How can I know if my 2018 15.6" MacBook Pro will work with this Dell monitor ?
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Dell UltraSharp 32 4K USB-C Monitor: U3219Q
- Thread starter anjanesh
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USB-C is the format of an connection. Don't know if the monitor supports Display port via Usb C/Thunderbolt thou
Yep, it supports Displayport
![Ports]( "Ports")
Ports
- USB-C upstream/DisplayPort with Power Delivery
- HDMI (HDCP)
- DisplayPort
- 2 x USB 3.0 downstream with Battery Charging 1.2
- 2 x USB 3.0 downstream
- USB 3.0 upstream
Cables Included:
Power Cable | USB-C Cable (C to C) | DisplayPort (DP) Cable | USB 3.0 Upstream Cable
Power Cable | USB-C Cable (C to C) | DisplayPort (DP) Cable | USB 3.0 Upstream Cable
So I can connect the monitor directly to my MBP without any convertor / adapter ?Yep, it supports Displayport
![Ports]( "Ports")
Ports
- USB-C upstream/DisplayPort with Power Delivery
- HDMI (HDCP)
- DisplayPort
- 2 x USB 3.0 downstream with Battery Charging 1.2
- 2 x USB 3.0 downstream
- USB 3.0 upstream
I have the same monitor and it works perfectly via a single USB-C cable with my 2018 15" MBP, including charging.
Be aware Dell doesn't make their management software for macOS, so you'll have to adjust everything manually. Also, the monitor's USB hub + ports fall back to USB 2 speeds when you're using it this way, due to the bandwidth requirements for sending a 4K signal, but that doesn't affect me because I only use the monitor's ports for things like external keyboards and mice and headphones anyway.
It's a solid setup. I've never had a bit of trouble with it.
Be aware Dell doesn't make their management software for macOS, so you'll have to adjust everything manually. Also, the monitor's USB hub + ports fall back to USB 2 speeds when you're using it this way, due to the bandwidth requirements for sending a 4K signal, but that doesn't affect me because I only use the monitor's ports for things like external keyboards and mice and headphones anyway.
It's a solid setup. I've never had a bit of trouble with it.
The monitor includes a (short) USB-C cable. Plug it into the monitor, plug the other end into the Mac, and that's all you need for both display and power.
Is it difficult to setup dual screen in macOS Mojave's System Preferences > Display ?
Once you plug it in the monitor will come to life. Open System Preferences -> Displays. This will open two windows, one for each display. Select the "Arrangement" tab on the "Built-In Retina display" window. Uncheck (if it's checked by default, I can't recall) "Mirror Displays." You will then see a graphical representation of your two displays. The big one (the Dell) and the little one (the Mac's built-in display) can be dragged freely. Position them to match your setup (monitor on the left, right, above, etc) and then drag the mouse or a window between the two to fine tune the arrangement if you're finicky about that sort of thing, which I am.
By default the Mac's built-in display will remain the default display for showing notifications and such. In the same section where you can drag the displays around to change their orientation you can grab hold of the white taskbar and drag it to the other monitor. This will make the Dell the default display as long as it's connected, and is of course totally optional. I tend to do so because the U3219Q is quite large and with the Mac off to the right or left it's easy to miss notifications that pop up way over in your peripheral vision, plus it's quite a haul to drag the mouse way over there to deal with them.
Once you get it set up the way you want it, so that you can drag your mouse and windows back and forth properly, click on the other window, the one labeled Dell U3219Q. If I recall correctly, the first time you attach the monitor it will default to retina mode, which is quite ridiculous on this monitor, but you might like it. Essentially it will pixel double a full HD resolution (1920x1080) and display it at 4K. So everything (text, controls, etc.) will be super sharp but quite large. Actually, I just clicked on "Default for Display" and it set it to full 4K with no scaling, so now I'm not 100% sure what you should expect. Either way, everything will either be way too big or way too small.
