Defective Dell UltraSharp U3225QE (Adorama Return)

Nerd on the Street

I bought a new display, and it didn't go as planned. Join me for a look at the Dell UltraSharp U3225QE, followed by my experience trying to get it replaced with Adorama.  Read the specs on Dell's website: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-32-4k-thunderbolt-hub-monitor-u3225qe/apd/210-bqhs/monitors-monitor-accessories --- Join the Nerd Club: http://nerdclub.nots.co Official website: https://nerdonthestreet.com Discord server: https://discord.nots.co Subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/nerdonthestreet Facebook page: https://facebook.com/NerdOnTheStreet Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/NOTS_Network E-Mail: jacob@nerdonthestreet.com

Transcript

00:00:00Hello everyone, I'm Jacob Kaufman, I'm the Nerd on the Street, and today we're unboxing

00:00:03a Dell Ultrasharp U3225QE monitor.

00:00:15Okay everyone, the U3225QE is a fairly new display, it just came out last fall.

00:00:20It's a 32-inch 4K display, just like my BenQ PD3200U that's sitting behind it.

00:00:25So why did I pick up this Dell?

00:00:27Well there are a few reasons.

00:00:28First and foremost, my BenQ display actually has a bit of damage.

00:00:31I'm going to show you that in a second, once I get this box off the desk.

00:00:35That's really the primary reason I started looking for a new monitor.

00:00:38Now, the damage did not render my BenQ display unusable, so it was still a tough sell for me

00:00:43to go out and get a new display, I wasn't just going to do this willy-nilly.

00:00:46Now this Ultrasharp does have a few new features that my BenQ did not have.

00:00:50For one thing, this new Ultrasharp monitor has a 120Hz refresh rate, that's twice the refresh rate

00:00:55of my BenQ display back there, which was a 60Hz display, which has been the standard for a long

00:01:00time for computers.

00:01:01The Dell also has a slightly better contrast ratio, at least according to Dell.

00:01:05This is an IPS black monitor, so unlike my BenQ, which had a relatively common 1000 to 1 contrast ratio,

00:01:13this new Ultrasharp monitor has a 3000 to 1 contrast ratio.

00:01:17That means that the difference between the darkest color it can make and the lightest color

00:01:21is theoretically tripled.

00:01:23The Dell also has a wider color gamut, it covers about 99% of the DCI-P3 specification,

00:01:28whereas BenQ never published a DCI-P3 number for this particular model, the PD3200U,

00:01:34but third-party measurements showed it was about 90% or less of the DCI-P3 specification.

00:01:38The Dell also gets a little bit brighter than the BenQ did, it should have brightness controls that

00:01:42actually work through the display data channel, so I should be able to actually control it through

00:01:47my computer rather than using the monitors menu every time.

00:01:50So it's a lot of little bumps, it's a lot of little spec bumps.

00:01:52The biggest spec bump is going to be that refresh rate, 120Hz.

00:01:56Honestly, I'm not sure I'm going to notice any of the spec bumps, that color accuracy,

00:02:01all that stuff.

00:02:02I honestly might not notice, I would not have bought this display as an upgrade if it was just

00:02:06to upgrade.

00:02:07But like I said, my BenQ monitor, it's got some physical damage, it's got some blemishes on it.

00:02:12So really, I was just looking for an objective upgrade that wouldn't cost me too much money

00:02:16to go ahead and replace that aging BenQ with something that is not going to have that physical

00:02:20damage on it anymore.

00:02:22So that leads me to this Dell.

00:02:23I have never owned an UltraSharp monitor before.

00:02:26I remember I really wanted one back in the day.

00:02:28Another YouTuber I'm a big fan of, It's My Natural Color, he had several UltraSharp monitors

00:02:33and I thought they looked really good in his setup.

00:02:35A few other YouTubers that I followed also had them.

00:02:38Dell has been a respected brand in the monitor space for a long time.

00:02:41I actually used a Dell Trinitron CRT monitor as my main display on my setup before I got

00:02:47my Kunix flat panel when I built my first computer back in 2012.

00:02:51So yeah, this is sort of a return to Dell for me, but also a first experience

00:02:55with the UltraSharp line in particular, which is kind of Dell's professional line.

00:02:59Now, there are other UltraSharp monitors that are higher end than this one.

00:03:04Like I said, this has IPS black.

00:03:06If you go onto Dell's website and select regular IPS, they've got a monitor that costs thousands

00:03:11of dollars that's the same size and everything.

00:03:13And that one theoretically might have a little bit better color reproduction and stuff like

00:03:16that as well.

00:03:17But I think this is going to be perfect for my needs.

00:03:20Price-wise, I paid about the same amount for this as I paid for my BenQ monitor over

00:03:24eight years ago.

00:03:26I actually paid a few bucks less and that's even before all of the cash back and coupons

00:03:30and stuff that I had going on with this.

00:03:32I ordered this from a website called Adorama.

00:03:34It's also my first time buying from them.

00:03:35I am just going to spin this around real quick, show you the box before I open it up,

00:03:39but I'm not going to make this unboxing way too long.

00:03:42I'll try to keep it concise here.

00:03:44So on this side of the box, as I'm rotating this, you can see we have a sort of side

00:03:50view of

00:03:51the monitor.

00:03:52This Dell display is going to have a silver back.

00:03:55It is going to be plastic.

00:03:56I used to prefer all black stuff for my electronics.

00:03:59As you can see, the PD3200U is black back there.

00:04:02It does have a blue ring accent, which I thought was cool when I got that BenQ.

00:04:07As you can see, I am still using an Apple wired keyboard there that I got used many,

00:04:12many years ago.

00:04:12That's still my day-to-day keyboard because I still love that chiclet keyboard more than

00:04:16any fancy mechanical keyboards.

00:04:19So since that keyboard is silver, even if I see some of the silver that's displayed,

00:04:23it's not really going to look out of place.

00:04:24And the front of it, as you saw, is extremely minimal.

00:04:27We'll take a look at that when we actually get this thing out of the box.

00:04:30Now, flipping this thing all the way around for a second, you can see what I'm talking

00:04:33about with the back of the display.

00:04:34It will be silver, like I said.

00:04:35And we've got a few of the specs I just listed off.

00:04:37This monitor is marketed as a Thunderbolt dock, a Thunderbolt monitor.

00:04:41I am not going to be using it via Thunderbolt.

00:04:44I'm going to be using it via HDMI, at least to start out with.

00:04:47And I'll talk about that once we get it open as well, if I remember too, that is.

00:04:51On the other side, we've just got some barcodes and stuff.

00:04:54And there is a little square here of the packaging that is sort of popped open.

00:04:58Here, I'll shine a light up to that just so you can see it a little better.

00:05:01It's obviously meant to be popped open, but it was kind of strange.

00:05:05I'm not sure why on this side, but not the other side, they would have an opening.

00:05:08I would kind of get it if it was a handle, but the top of this box actually has a

00:05:12handle

00:05:12cut out that has not popped out at all.

00:05:15It's just completely flat right there at the top where the handle would come out.

00:05:20So yeah, that's kind of where we're at with this thing.

00:05:23I've just set that back on the ground for just a second.

