard 100 x 100 mm mounts.
Conclusion
With a wide selection of ports designed to simplify your life, good color accuracy, an ultra-wide aspect ratio, sharp WQHD+ resolution, and a clean interface that can easily fit at home or in a professional environment, the Dell UltraSharp U3821DW monitor is certainly an attractive monitor to own. It may miss out on some notable features like adaptive refresh rate and HDR but the performance speaks for itself.
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