Where it says "Resolution" you will see two options
Default for display
Scaled
Choose scaled and find whichever one suits you best. At 32" this monitor is just large enough to make native 4K resolution technically usable if you have keen eyes, but I never run mine that way. I tend to run mine in "Looks like 2560x1440," which is sufficient for working in two windows side by side in most apps. There are two additional steps you can try, which will increase the available effective screen real estate but make everything appear smaller on the screen.
You may know this part, but if not, the thing to understand is that the monitor's actual resolution is 3840x2160. As I said, you can technically run it at that resolution, but the text and other onscreen elements will be a bit tiny. The other end of the spectrum is "looks like 1920x1080", which will make the monitor feel super cramped and text will be giant. I point it out because you've probably heard that you're not supposed to run a monitor at other than its native resolution, but that's not what this is. macOS will always be running it at its full 4K resolution, it's just that the way it appears will be different, so feel free to pick whichever one suits you best. Some people say that the modes other than 1920x1080 and 3840x2160 will look fuzzier, and maybe they do, but I can't see it.
Finally, do not turn on "High Dynamic Range" unless you intend to use it right away, and then be sure and turn it off again as soon as you're done. It washes the colors out severely in SDR content like the desktop and basically everything you do other than watch videos or play HDR-enabled games when it's active (it's the same on Windows). Seriously, just don't do it.
Once you set it all up, your Mac will remember it and you'll never have to fiddle with any of it again unless you want to change something.
By default the Mac's built-in display will remain the default display for showing notifications and such. In the same section where you can drag the displays around to change their orientation you can grab hold of the white taskbar and drag it to the other monitor. This will make the Dell the default display as long as it's connected, and is of course totally optional. I tend to do so because the U3219Q is quite large and with the Mac off to the right or left it's easy to miss notifications that pop up way over in your peripheral vision, plus it's quite a haul to drag the mouse way over there to deal with them.
Once you get it set up the way you want it, so that you can drag your mouse and windows back and forth properly, click on the other window, the one labeled Dell U3219Q. If I recall correctly, the first time you attach the monitor it will default to retina mode, which is quite ridiculous on this monitor, but you might like it. Essentially it will pixel double a full HD resolution (1920x1080) and display it at 4K. So everything (text, controls, etc.) will be super sharp but quite large. Actually, I just clicked on "Default for Display" and it set it to full 4K with no scaling, so now I'm not 100% sure what you should expect. Either way, everything will either be way too big or way too small.
Where it says "Resolution" you will see two options
Default for display
Scaled
Choose scaled and find whichever one suits you best. At 32" this monitor is just large enough to make native 4K resolution technically usable if you have keen eyes, but I never run mine that way. I tend to run mine in "Looks like 2560x1440," which is sufficient for working in two windows side by side in most apps. There are two additional steps you can try, which will increase the available effective screen real estate but make everything appear smaller on the screen.
You may know this part, but if not, the thing to understand is that the monitor's actual resolution is 3840x2160. As I said, you can technically run it at that resolution, but the text and other onscreen elements will be a bit tiny. The other end of the spectrum is "looks like 1920x1080", which will make the monitor feel super cramped and text will be giant. I point it out because you've probably heard that you're not supposed to run a monitor at other than its native resolution, but that's not what this is. macOS will always be running it at its full 4K resolution, it's just that the way it appears will be different, so feel free to pick whichever one suits you best. Some people say that the modes other than 1920x1080 and 3840x2160 will look fuzzier, and maybe they do, but I can't see it.
Finally, do not turn on "High Dynamic Range" unless you intend to use it right away, and then be sure and turn it off again as soon as you're done. It washes the colors out severely in SDR content like the desktop and basically everything you do other than watch videos or play HDR-enabled games when it's active (it's the same on Windows). Seriously, just don't do it.
Once you set it all up, your Mac will remember it and you'll never have to fiddle with any of it again unless you want to change something.
There is an app, MonitorControl, which allows you to set the contrast and brightness parameters from within MacOS - even lets you control volume on monitors with a 3.5mm output.