00:05:25And to show you my PD3200U right here, well, first of all,

00:05:29to make this process easier on myself of swapping out the monitor,

00:05:32I've taken everything off of my desk except for stuff that has to do with the display.

00:05:36I left the speakers here because I want to see how they're going to fit around this new display.

00:05:42I left the Focusrite Scarlett because it's recording me right now,

00:05:44so I had to leave that plugged in.

00:05:46The keyboard and mouse are currently connected to USB through the BenQ monitor,

00:05:50so I am going to see if I can still use the USB hub in this thing

00:05:53without actually using Thunderbolt for the signal.

00:05:55I've got some laptop chargers over there.

00:05:56You can see I've got my BenQ display raised up pretty high,

00:05:59so those chargers fit underneath it.

00:06:01We're going to see if I can do the same thing with this new Dell.

00:06:03And I have one USB cable for a scanner on the other side of the room,

00:06:07stretching over here plugged in.

00:06:09I've got it plugged in here a lot when I'm using it,

00:06:11so I'm just going to check out if the Dell has a USB port that is going to

00:06:14be reachable for that cable as well,

00:06:16or if I'm going to need another extension cord for that.

00:06:19Now, I've just pulled the BenQ to the front of my desk just to get a little closer up

00:06:23and show you exactly what I'm talking about with that damage.

00:06:25This damage actually occurred when I sent this display in for warranty service back

00:06:31three, four, maybe five years ago now.

00:06:33It was quite a while ago.

00:06:35And the kicker is that this BenQ didn't even have anything wrong with it,

00:06:37but I wanted them to update the firmware on it.

00:06:40Or rather, I wanted somebody to update the firmware on it.

00:06:42I wanted it to be me.

00:06:43But the USB hub in this BenQ, it used to turn off when the display went to sleep,

00:06:48and I wanted to be able to wake the computer up using a keyboard plugged in through the hub,

00:06:53which meant I needed that hub to stay on when the display was asleep.

00:06:57BenQ added that feature in a firmware update,

00:06:59but there was no way to update it over the air or to download anything to update it.

00:07:03I had to actually physically send the whole monitor in for them to update the firmware.

00:07:08To BenQ's credit, they did that.

00:07:10I kind of strong-armed them.

00:07:11I went in headstrong and then they just immediately said,

00:07:13yeah, you can send your monitor in and we'll do it.

00:07:15So I did that, but then when I got the display back,

00:07:18it was missing this little puck remote that it's got at the bottom.

00:07:22This puck remote was a neat sort of gimmick that this display had.

00:07:25Honestly, especially over the last few years,

00:07:27I found myself using the regular OSD on this monitor,

00:07:30which is currently not even replying at all,

00:07:32not responding to my inputs as you can see there.

00:07:35I'm not sure what this is.

00:07:36I've never had this issue before other than the past couple of days.

00:07:41Oh, and the OSD is all... that's crazy.

00:07:44I think that the BenQ knew I was getting rid of it

00:07:46because the OSD is all messed up now.

00:07:49I'm going to take a picture of that.

00:07:52Oh, it just went away before I could take the picture.

00:07:55So the OSD is not responding right now,

00:07:57but yeah, I would often use the front buttons anyway.

00:08:00So the remote, even though it's cool to see sitting there,

00:08:03it doesn't actually do that much functionally that you can't do anyway

00:08:06with the buttons that are right there on the corner of the screen.

00:08:09That's what that one's doing right now.

00:08:11But anyway, when they first sent the monitor back from service,

00:08:14they forgot to include the hockey puck remote.

00:08:16And when I had sent it in, I sent a list of things in the box.

00:08:19I said, I sent the monitor, I included one power cable and one hockey puck remote.

00:08:23And so when they didn't return the remote, I kind of freaked out about that,

00:08:27contacted them right away and said,

00:08:28hey, you didn't send this remote.

00:08:30They overnight shipped me a remote.

00:08:32And it wasn't until a few days after that whole debacle that I even noticed

00:08:35that there was some discoloring going on on the sides of the screen.

00:08:38Now the discoloring was not as bad as it is now back then.

00:08:41If it was, I think I would have brought it up to them and said,

00:08:44hey, this monitor got damaged during shipping.

00:08:46We're going to have to take this up with,

00:08:47I think FedEx was what BenQ was using.

00:08:50Back then the damage was very slight,

00:08:52but it was definitely here after I got it back from that service.

00:08:55But yeah, this streak on the side of the screen here,

00:08:58and a smaller one on the other side,

00:09:00this appears to be what's called LCD delamination.

00:09:03I don't know a whole lot about the issue.

00:09:05I just know that it can be caused by physical mishandling

00:09:08or water damage or things like that.

00:09:11And I know that there's no way to fix it is basically what I found.

00:09:13I tried to open this entire panel up.

00:09:15I haven't been able to get the casing open actually.

00:09:17But even if I did, I don't think there's really a way to fix

00:09:20this sort of delamination thing that's going on here,

00:09:22assuming that's what it is.

00:09:24Looking back through some of my videos,

00:09:25I think that it is getting worse over time.

00:09:28I'm not sure if it's gotten worse the times that I've moved this display around

00:09:31between locations,

00:09:32or if it's just naturally getting worse even while it's sitting on a desk.

00:09:36But it is getting worse.

00:09:37It's not getting any better.

00:09:38So that's why I decided to replace this thing.

00:09:40It was still a tough call because this is such a big display.

00:09:44Normally I'm looking in the middle of it when I'm using just one or two windows.

00:09:48But I have been actively avoiding playing games in full screen

00:09:52or watching videos in full screen,

00:09:53just because I didn't want whatever I'm watching or looking at

00:09:57to reach that discoloration.

00:09:58So it has been affecting my usage a little bit.

00:10:00And again, that's why I'm replacing this.

00:10:02I might try selling this thing.

00:10:04Probably what I'll do is I'll hang on to it for a little while,

00:10:07make sure I'm happy with the Dell.

00:10:08Then I might try and sell it.

00:10:09I'm not sure how much I could get for it though,

00:10:11with that discoloration.

00:10:11If it's not more than 50 bucks or something like that,

00:10:15maybe I would keep this around just as a travel monitor

00:10:17for when I'm doing productions elsewhere.

00:10:19Because I have packed and unpacked this thing a number of times

00:10:21over the years that I've used it,

00:10:23taking it around on location sometimes.

00:10:24But with all of that said, this display is gone.

00:10:28I'm going to pause the camera real quick.

00:10:29I'm going to take a few pictures of this,

00:10:31just for if I do want to sell it in the future.

00:10:33And then we will finally unbox the new Dell UltraSharp.

00:10:35All right, that BenQ is off the desk and we are back here

00:10:38with the box for the UltraSharp set down flat.

00:10:41I'm going to open this thing up at this point.

00:10:43The Dell box is much more flashy than the BenQ's box was.

00:10:46It was more of a plain brown box.

00:10:48It did have an outline of the monitor on it,

00:10:50but not an actual picture.

00:10:51And I didn't mind that at all.

00:10:52It was more low key for carrying it around even when I'm just moving.

00:10:56This thing, it's very obvious.

