Dell’s huge new Ultrasharp is a 6K resolution replacement for a desk full of monitors

Dell has extreme multi-monitor setups in the firing line with its latest display entry. The Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor is a whopping 52in across, with a 21:9 aspect ratio giving it enough screen real estate to replace both a 40in, 16:9 monitor and two vertical 27in secondaries. It’s primarily aimed at workers, but has a few gaming monitor-features too.

The 6K resolution IPS panel equates to a colossal 129 pixels per inch, or more than enough to let financial traders, engineers and office administrators cram their entire workflows onto a single screen – and using fewer cables to boot. A 120Hz refresh rate should keep scrolling feeling smooth at all times, while an ambient light sensor will adjust the image on the fly to suit your environment. Dell also reckons the screen filters out as much as 60% more blue light than rivals.

Sitting down in front of it at Dell’s pre-CES showcase, the Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub absolutely dominates your vision. It’s as bright and colourful as a monitor aimed at office use needs to be, looks wonderfully crisp even up close, and has great viewing angles too. I could fit so many separate desktop windows onscreen at once that I couldn’t imagine ever needing to add an extra display into the mix after making room for one of these. The bigger question was whether my desk would be big enough to actually house it.

As the name suggests, the Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub isn’t short on connectivity. There are enough Thunderbolt 4 ports around back to let you hook up four separate PCs, with picture-in-picture mode assigning each a quarter of the usable display.

The Thunderbolt Type-C cable included in the box is good for 140W of power delivery, or enough to keep most office-focused laptops fuelled. It’ll play nicely with MacOS for the most part, too. Multi-stream picture-in-picture is the main Windows exclusive though.

Dell has also brought QD-OLED tech over from its Alienware gaming division for the first time. The Ultrasharp QD OLED is aimed at commercial users, with remote calibration smarts and anti-glare, low-reflectance treatments that’ll cope just fine with office overhead lighting. TrueBlack 500 certification. It’ll be going global from February 24, with US pricing set to start at $2600.

The UltraSharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor lands a lot sooner: it’s available to order direct from Dell right now. Expect to pay $2800 for the screen on its lonesome, or $2900 if you want it to ship with a stand.

• Related: LG’s new 5K gaming monitors promise to ease the load on your GPU

Tom Morgan-Freelander Deputy Editor

About

A tech addict from about the age of three (seriously, he's got the VHS tapes to prove it), Tom's been writing about gadgets, games and everything in between for the past decade, with a slight diversion into the world of automotive in between. As Deputy Editor, Tom keeps the website ticking along, jam-packed with the hottest gadget news and reviews.  When he's not on the road attending launch events, you can usually find him scouring the web for the latest news, to feed Stuff readers' insatiable appetite for tech.

Areas of expertise

Smartphones/tablets/computing, cameras, home cinema, automotive, virtual reality, gaming