Dell UltraSharp U3011

6owners with an opinion

67%of verdicts positive

1/0positive/negative since 2024

10 yrslongest happy owner

3happy after 3+ years

Praised for display and repairability; criticized for reliability and noise.

What people wrote

Likes itOwned 10 yearsStill going

You'd be surprised (maybe) how few monitors there are in particular categories. In terms of successors to the older 30" screens at 16:10, or 6k screens of any kind, or simply 5k screen with even some of an assortment of niche quality attributes, there's usually like 1 single offering. I'm still rocking my Dell U3011 from 10 years ago alongaside my 2019 13" MBP with an i5, and occasionally I look at upgrading, but never find something sufficiently compelling that ticks whichever boxes I'm looking for. For example, I don't want an ultrawide, and I'd prefer IPS quality at around 30-32", and for it to be better than my current screen it'd need to be at least 120hz with <3ms response time and/or retina density, for a relatively modest budget, and for what's available I just end up deciding I'm fine with what I got until it's dead.

Likes itOwned 10 yearsStill going

I have been using my current home PLP setup for 10 years. Dell U3011 (2560x1600) in middle and Dell 2007FP (1200x1600) on the sides. Off and on I have looked for high dpi replacements, but never found anything suitable. At the beginning of the year, my U3011 started blanking out on me. As it became more frequent, I started shopping again. But wow, the monitor situation right now is sad. There are no high dpi monitors with enough vertical space. And since they're all at least as short as 16:9, they're unusable in portrait as well. I ended up repairing the U3011. It's going to have to last me a while. There's just no upgrade path.

Likes itOwned 6 yearsStill going

Will second this - for the money the BenQ panels are hard to beat. But I always seem to end up with Dell panels. I have an over six year old Dell U3011 32" 2560x1600 panel and other than not having variable refresh is still a great panel. And the few times I have had support issues Dell has always been pleasant to work with whereas Asus, Benq and other more consumer oriented companies tend to force you through a morass of automated systems/forums/email/chat which can be a huge time sink. If there are two similar monitors and even if Dell is 20% more I'll buy the Dell. However if you aren't in a hurry, Dell runs amazing sells or you can get incredible deals through their refurbished site. Indeed the 32" monitor I referenced above was going for $1400 and I got it for $800 "refurbished" - as far as I could tell someone got it, opened the box and just returned it without even taking it out. Either that or Dell did an amazing job repackaging it.

Likes it

I'm using 2x Dell U3011s, one I purchased around ~2013 probably and the other I got used recently for $100. My only issue with them is that they have PWM coil whine that only goes away if I crank the brightness to ~90%, which seems to produce an immense amount of heat and probably power consumption. I'd love to find a viable alternative solution for this, because these are my favorite monitors for now. The model appears to have been released 16 years ago. I haven't yet found a monitor that makes sense to replace them with either.

Neutral

I'm always interested to learn about the setups that people eventually find working for them. Right now, I have a MS Sculpt keyboard (which I can toss in my backpack and use at a cafe, a little bulky for travel but doable) on a regular desk, and a somewhat budget 13" 2019 Intel MBP with 16gb of ram and a touch bar; the computer sits on stand next to my Dell 30" Ultrasharp (U3011 that I bought in ~2014) and a Logitech MX Master, as well as an old gaming PC that still provides use and I swap all the peripherals over to when needed. Have never personally owned an air or any other laptop than 13" Macbook Pros of varying specs now that I think of it, but used to develop on Windows when I was starting out, and typically do any server stuff on Debian over ssh or running Docker. There are two areas that seem like such a miss to me on current macs, one of which you mentioned; cellular connectivity. I don't know if a physical SIM slot would be necessary, but it's just ridiculous that I still need to tether. That and a lack of any other appearance than grey or silver. Let me get a damn red, forest green, or lavender Macbook Pro! I don't particularly care for the keyboard on the laptop, but my opinion more broadly, hence the Sculpt keyboard, is that any situation where my arms come in from an angle and I have to strain my wrists toward a rectangle of keys isn't really ideal. Went through a series of other external keyboards, apple keyboards, and what tends to be my preference is the key-…

Doesn’t like it

I have a Dell U3011 (flagship 30" monitor from 2011). Died due to capacitor. The funny thing is, this monitor looks like it was designed to die. Essentially, the smoothing capacitor was placed directly in the stream of hot air going up. Loads of better ways to organise the board or just move the capacitor but no, the capacitor had to be in the worst possible place for it. I replaced the capacitor with one specced for much higher temp and it is still going.

Doesn’t like it

I dunno about Retina Quality text, that moniker isn't important to me. What is important to me is that I get the amount of text on the screen without it being all blocky. My previous Dell U3011 32" 2500x1600 display was a bit blocky. The 4K 32" is quite nice for my use. I will say that the difficulties I had getting dual 4K working in my setup make me glad I didn't try for something like 8K. In my case, I have a recent Dell XPS 15, but not quite recent enough. My docking station can't do 4K output. The next newer XPS 15 can. In the end I found that using two USB-C to HDMI cables, directly connected to the laptop, will do it, so that's good enough for me. Went from the 1-cable docking to 3, but I'm ok with that. I don't tend to move my laptop much these days.

Likes it

I have yet to find a better monitor than the Dell U3011, which is essentially the same unit as my previous 3008WFP (which itself there was a 3007wfp before it), which means it's a design that's been available approaching 15 years. 30" 2560x1600; c. 100ppi. I run the numbers on all the Ultrawide, 4K, whatever hotness and I end up knowing I'll fit less vertical lines on the screen.