00:10:57It's a display.

00:10:58The outside of the box did get a little dirty during shipping.

00:11:00But as I was saying, there's no plastic or anything on most of the box.

00:11:03There's just one sort of large piece of tape down here.

00:11:06So I'm going to take my pocket knife right here

00:11:09and I'm just going to slice through that.

00:11:10I'm going to try to keep it in good condition

00:11:12since I will most certainly be carrying this thing around,

00:11:15even if only to move and things in the future,

00:11:17if I do like it enough to keep.

00:11:19All right, so with that one piece of tape undone,

00:11:22we can go ahead and pull this flap up.

00:11:24All right.

00:11:24So bringing you in a little higher here,

00:11:26we've got a cardboard flap in the middle

00:11:28and it kind of stays hooked in on one side there.

00:11:31So we'll just leave it there.

00:11:32But here we've got the base for the ultra sharp.

00:11:36This is going to be the same depth as the BenQ display.

00:11:39It's replacing slightly less wide though.

00:11:41And I think it's also going to be flat on the top.

00:11:44So I'll be able to set things on it a little easier

00:11:46than the rounded base of the BenQ.

00:11:48The rounded bases look really nice.

00:11:49Not the easiest to set most things on,

00:11:52but you can see there very nice silver finish.

00:11:55There was a little bit of a,

00:11:56I don't want to say a blemish,

00:11:58but maybe some dirt or something on it.

00:11:59I know Adorama, like I said,

00:12:01the website I got this thing from.

00:12:03Sometimes people do complain,

00:12:04they send out used items as new,

00:12:06which is illegal,

00:12:07but we're going to see if we can't tell here

00:12:10whether this is new or not.

00:12:11Looks like a very sturdy metal bit there

00:12:14that the display is going to attach to.

00:12:16Interesting.

00:12:17Okay.

00:12:18So we've got a bolt that we're going to turn

00:12:19that's at the bottom of that.

00:12:20So this looks fairly similar to my BenQ's mechanism.

00:12:24And it looks like it's listing a few different models

00:12:26that it's actually compatible with there as well.

00:12:29Yeah.

00:12:29Similar to other displays I've had in the past,

00:12:31but I've never had one with this chunky of a head before

00:12:34to sit the monitor down on.

00:12:36So I've set that off to the side for a second.

00:12:38We'll get the styrofoam out of here as well.

00:12:41Across on the other side here,

00:12:42we have a power cable always good to have that included.

00:12:45Obviously this is not a cell phone or something

00:12:47where you have to provide your own these days.

00:12:49I do have a number of these already.

00:12:50This looks like the same IEC standard three-prong power cable

00:12:54that if you've got a desktop computer,

00:12:56you're probably using and the old BenQ display was using.

00:12:58So I'll see if the length on this one is any better.

00:13:01Might be good just to switch over to that anyway,

00:13:03just for warranty purposes and whatnot with the new monitor.

00:13:06Up here in the top left,

00:13:07we've got a warranty safety and regulatory information booklet.

00:13:12And it says Dell at the bottom right there.

00:13:15Lots of very small text.

00:13:17And the Dell warranty on these, I believe is three years.

00:13:19This warranty must not be specific to the model

00:13:26And this display, like I said, came out in mid to late 2025.

00:13:30So we've got that.

00:13:31We also have a little quick start paper here,

00:13:34just showing you how to connect a monitor up

00:13:36in case you've never done that before.

00:13:37Looks like we have a QR code to Dell support website as well,

00:13:40which is not a bad thing, I suppose.

00:13:42Also up here, just loose in this pocket,

00:13:45we've got a USB type A 3.0 to USB type C cable there.

00:13:51So that would not be Thunderbolt since one side is USB.

00:13:54That would just be a USB adapter.

00:13:56I'm assuming this might be to connect the display to a USB port on your computer.

00:14:00If you do want to use the USB hub on it,

00:14:02we also have a display port cable, which I'm not going to use again,

00:14:06for a reason that I'll mention in a few minutes when we're actually setting the thing up.

00:14:11And the only other thing actually is a Thunderbolt 4 cable.

00:14:14You can see the number four there written on both heads of that cable or both plugs.

00:14:21So it looks very similar to USB type C, but Thunderbolt is just rated a little bit higher

00:14:25for faster data speeds, power transfer, things like that.

00:14:28Actually, I don't know if the power transfer is any greater.

00:14:31There is no HDMI cable included with this thing, it looks like.

00:14:35I will double check Dell's website to make sure there's not supposed to be one in the box,

00:14:38and if there is supposed to be one, I'll follow up with Adorama about that.

00:14:41I am going to be using HDMI with this because this display...

00:14:45Well, let's just finish unboxing it first.

00:14:47I'm taking this entire tray off the top of the display.

00:14:50So down here where that flap in the box was, I'm still really not sure what that was.

00:14:54It might just be a handle, but it's weird they would have one handle on the side

00:14:58and one on the top rather than one on each side or something like that.

00:15:01The box is pretty wide, so maybe they figure you're going to hold it like this.

00:15:04But yeah, here we've got the display itself.

00:15:07They're telling you how to get started with it here.

00:15:09So it looks like we're supposed to assemble the entire base first,

00:15:12then we'll plug it into the display and then pick the display up.

00:15:15So over on the other side, we've got looks like I don't know what these words mean.

00:15:21That's not English.

00:15:22I don't think I don't know if that means recycled plastic or recyclable plastic.

00:15:27Obviously, it's got the recycling symbols on them, but the sort of styrofoam stuff most facilities cannot handle.

00:15:35But we will go ahead and take that out.

00:15:37I'll stick the styrofoam back into the box there just for if we need it later.

00:15:41I can definitely feel this thing is plastic just by the weight, but it does look very nice.

00:15:47It doesn't look cheap even where I'm touching it and stuff.

00:15:50It looks pretty similar to a brushed aluminum metal setup, just it is plastic,

00:15:54which isn't a bad thing that it's lightweight.

00:15:57Here you can see the display attachment mechanism.

00:16:00The monitor is compatible with VESA mounts if you want to use your own stand instead of Dell's.

00:16:08Okay, but I've just set that stand on top of the base that we took out of the box earlier.

00:16:14Just slid it onto the top there.

00:16:17As you can see, it just kind of plugs right in like that.

00:16:21And then we'll go ahead and twist the bottom piece to get that secured.

00:16:30All right, and that's looking pretty secure, feeling pretty secure.

00:16:35So at this point, we can go ahead and attach it to the monitor,

00:16:38which is just underneath these flaps here.

00:16:41There are orange plugs in not all but some of the ports on this.

00:16:45It looks like the display port, one of the Thunderbolt ports,

00:16:49and one of the USB Type-C ports are the only ones that have those orange plugs on the bottom.

00:16:53So that's interesting.

00:16:54Underneath our styrofoam, I am going to carefully slide this stand into place.

00:17:01I may have already scratched it up a tiny bit, trying not to too much,

00:17:05but I'm going to go ahead and lift this thing out of the box and move the box off the

00:17:09desk here.

00:17:11All right, so we have the display.

00:17:13Let's go ahead and turn it around for our first look as we take the styrofoam off of it.

