Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
OSD Setup & Calibration
The S2719DM has a full on-screen display (OSD) with nearly every option you could desire. It’s not aimed at professionals, but it does have the accuracy required for color-critical work in the sRGB realm.
The OSD is divided into seven sub-menus. The input source sub-menu has an auto-sense feature that locks on almost instantly to the first active signal.
There are seven image modes. Standard offers sufficient accuracy, so calibration is an option rather than a requirement. ComfortView is similar to the low blue light modes many other monitors offer. To tweak that last one percent of performance, choose Custom Color and adjust the RGB sliders as we did. Gamma presets and color gamut options are not present. DCI happens only in HDR mode, and gamma is fixed at 2.2.
Computers usually output RGB signals, but many Blu-ray players use YPbPr (the analog version of the YCbCr color space). If your player has issues with the S2719DM, you can manually select the YPbPr format available in the Input Color Format sub-menu, which is under Color.
Display offers aspect ratio options, a sharpness control (20 is all you need before edge enhancement sets in), overdrive and four HDR options. The HDR options only work when an HDR10 signal is present, and you can turn it off if desired. We saw the best image quality using Movie HDR.
Under Menu, you can select the OSD's language, adjust its transparency and decide how long it stays on screen (up to 60 seconds).
Personalize lets you change the functions of the first two control keys. You can also turn off the power LED here.
The final menu, Others, offers signal info (including the HDMI version of the source), DDC/CI (two-way communication between display and source)and LCD Conditioning, which is completely unnecessary in any LCD. You can also view the firmware and service tag here if you need service or support.
Calibration
The S2719DM’s Standard mode is fine for all applications, gaming, or SDR movies. Its errors are below the visible point, so calibration is unnecessary.
In Custom Color, RGB sliders appear that only need minor adjustment to bring grayscale tracking to an excellent level. We lowered contrast a bit to remove all signs of clipping from the 100% brightness point. However, this is unnecessary; if you leave everything alone, SDR contrast is about 1000:1, and color errors never exceed 2dE.
Below are the recommended settings in Custom Color mode:
| Dell S2719DM Calibration Settings | |
| Picture Mode | Custom Color |
| Brightness 200 nits | 58 |
| Brightness 120 nits | 26 |
| Brightness 100 nits | 22 |
| Brightness 80 nits | 16 |
| Brightness 50 nits | 8 |
| Contrast | 70 |
| Color Temp | Red 99, Green 99, Blue 100 |
| Smart HDR | Movie |
For HDR content, you can increase contrast to 75 for a little more pop. But don't go beyond that or visible clipping will occur. We also found the best performance in the Movie HDR preset.
MORE: Best Gaming Monitors
MORE: How We Test Monitors
MORE: All Monitor Content
