By day, I’m a designer living in Figma; by night, I’m a gamer and content creator trying to squeeze one more render before bedtime. So I’m always looking for a monitor that doesn’t compromise one area of interest over the other. The new Dell 32 Plus 4K QD‑OLED (S3225QC) fits both lives better than most monitors I’ve tried.
The 31.6‑inch QD‑OLED panel nails that 4K/120Hz sweet spot where text stays crisp, vector edges are razor clean, and color decisions don’t turn into guesswork. Add in some truly wonderful speakers and you’ve got yourself a monitor that’s just as good for Teams calls as it is for getting immersed in the Outer Worlds 2.
Paired with an Alienware Area‑51 gaming desktop PC, it was a breeze to run the monitor’s 4K, 120Hz refresh with FreeSync Premium Pro and OLED’s 0.03ms response means motion that stays sharp, not smeared. Night scenes in Cyberpunk 2077, frantic firefights in CoD BlackOps 7, the painterly world of Farloom in Hollow Knight:Silksong —everything gets that OLED upgrade: blacks aren’t “dark grey until you squint,” they’re actually black, which makes highlights pop and worlds feel richer.
For media, Dolby Vision support plus OLED contrast sells the cinematic vibe without pretending to be a living‑room TV. It’s desk‑friendly HDR that looks legitimately premium. Watching Disney+ on this monitor looks great as a result though gaming in Dolby Vision remains elusive to say the least.
The unexpected hero is that speaker bar. Monitor speakers usually get a participation ribbon; these get applause. Dell put five drivers pushing 25W sound big enough for a desk and punchy enough for entertainment. Compared to the excellent speakers in my MacBook Pro, the Dell monitor easily outshone it for clarity, bass and spatial.
Dialogue on video chat is rich in tone, music has body, and game audio doesn’t collapse into tin. On hot days when I refuse to wear headphones through back‑to‑back Teams calls, these speakers are a blessing. Spatial audio, though—Dell’s AI‑enhanced 3D thing—is more garnish than meal. It adds width and a hint of positionality, but it didn’t wow me, especially in games. The positional sensor is also way to rigid and I quickly go sick of the monitor telling me how spatial audio was off because it couldn’t track me. I’m a human being, i don’t sit still for the whole day! Anyhoo, I didn’t miss it when I turned it off.
Day‑to‑night life hinges on friction, and the S3225QC gets one crucial piece right: USB‑C upstream with 90W Power Delivery. One cable powers my MacBook Pro, pushes video via DisplayPort 1.4 Alt Mode, and handles data to the two USB‑C downstream ports. For laptop‑first workflows, it’s the clean desk dream—no dock spaghetti, no charger brick dangling off the side.
Which is why the rest of the I/O story is a bit maddening. There’s only one HDMI 2.1 input and—bafflingly—no dedicated DisplayPort jack. USB‑C DP Alt Mode works for desktops, but a standard DP port is the simplest, most universal path for towers and older GPUs. Then there’s the “hub”: just two USB‑C downstream ports at 5Gbps/15W (with a clever pop‑out front port), and no USB‑A.
I can live in a USB‑C‑only world, but the missing KVM is the bigger miss. This is the perfect multi‑device monitor on paper—work laptop by day, PC/console by night—but I still have to juggle peripherals or add a separate switch. Give me a button to swap keyboard/mouse between devices and this becomes a no‑brainer recommendation.
If Dell invested so much in the speakers, why stop short on the rest of the meeting stack? There’s no built‑in webcam or microphone. It’s a conservative call on a monitor otherwise designed to be your everything screen. I loved taking calls without headphones thanks to the speakers, but I still had to plug in a standalone mic and camera. A decent mic array and a competent 4K webcam like on the Samsung M9 would complete the “creator by night, professional by day” story beautifully.
Ergonomics are strong: the stand adjusts for height, tilt, swivel, and slant without wobble, and the rear I/O cover keeps cables tidy. Dell’s OSD is functional (not fancy), and once you pick a color mode and set brightness for your room, you can forget it exists. Burn‑in mitigation is in place, and with sensible brightness and mixed content, I didn’t have anxiety about using dark UI all day. I love the overall clean, white aesthetic that Dell went for that is still professional office look but chic.
At AU$1,299.10, the value proposition is straightforward: you’re paying for OLED that genuinely elevates work and play. If your life is laptop‑first, the 90W USB‑C makes the daily plug‑in painless. If you run multiple devices, factor in the lack of KVM, the limited hub, the single HDMI, and the missing DP input. Those choices keep it from being the ultimate “creator’s desk” monitor—but they don’t ruin what’s here.
Verdict
As a designer by day and gamer/creator by night: this screen makes me want to sit down and do both. The picture is stunning, the color is trustworthy, and the speakers are honestly great for real work and real play. The spatial audio is a cute trick, not a revolution. The 90W USB‑C upstream is a hero feature. The missing KVM, limited hub, and no DisplayPort input are compromises you feel.
Add a competent mic/webcam and a proper DP port in a refresh, and Dell will have the 32‑inch all‑rounder everyone else has to chase. Until then, if those connectivity caveats fit your setup, you’ll love this thing as much as I do. I just wish Dell could port these speakers to one of its gaming monitors…
Dell Australia kindly loaned the Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED S3225QC to PowerUp for the purpose of this review