00:17:20Move my microphone out of the way there, and we'll just pull this right off the top.

00:17:25All right, and that's good to know.

00:17:27We've got some additional styrofoam taped on to the display here.

00:17:31I'll go ahead and untape the top left and untape the top right, and there we have it.

00:17:40I can't tell if there's another layer of film on there or not.

00:17:43There is a little sticker or something down here.

00:17:45The sticker is explaining how to actually extend some of the USB ports.

00:17:49There are ports that fold up into the monitor or slide up into the monitor.

00:17:53I don't really want to pick where the screen is, so I am just going to

00:18:00turn this back around here.

00:18:03All right, there we go.

00:18:05The top of this piece comes off fairly easily.

00:18:16Okay, so that should be everything for actually unboxing the monitor.

00:18:20It is looking pretty good.

00:18:22The reflection that I see in it is sort of reddish, almost like it reminds me of a Samsung OLED

00:18:29that I

00:18:29saw in stores, which isn't a great thing to have colors change when you've got light being diffused

00:18:35off of the display.

00:18:36It's not coming across too much in the camera.

00:18:38But yeah, my old BenQ, I think, was a little bit more neutral with its anti-glare coating.

00:18:44This one, like I said, just a little bit of a warmer anti-glare coating it looks like,

00:18:49just from first glance.

00:18:50Maybe it won't be that noticeable when we get it turned on.

00:18:52Hopefully it won't.

00:18:53All right, but this thing does have a full range of motion and adjustability.

00:18:57You can turn this thing and use it in portrait mode if you'd like to.

00:19:02Obviously, I started it off in landscape mode.

00:19:04It does go both directions in portrait mode.

00:19:06I believe my BenQ only went one direction in portrait mode.

00:19:10So obviously, we have your tilt capability.

00:19:14As you can see, you can turn the monitor, pivot it a little bit without moving the base,

00:19:18which is nice to be able to do.

00:19:20And finally, we do have our up and down motion.

00:19:23And the display gets a few inches off the table there, off the desk.

00:19:28And then it does get just about as high as my BenQ did.

00:19:32So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and reset a little bit here.

00:19:35I'm going to wire this thing up, get the camera in at a good angle,

00:19:38and then we can try it out for the first time.

00:19:40All right, guys.

00:19:41And I have kind of popped the hood on this thing.

00:19:43This is as far as it tilts up.

00:19:45I do wish the displays tilted up more, not because you'd need to see it from that high up,

00:19:50but just to make it easier to plug and unplug things underneath the displays.

00:19:54But this is about on par with a normal display.

00:19:56My BenQ, I always ended up reaching around behind it to do that sort of thing.

00:20:00Now, I have plugged the provided power cable into the display.

00:20:03Since Dell did not provide an HDMI cable in the box,

00:20:07currently I have my old HDMI cable stretching to the display.

00:20:10The reason I want to use HDMI here is because this display uses something called

00:20:14Display Stream Compression or DSC for the DisplayPort and the Thunderbolt or USB-C signals.

00:20:22DSC is, quote unquote, visually lossless.

00:20:25It allows display and GPU manufacturers to not have to push as much bandwidth

00:20:30through a cable to get the same amount of information across.

00:20:32However, visually lossless does not actually mean lossless.

00:20:35Lostless means lossless.

00:20:37Visually lossless means that Dell, or the people who developed DSC rather,

00:20:41think that most people can't tell the difference between uncompressed video and video compressed with DSC.

00:20:46There is a difference.

00:20:48There is a quantization step if you actually read through how the protocol works.

00:20:52DSC does lose quality in color in particular.

00:20:55It doesn't make sense to me to buy a high-end display and then use it with the

00:20:59compressed video signal with quantized colors.

00:21:02Even if I probably wouldn't notice DSC artifacts,

00:21:06even if they'd be less noticeable than the streaks on the side of my old BenQ display,

00:21:09I still want to know that I'm looking at the actual colors when I'm looking at my monitor.

00:21:13So HDMI 2.1 on this display can support the full 120Hz 4K 10-bit signal without using DSC.

00:21:23The DisplayPort version on this display, I believe it's DisplayPort 1.4, does not support that.

00:21:28So that's why I'm avoiding using DisplayPort on this display.

00:21:31If I need to use it just for testing things, that's perfectly fine.

00:21:34I just don't want to be doing video editing, photo editing, web development,

00:21:37or really anything visually sensitive.

00:21:39Don't even want to be consuming content with DSC.

00:21:42Because yes, my content's already compressed with other protocols that are more lossy.

00:21:46But again, DSC, don't let them trick you.

00:21:49It is visually lossless, which is a marketing term, but it is not mathematically lossless.

00:21:55It's not technically lossless.

00:21:56So there is a difference.

00:21:58It is a lossy protocol.

00:21:59All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to get up out of my chair here.

00:22:03And I will tilt this thing back towards the camera a little bit.

00:22:07Make sure you can see that there.

00:22:08And since I have plugged the power in already, I'm just going to try to turn it on.

00:22:12I can feel, yeah, there's one power button and one joystick on the back.

00:22:16Power button's easy to find.

00:22:17So I just pressed that.

00:22:20Oh, and I haven't plugged the bottom of the power cable in yet.

00:22:24So of course, that won't do anything.

00:22:25Let me go under my desk and do that real quick.

00:22:27All right, so I just actually plugged the power in.

00:22:29To the outlet.

00:22:31And we'll try that one more time.

00:22:32Pushing the dimpled power button.

00:22:34Now the power light lit on.

00:22:37And we've got a Dell logo.

00:22:39Nice.

00:22:40All right.

00:22:41And it's telling you, hey, use this joystick.

00:22:46For the OSD.

00:22:47I'll select this is interesting.

00:22:49I've never had to display with the first time set up before.

00:22:51But I'm selecting English.

00:22:53I guess I'll just push in to do that service tag.

00:22:56All right, calibration factory report.

00:23:00That's really cool that they actually calibrate it.

00:23:02Because I don't have a spider or any of those color calibration tools here.

00:23:05But it says be assured of accurate, precise, and consist.

00:23:08I assume they mean consistent on screen color.

00:23:11So their English QA isn't great.

00:23:12But let's hope that their color QA is.

00:23:14I'll go next, report summary.

00:23:18So they pre-tuned all the profiles.

00:23:20SRGB is your standard profile that most people use for content consumption.

00:23:24We've got BT-709, DCI-P3 that I mentioned, and DisplayP3.

00:23:28And they've just got deltas and other info for some of those.

00:23:31This is just telling you how accurately they tuned all of this.

00:23:34So for more info, go to.

00:23:36And then there's even a place in the menu you can go to for more calibration info.

00:23:40I will click next again, though.

00:23:42Select yes to enable the following functions.

00:23:44Always on USB-C charging, other USB-C charging.

00:23:47I'm not planning to charge things through this display.

00:23:51So I'm going to hit no for these just because I'm not going to be plugging in anything that I

00:23:55want.

00:23:56Okay, I didn't even click it.

00:23:58It just moved on.

00:23:59Would you like to switch on the auto brightness function?

00:24:01No, I don't.

00:24:01I don't think.