Yes. And there’s also Lunar, which can sync the external monitor brightness to the Mac’s internal screen automatically.
Dell tech support doesn't understand sub-pixel anti-aliasing, so asking them if this is a BGR sequence construction instead of the normal and Mac expecting RGB sequence won't get you anywhere. Text would be messed up on a BGR monitor. As I understand it, since they rarely document this fact, you can't tell the construction until you turn it on. The first edge on the left would look white instead of black. That and you text will look messed up in spacing and be blurry. This is a 140 pixels per inch display. Based on my experience with a 32" 4K monitor from LG, you will probably find everything too small and set it to a lower resolution, which generally means you've wasted your money on this monitor if you can't use all it can display. For a normal or old school non-Retina display at 100 pixels per inch, for a UHD display like this, it should be 43" measured diagonally.
Thank you for all your replies. Thanks @Mockletoy for your detailed explanation.
I intend to use this @3840x2160 even if it's small - I think I can manage. Not 100% sure though.
10 years ago I had Dell SP2309W 23-inch Full HD Widescreen Monitor which had 2048x1152 with my Ubuntu desktop. Was excellent until I ditched Ubuntu for MacBook.
I intend to use this @3840x2160 even if it's small - I think I can manage. Not 100% sure though.
10 years ago I had Dell SP2309W 23-inch Full HD Widescreen Monitor which had 2048x1152 with my Ubuntu desktop. Was excellent until I ditched Ubuntu for MacBook.
I snapped two screenshots. The Safari window is the same relative size in both of them, to give you some idea. One is native 3840x2160, the other is "looks like 2560x1440."
It's quite usable in full 4K, but I don't know if I'd want to squint at it all day long.
Attachments
One concern - I normally charge my MBP to 100% and then disconnect the charger and then re-charge once the battery level reaches 5%.
But with this monitor connected to the MBP via USB-C, the laptop will be at 100% charge all the time ? I thought that was bad for the battery.
But with this monitor connected to the MBP via USB-C, the laptop will be at 100% charge all the time ? I thought that was bad for the battery.
Another monitor thread filled with people obsessing about DPI and Retina, and not understanding how macOS scales the UI (except for @Mockletoy!).
A 4K display, connected to a machine running macOS Big Sur, will look fabulous with the scaling set to "looks like 2560 x 1440". I have a 27" LG 4K display running with my M1 MBA, and the quality of the screen display looks just as good as the native "Retina" scaling on the MBA's own display from an average desk-based viewing distance.
As was discussed in another thread, "looks like 2560 x 1440" is actually a HiDPI resolution supported by macOS. When the display is set to this, macOS renders the UI as 5120 × 2880 internally, then scales that to 2560 x 1440 for the display, so you get a true 2:1 scale. You can check this by looking at the Graphics/Displays listing under the System Report when you have the monitor plugged in.
As @Mockletoy pointed out above, the actual screen resolution is not changing - you are still running the display at the native resolution of 3840 x 2160, but the UI is scaled. Back in Ye Olden Days, you'd be changing the display res of the screen away from the native resolution, and THEN it looked fuzzy and terrible, because the rendered pixels don't match the physical pixels of the screen. But those days are long gone, for both macOS and Windows.
A 4K display, connected to a machine running macOS Big Sur, will look fabulous with the scaling set to "looks like 2560 x 1440". I have a 27" LG 4K display running with my M1 MBA, and the quality of the screen display looks just as good as the native "Retina" scaling on the MBA's own display from an average desk-based viewing distance.
As was discussed in another thread, "looks like 2560 x 1440" is actually a HiDPI resolution supported by macOS. When the display is set to this, macOS renders the UI as 5120 × 2880 internally, then scales that to 2560 x 1440 for the display, so you get a true 2:1 scale. You can check this by looking at the Graphics/Displays listing under the System Report when you have the monitor plugged in.
