Dell Previews 5K 27″ Panel!

While everyone is busy getting hyped about the now relatively cheap 4k panels that have made their way to the market – Dell is busy crushing those dreams by previewing their latest monitor, the UP2715K. The monitor features a resolution of 5120 x 2880.

What makes the UP2715K so special is that it’s not only the first “5K” monitor previewed for the desktop level but it finally outshines the IBM T220/221 as the largest resolution monitor available. Never heard of the IBM T220/221? That’s alright, most haven’t in this modern day. The monitor released by IBM in 2003 (!) boasted a resolution of 3840 x 2400! It has held the record for eleven long years. I don’t think we need to tell you that holding any sort of record in the tech industry for eleven years is nothing short of impressive. The T220/221 required two power supplies and no less than four DVI-I outputs!

Now to get down to the nit and gritty and why you should and shouldn’t be getting tight pants over this monitor. As we said the monitor features an astounding resolution of 5120 x 2880, or 14,745,600 total pixels. To give you an idea of how big that is, a 4k monitor only features 8,294,400 total pixels. That’s over a 70% increase! A lowly 1080p monitor only has 2,073,600 total pixels just so you can get a better idea of how huge this is if you don’t have a 4k monitor yet.

Dell’s UP2715K is equal to four 2560 x 1440 panels or seven 1920x1080p panels! The PPI count comes out to 218, which for a desktop monitor is outstanding. It even compares to laptops such as the Asus Zenbook and Apple MBP Retina. Your average 1080p monitor will have around 100 PPI.

The monitor doesn’t have a release date but judging from Dell’s naming scheme I think it’s safe to bet we won’t see this monitor come to retail until 2015. However, a price has been announced! Coming in at only $2499.99, the monitor comes priced significantly lower than the 32″ 4k monitor they released last summer for $3499.99. The caveat to all this – it requires TWO display ports to run! Alternatively you can run it in 4k mode with only a single display port – but who would do such a thing?