00:24:02I might try that out later.

00:24:04First, I want to see if this thing works with DDC util on Linux just to get manual brightness function

00:24:09that's not software based.

00:24:11So I select a no for that.

00:24:13Would you like to set up USB KVM for multiple PCs to your monitor?

00:24:16And it says you can do this later if you go to main menu USB.

00:24:20I'll select no.

00:24:23And that's it.

00:24:24No DisplayPort cable.

00:24:25Display will go into standby mode in four minutes.

00:24:28That's a long time.

00:24:29So before that four minutes runs out, I'm going to go ahead and plug in HDMI to my computer.

00:24:39Okay, and KDE has detected that.

00:24:41I do need to plug in my keyboard to the computer

00:24:44since I haven't set up the KVM on this yet or gotten that figured out.

00:24:48All right.

00:24:49You know what?

00:24:49I can already tell the difference with the 120 hertz refresh rate.

00:24:53It is snappier.

00:24:54It is faster.

00:24:54I can tell that.

00:24:55That's nice.

00:24:56Nice to know, you know, that it is an upgrade of some sort.

00:24:59Again, in addition to the sides of this display look great.

00:25:02No streaks, as you can see.

00:25:04If I go to system settings, I will go down to...

00:25:07Oh, where does KDE bury this?

00:25:09Display and monitor.

00:25:11Okay, and then my display configuration.

00:25:13So they automatically set the scale to 145%.

00:25:18That was a KDE thing.

00:25:19I am going to bring that down to 100% for a moment.

00:25:24I'll click apply because that's what I was used to with my BenQ PD3200U.

00:25:29Now the PD3200U was actually a 32 inch display.

00:25:32This ultra sharp is a 31.5 inch display.

00:25:35So the pixel pitch is actually slightly less, slightly lower.

00:25:39The pixels are physically smaller on this.

00:25:41So I have used a 31.5 inch display for long periods of time before.

00:25:45It was my other BenQ display.

00:25:46I believe it was the EW something.

00:25:49I didn't really have a problem with that.

00:25:50If I do have problems with this, then I might try increasing the scale to like 125%

00:25:55or something like that, just because that's a little bit more of a slight thing.

00:25:59Uh, but Linux does still have some quirks with scaling sometimes.

00:26:02So I'm going to try to use it at just the 100% scaling first.

00:26:06You know what, man, that, that actually does look really nice.

00:26:09I wasn't sure how well I'd be able to tell.

00:26:10Um, since this, this computer that I'm using, it's got an RTX 4090 GPU,

00:26:14but it's got a first generation Threadripper processor.

00:26:18I thought I might be CPU bound on some of the rendering happening on this.

00:26:21Uh, but man, yeah, just dragging windows around is noticeably smoother.

00:26:25Um, you guys are watching a 30 FPS video 30 P so you won't be able to tell,

00:26:30but this monitor supports 120 FPS instead of 60 like the old one.

00:26:36So I can definitely tell that that's really cool.

00:26:38Aside from that, I'm excited to sit in front of this thing and start trying it out.

00:26:42You can see the design of it is really minimalistic.

00:26:45Um, this is the first ever ultra sharp display that did not have a Dell logo on the front.

00:26:50I wouldn't have even minded a Dell logo on the front, but really nice that it's just

00:26:54this one consistent sized border all around much smaller bezels than my old display had too.

00:27:00So, you know, I'm getting an extra centimeter or two on my desk versus the old display,

00:27:05but, um, it's much less boxy.

00:27:07This, this monitor does look a lot sleeker as well.

00:27:09Very nice.

00:27:10The base is flat, so I'll be able to stow.

00:27:13For example, I've got a Logitech wireless touch pad here,

00:27:17and I never really had a good place to keep this.

00:27:22I can literally just keep it on the monitor stand when I'm not using it now.

00:27:26The bin cue, I couldn't do that because it was curved.

00:27:28So it was scratching up the bottom of the touch pad when I did that.

00:27:31Now I can just set it there.

00:27:32No problem.

00:27:33So that's great.

00:27:34So yeah, I'm going to move the camera and the microphone out of the way,

00:27:38and I'm just going to sit down, use this for a few more seconds before I do the outro here,

00:27:42figure out if there's anything else I want to point out to you guys.

00:27:45Well guys, we have a problem.

00:27:47I was messing around with the screen.

00:27:49Everything was great.

00:27:50Like I said, I really like the design.

00:27:52I like how it's performing so far in general,

00:27:54but I went and I did a dead pixel test just to be sure.

00:27:57Since I am a detail-oriented person, I figure I'll notice those things eventually,

00:28:01and I'd rather notice them now while this thing is under warranty,

00:28:05hopefully both from the retailer and from Dell, if there are any problems.

00:28:08So I pulled up a dead pixel test, which is a pure white screen on the whole display.

00:28:12I looked around really closely, didn't see any dead pixels.

00:28:16There were a couple places where things looked a little weird.

00:28:19It was just dust on the screen already.

00:28:20Wiped it off.

00:28:21It looked fine.

00:28:22So I finished the dead pixel test, knowing that there were no dead pixels,

00:28:25and that was great.

00:28:26After that, I put the screen to sleep a couple of times.

00:28:29I locked the computer, and each time I did that, I noticed that the screen that said the display

00:28:34was going to sleep, that it had no signal, seemed to have a little red dot in part of it.

00:28:39I thought that was a little weird.

00:28:41So then the next time that I turned the screen on,

00:28:43I noticed that the red dot was actually still there.

00:28:46I looked into this a little further, and it appears I have what's called a stuck pixel.

00:28:50This is not a dead pixel, where it's not lighting up at all,

00:28:53but it's a pixel that is stuck displaying a certain color.

00:28:56In this case, red, it looks like.

00:28:58If I try to display a black screen, where all the pixels should be fully blacked out,

00:29:03I'm still getting the color red on that one pixel.

00:29:06The red sub-pixel is stuck on in that position.

00:29:09If I display the color yellow, I believe yellow might use some of the red pixel,

00:29:15because the three pixel colors are red, green, and blue.

00:29:18So for yellow, it's using red and probably green.

00:29:21So yellow displays fine as well.

00:29:23However, if I try to display a solid green screen, or a solid black screen,

00:29:28or a solid blue screen, any of those things have a red pixel sitting right there,

00:29:34about a quarter of the way into the screen.

00:29:36You know, it's funny.

00:29:37Like I said, the reason I was getting a new screen was because my old one had

00:29:41those bright blotches on the far ends.

00:29:44And I was still sort of not sure if I really wanted to do this,

00:29:48because I wasn't always looking at the far ends of the screen.

00:29:51But a quarter, or really almost a third of the way into the screen,

00:29:54that's pretty near the center.

00:29:55I'm looking there very often.

00:29:57So that's going to be a problem, like I said.

00:30:00I have gone ahead and submitted the contact form on Adorama's website.

00:30:04Hopefully they'll get back to me tomorrow during the business day.

00:30:06I'm not sure if Adorama is going to want to send me a replacement,

00:30:09or if I'm going to have to go through Dell to get a replacement.

00:30:12Now display manufacturers can be really dumb when it comes to dead pixels.

