Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED Monitor

Introduction

The Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED Monitor might look like an ordinary, modern office monitor, but it has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve.

It’s actually a world-first for a monitor, coming with spatial audio-capable speakers built-in, as well as a 32-inch 4K QD-OLED panel with a smoother 120Hz refresh rate to bring an otherwise innocuous office panel in line with some of the best gaming monitors out there.

With this in mind, its rich panel and premium £732.50/$799.99 price tag put it more against those premium QD-OLED panels, such as the AOC Agon Pro AG326UD and Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED (2024).

I’ve been testing the 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED for the last couple of weeks as my main monitor for work to see how well it performs and if it’s one of the best monitors we’ve tested.

Design

• Modern looks
• Okay stand adjustment
• Port selection is a little light

The 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED carries a similar modern and sleek look to a lot of Dell’s other premium office monitors. It comes with a pleasant two-tone colourway comprised of a white base, stand, and main chassis, complete with a lovely fabric front fascia.

It’s nice and easy to put together, with a toolless construction that amounts to screwing the stand into the base with the threading on its underside, and locking the panel in place. That’s it. The arm and stand base are fully metal, feeling sturdy, and have a good heft to them.

The adjustment of the stand is a little disappointing against the 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED’s more gaming-oriented rivals, coming with tilt and swivel action, as well as decent scope for pivot and height adjustment. There is no room for portrait mode here, though.

So too is the port selection, with a basic lot consisting of a singular HDMI 2.1, as well as Thunderbolt 4-capable USB-C with 90W of power delivery and DisplayPort Alt mode, as well as a lesser USB-C with up to 15W of power delivery for charging peripherals. That’s it.

For context, other monitors can add a DisplayPort or two to the mix, as well as a three-port USB-A hub or KVM for added connectivity. For productivity use, the ports on the 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED just feel a tad basic, especially against the Alienware AW2725Q, which is one of Dell’s other new QD-OLED screens. Being sunk into the rear side of the panel makes them quite hard to access if you’re tight on space.

Image Quality

• Impeccable image quality
• Deep blacks, as well as good contrast and colours
• SDR brightness is a little low, but in line with rivals

As much as the port selection may be on the iffier side, the same certainly cannot be said for the 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED’s image quality. This is largely thanks to it coming with a rich and detailed 32-inch 4K QD-OLED 120Hz screen that covers the entire front panel with thin bezels all around.

The 32 inches of real estate provides a lot of space for on-screen action, while its 4K resolution offers some sublime detail, with text being crisp and sharp for productivity workloads. 

While the 120Hz refresh rate means this is conceivably a gaming panel (especially with the addition of AMD FreeSync Premium VRR tech), it also makes a difference to the general responsiveness of the screen, and matches well with the 120Hz refresh rate found on the more modern ProMotion displays on newer MacBook Pros.

Being a QD-OLED panel means you’re getting deep, inky blacks and great contrast that has become the hallmark of the type, with my trusty colorimeter measuring respective levels of 0.04 and 5820:1. The contrast ratio may not be as high as comparable gaming screens, but it’s still enough to give some great dynamic range. Its 6200K white point gives the screen a near-perfect colour temperature.

Colour accuracy here for the 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED is virtually impeccable, with 100% sRGB, 98% DCI-P3 and 92% Adobe RGB coverage. This signals just how well-suited this screen is to both generalist productivity workloads, as well as for any more intensive tasks such as video or photo editing.

As is traditional with a QD-OLED screen, where this panel falls down is with its peak SDR brightness. My colorimeter measured 240.2 nits, which is in keeping with the usual 250-nit target these panels have, although in a smaller window, and with HDR-supported content, it is likely to go a lot higher. This 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED monitor supports both DisplayHDR True Black 400 and Dolby Vision HDR for good measure.

Software and Features

• Basic, but functional OSD
• Surprisingly fantastic built-in speakers

The 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED’s OSD is basic, but offers easy navigation with a joystick for controlling settings such as brightness/contrast, speaker volume and different content-specific sound modes, such as for Music, Movies or Games.

That’s because this screen comes with an impressive array of built-in speakers where the competition’s is otherwise tinny, or completely absent. As I mentioned in the introduction, this screen comes with some clever spatial audio features that put it a cut above virtually every other monitor I’ve tested. 

It all comes thanks to a small sensor above the Dell logo on the front fascia of the screen that tracks your head movement and tunes the audio to suit the most immersive option properly. This means it has good depth and breadth when enabled, and generally leads to much higher quality audio from the five 5W speakers.

Volume isn’t a problem, as the 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED’s speakers can get plenty loud, and have surprisingly robust bass for when you’re jamming out to suitable music while working.

Should you buy it?

FAQs