UHD is dead. Not really, but it would seem that displays bigger than UHD/4K will soon be coming to market. The ability of being able to stitch two regular sized outputs into the same panel is now being exploited even more as Dell has announced during its Modern Workforce livestream about the new ‘5K’ Ultrasharp 27-inch display.  The ‘5K’ name comes from the 5120 pixels horizontally, but this panel screams as being two lots of 2560x2880 in a tiled display.

5120x2880 at 27 inches comes out at 218 PPI for a total of 14.7 million pixels. At that number of pixels per inch, we are essentially looking at a larger 15.4-inch Retina MBP or double a WQHD ASUS Zenbook UX301, and seems right for users wanting to upgrade their 13 year old IBM T220 for something a bit more modern.

Displays Sorted by PPI
Product Size / in Resolution PPI Pixels
LG G3 5.5 2560x1440 534 3,686,400
Samsung Galaxy S5 5.1 1920x1080 432 2,073,600
HTC One Max 5.9 1920x1080 373 2,073,600
Apple iPhone 5S 4 640x1136 326 727,040
Apple iPad mini Retina 7.9 2048x1536 324 2,777,088
Google Nexus 4 4.7 1280x768 318 983,040
Google Nexus 10 10 2560x1600 300 4,096,000
Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro 13.3 3200x1800 276 5,760,000
ASUS Zenbook UX301A 13.3 2560x1440 221 3,686,400
Apple Retina MBP 15" 15.4 2880x1800 221 5,184,000
Dell Ultrasharp 27" 5K 27 5120x2880 218 14,745,600
Nokia Lumia 820 4.3 800x480 217 384,000
IBM T220/T221 22.2 3840x2400 204 9,216,000
Dell UP2414Q 24 3840x2160 184 8,294,400
Dell P2815Q 28 3840x2160 157 8,294,400
Samsung U28D590D 28 3840x2160 157 8,294,400
ASUS PQ321Q 31.5 3840x2160 140 8,294,400
Apple 11.6" MacBook Air 11.6 1366x768 135 1,049,088
LG 34UM95 34 3440x1440 110 4,953,600
Korean 27" WQHD 27 2560x1440 109 3,686,400
Sharp 8K Prototype 85 7680x4320 104 33,177,600

Dell has been pretty quiet on the specifications, such as HDMI or DisplayPort support, though PC Perspective is reporting 16W integrated speakers. If the display is using tiling to divide up the transport workload over two outputs, that puts the emphasis squarely on two DP 1.2 connections. There is no mention of frame rates as of yet, nor intended color goals.

Clearly this panel is aimed more at workflow than gaming.  This is almost double 4K resolution in terms of pixels, and 4K can already bring down the majority of graphics cards to their knees, but we would imagine that the content producer and prosumer would be the intended market. Word is that this monitor will hit the shelves by Christmas, with a $2500 price tag.

Source: Dell

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  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Knowing Dell and their QA dep. with UP3214Q, we'll probably be better staying away from this monitor for good.
  • ddriver - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    You might have been unlucky but I've had a number of high end Dell monitors and never had an issue with them. Or maybe you are psychic? Advising us all to stay away from a product not even tested yet?
  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    I don't talk about "high end Dell monitors", but "4K Dell monitors", as in UP3214Q which proved to be junk. That device went trough no QA department and Dell's handling of that problem was a disaster:
    check out this epic thread: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/periph...
    And check Amazon.com reviews.
  • hughlle - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    What has that got to do with an unreleased untested product? You're simply speculating, it means absolutely nothing.
  • imaheadcase - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Exactly, Dell makes many great monitors. Just because one monitor might have had issues with some people does not mean to dismiss it. I'm using two dell monitors now that are perfect for me.
  • kgelner - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Except that the one bad Dell monitor so far was a 4K display, not the lower resolution monitors where the reputation for quality was earned. Until there are a lot of good reviews from a very high PPI monitor from Dell it would make sense to be wary.
  • naxeem - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    The problem is that not only their monitor in question is a $3500 premium model, but also that Dell refused to acknowledge problems with it for months. Even after admitting that there are problems, Dell refused to give out fixed firmware. Also, Dell did absolutely nothing to ensure people replacing A00 devices got A01 or newer, but kept it all a mess and didn't care no matter how many people complained.
    That is what makes me cautious. I'd rather wait for Asus.
  • JDG1980 - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Dell's standard monitors (2560x1600 and below) are fine. The problem is that their Ultra HD products require DisplayPort MST, which is a very finicky technology, and the firmware clearly wasn't adequately tested before release. As a result, the monitors had tons of bugs and glitches (only showing half the screen, failing to work properly after system wake-up, and so on). The problem was compounded by Dell's inexplicable refusal to let users update the firmware of monitors on their own - instead the monitor had to be sent back and a *refurbished* one with the new firmware would be provided in its place. For products costing $1000-$3500, this is completely unacceptable.

    The 5120x2880 panel is definitely a nice advance, but of course Dell doesn't manufacture panels. We'll probably see similar models from other monitor makers before long. Dell's version might be worth considering if they've learned from their mistakes, but I wouldn't buy it until it's been out for at least a couple months and all the bug reports have come in. I'm not going to pay $2000+ for the privilege of being an alpha tester.
  • ddriver - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    Nice, hopefully it will perform well in reviews. Good color accuracy and uniformity will make me buy this absent hesitation.
  • Samus - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link

    15 million pixels. Wow. I wonder if you'd even be able to tell one was bad at that density.

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