00:30:16Some display manufacturers, just to cover their butts,

00:30:19they've got policies that say they will not replace a screen,

00:30:23or service it under warranty if you've got one or two dead pixels.

00:30:27Usually it's something like five or ten that have to be dead,

00:30:30which if you've got ten dead pixels, your screen looks half broken.

00:30:33Like, it's very noticeable.

00:30:34But the display manufacturers, since we just don't have consumer protections in the US very much,

00:30:40they just get away with saying, well, we're not going to replace it unless you have at least 10 dead

00:30:44pixels.

00:30:45And since they put that in the terms and conditions, you know, the fine print before you buy,

00:30:48can't do anything about it if it happens.

00:30:51However, Dell in particular, for their ultra-sharp line, which this is an ultra-sharp display, like I said,

00:30:56they have a policy of no bright pixels, no bright sub-pixel defects.

00:31:01So Dell says that their ultra-sharp monitors can have up to five dead,

00:31:06completely black pixels that will not turn on.

00:31:09Five of your pixels can be completely never even working,

00:31:11and they're allowed to just tell you to deal with that.

00:31:15However, if you have even a single stuck bright pixel,

00:31:18they will service an ultra-sharp display.

00:31:21Some of their cheaper displays they won't,

00:31:23but the ultra-sharp line and some of their other high-end lines,

00:31:26even a single stuck pixel, they will go ahead and service it, replace it somehow.

00:31:30I'm a little worried about how this is going to go.

00:31:32Whether I go through Adorama or Dell, you know,

00:31:35a lot of the times these manufacturers and retailers,

00:31:37especially budget ones like Adorama, but even all of them,

00:31:40when you buy something, you don't know if you're going to get it new,

00:31:43or if it's going to be open box, and they're just selling it to you as new,

00:31:46because they're allowed to sell it to you as new,

00:31:48as long as it's like new to them.

00:31:50And the chances of that happening when you go through a warranty process

00:31:53and get a replacement are even greater,

00:31:55because these companies don't want to have to build two machines for a single order.

00:32:00They will, a lot of the time, you know,

00:32:02if somebody returned one, even if it's got another defect,

00:32:04you know, like I said, Dell, they don't acknowledge dead pixels as a problem.

00:32:09So they might replace my one bright pixel display with a display that has five dead pixels,

00:32:15and they might say, well, that one meets our policy.

00:32:17So yeah, I'm really upset about this, honestly.

00:32:21Like I said, I was very on edge about this purchase and just

00:32:25not sure if I really wanted to do it in the first place.

00:32:27And I talked myself into it, and I was even happy with it when I got it.

00:32:32I thought that I was in the clear.

00:32:34I was starting to take a breath and say, okay, this is going to be all right.

00:32:37And then it turns out that it's broken.

00:32:39I've never had a display actually broken from the factory before.

00:32:42So I'm hoping that Adorama and or Dell can make this right.

00:32:46I should have time to go through Dell.

00:32:48At the very least, this thing has a three year warranty.

00:32:51So I'll be able to get this service through Dell.

00:32:53Since it's brand new from Adorama, Adorama tells people to inspect their products and,

00:32:57you know, advise of any problems within the first five business days.

00:33:01And I've just done that within one business day.

00:33:04So I'm hoping that Adorama will make it right.

00:33:06And I'm really just hoping they don't send me like a refurbished monitor or something

00:33:10as the replacement for this.

00:33:11I just want what I paid for, you know?

00:33:14And this is part of why I really don't like technology anymore.

00:33:18I don't like computers.

00:33:19And it's part of why I don't make as many Nerd on the Street videos anymore,

00:33:22because there are really so many more important things you can be doing with your life than

00:33:26sitting around screwing with tech.

00:33:27And there are so many more important things that humanity as a whole could be doing than

00:33:31screwing around with not building monitors correctly.

00:33:33You know, these tech companies, they're destroying our economy, they're destroying our environment.

00:33:38And even when they're allowed to do those things, they still can't do

00:33:41their freaking job and deliver a product that works as designed.

00:33:45So yeah, rant over for now.

00:33:47I guess I'm going to keep the video rolling until I get this completely solved,

00:33:51just in case I need to go to social media or anything with this problem.

00:33:56Hopefully it doesn't get to that.

00:33:57But yeah, I am going to keep the screen on my desk for now.

00:34:01I'm going to keep using it.

00:34:02Maybe the stuck pixel will resolve itself.

00:34:04There are some websites you can go to that will actually alter the pixel.

00:34:08They'll just send really fast different colors to the pixel, trying to get it to get unstuck.

00:34:13Dead pixels, that really doesn't work.

00:34:16But stuck pixels, sometimes it's supposed to.

00:34:18Since this is a brand new display, I'm not very hopeful that that's going to work,

00:34:22but I thought I'd give it a try.

00:34:24So I've got that running now.

00:34:25I'll see how it's doing if I try just to use the monitor for the next day or so

00:34:30until Adorama gets back to me.

00:34:33So yeah, that's where things are at right now.

00:34:35All right, guys, it is many weeks later since that last clip.

00:34:38As you can see, I'm back to using my BenQ display.

00:34:41I have successfully returned the defective Dell display to Adorama and I actually wanted

00:34:46to get a replacement, but that didn't happen.

00:34:49Because dealing with Adorama for this Dell display was the worst return experience I have

00:34:54ever had with an online store.

00:34:57Now, I'm going to try to keep this last segment of the video brief because I know

00:35:00the video is already quite long, but this experience with Adorama was too bad for me to

00:35:05not detail it for you guys.

00:35:06Like, I feel like I need to put this video out, if only as a warning to people, maybe

00:35:10not to buy from Adorama.

00:35:12Okay.

00:35:12So I placed the initial order here with Adorama on December 31st, 2025.

00:35:17Just to recap, Adorama shipped it out on January 2nd, 2026.

00:35:23And then I received it four days later on January 6th.

00:35:25So it took about a week from my order to get the display the first time with their free shipping.

00:35:30That's fine.

00:35:31And in the evening after business hours on January 6th,

00:35:35I submitted that initial contact form to them saying,

00:35:37Hey, I appear to have a stuck pixel.

00:35:39In that initial contact form, I was asking them,

00:35:42What can you do for me?

00:35:42What are you going to do to help rectify this?

00:35:44Adorama got back to me one day later on January 7th, about noon my time.

00:35:49Now, I want to note, because I think it's really interesting,

00:35:52the initial response that they sent me,

00:35:55I could see the email headers from the contact form I sent to them.

00:35:59And the email headers are displaying the time they received my initial contact

00:36:02in Singapore standard time.

00:36:04The reason that's interesting is because Adorama is a physical store in New York City.

00:36:09It is an American company.

00:36:11They also have warehouses in other places.

00:36:13For example, the one they ended up having me ship the defective display back to

00:36:17was a warehouse in Tennessee, but again,

00:36:20US-based locations for where their physical products are coming from.

00:36:24However, based on the fact that the email headers that they replied to me show a timestamp in

00:36:30Singapore standard time, that pretty much tells me that Adorama is hiring people in Singapore

00:36:35for their customer service.

00:36:37And they're not just doing this in order to have 24-7 operations.