As @Mockletoy pointed out above, the actual screen resolution is not changing - you are still running the display at the native resolution of 3840 x 2160, but the UI is scaled. Back in Ye Olden Days, you'd be changing the display res of the screen away from the native resolution, and THEN it looked fuzzy and terrible, because the rendered pixels don't match the physical pixels of the screen. But those days are long gone, for both macOS and Windows.
Deeply discharging the battery over and over again as you describe does nothing but rapidly accrue recharge cycles and wear it out. The more deeply and frequently you discharge it, the more rapidly it ages -- it only has so many recharge cycles before it hits 80% of its original design capacity and you get the warning to service it.
I've got a 2013 13" MBP that's been plugged in 100% of the time (acting as a server or Netflix-in-bed machine) and the battery is totally fine. I checked a while back and it still has well over 90% of its original capacity at nearly 8 years old, much of that time spent as a secondary machine that was plugged in all the time.
The newest versions of macOS manage your battery health automatically on machines as new as the 2018 in any case. I don't have a notebook because I need to be away from power outlets much of the time, I have a notebook because I like to be able to easily work anywhere.
As a point of reference, my 2018 15" MacBook Pro has 22 recharge cycles. As I said, I mostly use it plugged in. To find out how many cycles yours has you can open System Information and check in the "Power" section under "Hardware."
I've got a 2013 13" MBP that's been plugged in 100% of the time (acting as a server or Netflix-in-bed machine) and the battery is totally fine. I checked a while back and it still has well over 90% of its original capacity at nearly 8 years old, much of that time spent as a secondary machine that was plugged in all the time.
The newest versions of macOS manage your battery health automatically on machines as new as the 2018 in any case. I don't have a notebook because I need to be away from power outlets much of the time, I have a notebook because I like to be able to easily work anywhere.
As a point of reference, my 2018 15" MacBook Pro has 22 recharge cycles. As I said, I mostly use it plugged in. To find out how many cycles yours has you can open System Information and check in the "Power" section under "Hardware."
Regarding the laptop's battery health, there were some updates in both Catalina and Big Sur; macOS is smart enough to not charge the battery to 100% all the time, which is supposed to prolong its life. In Big Sur, this is active even when the battery reports being charged at 100%; you can check this using coconut battery.
As long as you still use the laptop as ... a laptop, I mean run it on battery a few times during the week you should be fine.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211094
As long as you still use the laptop as ... a laptop, I mean run it on battery a few times during the week you should be fine.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211094
Just to add, regarding the battery, from what I understand (and I'm no expert), a happy battery is neither full nor empty. Also, it's not static. So, sitting at 100% all the time is terrible for it, just as repeatedly and deeply depleting it is terrible for it. So in a perfect world you'd get the electrons flowing a little bit each day within the range of, say, 40-80% (commuting, watching videos on the sofa for a bit, that sort of thing).
But, again, with Big Sur managing the battery's health, you shouldn't have to worry about it. It will observe the way you use the Mac and adjust the way it keeps the battery charged to match that behavior. If it's plugged in all the time it will simply stop charging the battery to 100% (it'll SAY it's charged to 100% but it won't actually BE 100% of what the battery is technically capable of). Apple even says that with battery health engaged you might end up having less time on battery per charge, but you'll get greater longevity out of the battery over its total life.
The moral of the story is, just use it how you want to and Battery Health will work in the background to adapt to your workflow and keep the battery healthy. But intentionally charging it to full and then discharging it to nearly empty is neither recommended nor required.
But, again, with Big Sur managing the battery's health, you shouldn't have to worry about it. It will observe the way you use the Mac and adjust the way it keeps the battery charged to match that behavior. If it's plugged in all the time it will simply stop charging the battery to 100% (it'll SAY it's charged to 100% but it won't actually BE 100% of what the battery is technically capable of). Apple even says that with battery health engaged you might end up having less time on battery per charge, but you'll get greater longevity out of the battery over its total life.
The moral of the story is, just use it how you want to and Battery Health will work in the background to adapt to your workflow and keep the battery healthy. But intentionally charging it to full and then discharging it to nearly empty is neither recommended nor required.