00:36:41Adorama's customer support is only open during the day in the US.

00:36:46So they are actually paying people in Singapore to come into work only at night

00:36:51because it's cheaper for them to pay Singapore people to work at night than it is for them to

00:36:55pay US workers to work customer service during the day.

00:36:58Now that's not something that Adorama is alone in doing, that kind of outsourcing, but I did want to

00:37:02mention it.

00:37:03So they got back to me one day later.

00:37:05That's perfectly fine.

00:37:06Perfectly acceptable response time.

00:37:08Noon the next day, they replied, asking a couple of questions about the condition of

00:37:12the package when I received it.

00:37:14And the same day, just a couple hours later, still during business hours, I replied to them

00:37:18with a detailed email.

00:37:20I said the package was perfectly fine.

00:37:22It was a little dirty, but it wasn't damaged.

00:37:24I showed them the open perforated flaps on the box that I showed you guys during the unboxing.

00:37:29And I also let them know the stuck pixel actually started turning into a dead pixel at some point.

00:37:35I explained the difference between a stuck pixel and a dead pixel in one of the previous clips.

00:37:39This was initially a stuck pixel I had on the Dell display.

00:37:42It turned into a dead pixel for a little bit where it was just completely black.

00:37:46Then it turned back into a stuck pixel.

00:37:48Then it went back to dead.

00:37:49Now that's important, or I thought it might be important because again, Dell covers

00:37:53stuck pixels under their warranty.

00:37:55They do not cover a single dead pixel under their warranty.

00:37:58Now Dell's warranty was a little bit irrelevant when it comes to Adorama because I was under

00:38:03the 30 day return period for this.

00:38:05But just in terms of how easily they would work with me to replace this with a new product,

00:38:09I did let them know it was alternating between stuck and dead.

00:38:12And I told them I hope we can treat this as a stuck pixel since it's sometimes behaving as

00:38:17a stuck pixel.

00:38:18So that complicated the initial contact a little bit.

00:38:20But I let them know that on January 7th.

00:38:22Again, later that same day, they replied and they said,

00:38:25This appears to be a manufacturer's defect.

00:38:27We can proceed with returning the item.

00:38:29Let us know if you would prefer a refund or a replacement for the item.

00:38:33So again, on the same day, January 7th, I replied a few hours later that as long as the replacement

00:38:39is going to be new stock and not like a refurbished unit or a used unit or something, then I

00:38:44would

00:38:44prefer the replacement.

00:38:45That's what I told them.

00:38:46The next day on January 8th, they replied back.

00:38:49They said, We guarantee it'll be brand new for the replacement, which was great.

00:38:52And they started telling me about their return shipping guidelines.

00:38:56I had a question about one of their guidelines.

00:38:58They said I needed to double box the product basically, and it wasn't double boxed coming

00:39:03to me and I wasn't going to go out and buy a huge box to stick the Dell box into.

00:39:07So I let them know that they said that was fine, that their boilerplate instructions were just

00:39:12not relevant and that I could just ship it back in the Dell box that they shipped it to me

00:39:16in.

00:39:16So on Friday, January 9th, I shipped the package back to them.

00:39:20I dropped it off at UPS.

00:39:21So it just took a few days to get the return shipping label after reporting that there was

00:39:25a problem.

00:39:26Everything customer service wise up to that point was perfectly fine.

00:39:29That was Friday, January 9th that I dropped it off.

00:39:33Now, they chose to give me a very slow shipping label for the return of the package.

00:39:38Looking at the receipt, it was UPS ground, which is fairly standard, but a lot of times UPS

00:39:44ground only takes three to five days basically to get from point A to point B.

00:39:49My package took a very roundabout path looking at it on the UPS tracking.

00:39:53It did not go straight to the warehouse.

00:39:55It went to another state that wasn't even between Colorado and Tennessee.

00:40:00Then it went back up to Tennessee to their warehouse.

00:40:02On January 15th, so six days after I dropped it off at UPS,

00:40:07the UPS tracking said that Adorama received the product.

00:40:11Now, they had told me that it would take them five to seven business days

00:40:14after receiving it back for them to check it in.

00:40:17So after the UPS tracking said that they got it on January 15th,

00:40:21I patiently waited for a real life week, five business days.

00:40:25On January 22nd, a Thursday, I emailed them and I said,

00:40:30Hello, the UPS tracking shows that your warehouse received the defective item a week ago.

00:40:34Can you please provide an update? I sent that on Thursday, the 22nd.

00:40:38They did not reply until three days later on Sunday, January 25th.

00:40:43So on the 25th, they confirmed that they had received the package on 1.15.

00:40:48According to the UPS tracking, they repeated again that it takes five to seven business days

00:40:53to process a package once being delivered to us. We were now at seven business days.

00:40:57We were past seven business days. We were at 10 days of real time at that point.

00:41:02And they said they would check with the returns team for an update on Sunday, January 25th.

00:41:06Three days later on Wednesday, the 28th, I received an automated email from Adorama

00:41:11stating that my return had arrived at their warehouse 13 days after it actually arrived

00:41:17at their warehouse. I received the automated check-in email.

00:41:20I replied to them again and I told them I'm confused about what's going on here,

00:41:23but I'm going to keep waiting patiently is basically what I told them.

00:41:26They replied a day later on January 29th, another Thursday, two full weeks after Adorama received

00:41:32the product back at their warehouse, they replied saying, uh, upon review,

00:41:36we have already applied the funds from the original order to the replacement.

00:41:39However, I noticed that our returns team deducted a restocking fee of $118.50 from the funds.

00:41:46And I saw something on their website kind of corresponding to that.

00:41:49I saw where they had set up a replacement order to be shipped out to me,

00:41:52but it was still $118.50 due on that. And since it wasn't fully paid up through their internal credit,

00:41:58they hadn't shipped the replacement out to me yet.

00:42:00Now, at this point, I started getting a little concerned.

00:42:02Like I said, when I was setting up the display, just in the normal process of attaching the stand

00:42:07to the back of the display, I was questioning if I had already put a little blemish on the back

00:42:12of the display or not, if I had already scratched the display with the stand.

00:42:16So I was wondering, are they really going to ding me over $100 for such a small blemish?

00:42:20Is that what this is about? Or was there some other problem with the display?

00:42:24Are they deciding that it's not actually defective? Why did the returns team withhold

00:42:27a restocking fee that's preventing them from shipping me the replacement?

00:42:31However, I didn't bring any of that up. Once again, I was just waiting for them to tell me

00:42:34what was going on at this point because their customer service team didn't know why the returns

00:42:38team had deducted a restocking fee. So they let me know that on Thursday the 29th,

00:42:43that they would coordinate with their returns team to clarify the reason for the restocking fee

00:42:48and would keep me updated. Once again, I did not receive another update after that.

00:42:52Four days later, I emailed them again at the end of the business day saying,

00:42:56it's been several more days with no follow-up. I'm confused why it's taking so long between

00:43:00every contact to simply coordinate with your team, asking again what the status of the replacement was.

00:43:05They replied to me again the next day and they just repeated the exact same thing. This is like

00:43:10five days after they told me that they were going to check up on it. They repeated the exact same

00:43:15thing. They said the credit has been applied to the reshipment order, but the returns team appears

00:43:19to have deducted a restocking fee. This was confirmed with our returns team since the item was returned

00:43:24as defective. I have already submitted a follow-up and will update you as soon as possible. So this is

00:43:28Tuesday, February 3rd. They're telling me that they're still following up internally about what's

00:43:32going on with this credit, this return credit, to ship me a replacement order. Over 31 days after I

00:43:38placed the initial order, we're over a month that I do not have the product that I paid for,

00:43:42I waited a couple more days. On February 5th, Thursday, once again, not hearing any further

00:43:48update from their customer service team, I called in to Adorama and I spoke with somebody on the phone.

00:43:54They did not sound like they were a native English speaker. That person told me the exact same thing

00:43:58that they were telling me in emails. This customer service agent was basically telling me,

00:44:02I don't know what's going on. You can listen to some of the clips where I'm asking, I'm saying,

00:44:06what you're telling me doesn't make sense. What is actually happening here? And they're giving me

00:44:10these canned responses that really just tell me they don't know what's happening.

00:44:14Let me connect you over to our level two team.

00:44:16Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, please. Thank you.

00:44:22Okay. Yes, I already get the information from our returns department. The reason why they charge you

00:44:29with stocking fee because the box is already open. So I sent a follow-up information today,

00:44:35informing the team that the reason why you returned the item is because of the stock pixel

00:44:41and provided additional information to them. So yes, I will wait for an update from the team

00:44:47until end of this day today. And I also already informed them if they can now process the restocking

00:44:54fee that was charged to your return, because this one was returned due to the defective reason,

00:45:00not just no longer needed open box item. Okay. What is different about what you just told me than

00:45:06what Emma told me seven days ago? She said the exact same thing, that she was sending a follow-up

00:45:11to your

00:45:11returns team for that restocking fee and that she would send me an update seven days ago. She also told

00:45:17me that two days ago again. So what is different now about what you're telling me? Yes. I am seeing

00:45:23here

00:45:23that Emma initially reported this issue last February the 2nd to our team on the February the 2nd that we

00:45:33pulled up here. January 29th, Emma reported the issue that the restocking fee has been applied to the

00:45:39return and the information has been provided to our team. And now we just get a response from our

00:45:51returns department that the reason why they charge your stocking fee is because of the open box that

00:45:58was subject for restocking fee once it was returned to us. So I will provide again the information to

00:46:03the returns department that this is defective reason that's why you returned the item back to us.

00:46:10Okay, but Emma already provided that information to them a few days ago, didn't she?

00:46:16Yes, she provided the information but the response that was given to us by the team is it is an

00:46:22open

00:46:22box. That is the reason why they charge restocking fee for the return. I will escalate this issue again

00:46:29with the returns department and request your refund. And just wait me to send you an update until end of

00:46:35this day today. What is different though? Emma literally told me she sent that. You just told me she sent

00:46:41that information on February 2nd. I've been waiting a week for you guys to internally talk about this

00:46:47when you already know what the problem is. So you should already be able to fix it. You shouldn't

00:46:51have to wait for your returns team. I don't know if there's anybody that you can escalate this to in

00:46:56your own department. Once again, if there's not go ahead, submit, submit the follow up you're talking

00:47:00about. And once again, I will be submitting a dispute to PayPal with the email chain and a recording of

00:47:05this call if I do not have either a refund or the replacement product shipped out in one week from

00:47:10today. Okay. Okay. Yes, I completely understand your frustration. I will be escalating this issue

00:47:18with the team so that they can process the refund. And once again, I sincerely apologize for all this

00:47:22inconvenience on behalf of our returns department. Is there anything else Jacob that I can possibly help

00:47:29you? I did inform the customer service agent at the beginning of the call that I was recording it,

00:47:33by the way. So this was completely legal. So I was starting to get frustrated at that point.

00:47:37Once again, it had been like a month since I placed the initial order,

00:47:40I didn't have a physical product in front of me. And now they were getting all dicey with not only

00:47:45withholding some of the money from the return, but not even telling me why after I was waiting for

00:47:49an entire week. So I started to get a little bit more persistent at that point. And I told them

00:47:54that they had one more full week to get this thing figured out. I said, if you cannot either ship

00:47:59me

00:47:59the replacement order or give me a full refund, by the time this hits four weeks that you've had

00:48:04the defective product back, then I'm going to open a dispute with PayPal to get my money back.

00:48:09And I told them I will attach this email chain, I'm attaching the phone call recording because

00:48:13everything that I talked to them about indicates that they think that they should be giving me the

00:48:18replacement order by now, but they just are having internal communication issues where something's

00:48:22stuck and they can't. So once again, I was not particularly being a Karen here,

00:48:26I was giving them an entire additional week on top of the three weeks I had already been waiting

00:48:31that they've had my products back. I said, you've got an entire another week to figure this out,

00:48:36but if you don't get it figured out by then, I'm disputing this with PayPal. So I told them that.

00:48:41And then three days later on February 8th, this was hilarious in hindsight. Three days later,

00:48:47they did refund me to PayPal, which I had not even really asked them to do. Again, this entire time,

00:48:53I had been wanting just to get a replacement product from them and they can send the defective

00:48:57one back to Dell and get their money back for it. I was still trying to move forward with my

00:49:01order,

00:49:02but three days after I gave them that weak ultimatum, they refunded me for $118.50.

00:49:08They refunded me for the amount of the restocking fee that the returns team had withheld from the

00:49:14credit, even though they had not previously refunded the rest of the money, the rest of the money they

00:49:18applied as a credit to my replacement order, but they refunded that extra $118.50 that was missing

00:49:23straight to my PayPal. So at that point, you know, it was pretty clear that they had just dropped the

00:49:27ball. Different people in Adorama didn't know what other people were doing because one person was

00:49:32applying some of the money to a new order. Another person refunded some of the money back to me. So

00:49:37now

00:49:37they definitely don't have all the money to apply to the new order. So at that point, once they refunded

00:49:42me

00:49:42an eighth of the amount of money, I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be seeing the replacement order.

00:49:46But I still wanted the other $700 back, obviously, if they were going to go the refund route.

00:49:52So this was on February 8th, a Sunday. It was a Sunday when they made that first refund.

00:49:57And I emailed them back on that Sunday and I said, you still have until 2-12, you still have

00:50:01until the deadline

00:50:02I gave you to either issue the remaining refund or else I'll open a PayPal dispute. Over 24 hours later,

00:50:08I called into Adorama again. Once again, I spoke with somebody else from the customer service

00:50:13department. Again, somebody who didn't necessarily sound like they were living in the US.

00:50:17Thank you for calling Adorama. My name is Charles. Hi there. I want to let you know this call is

00:50:22being recorded on my end. My name is Jacob Kaufman. I've been dealing with a defective product I received

00:50:29from you guys over a month ago, and it started out as a replacement. I guess at this point, it's

00:50:34a return.

00:50:35Yeah, I have already checked as well here that this will be refunded yesterday for the

00:50:44charge for the restocking fee. Yes, but you never refunded the rest of it. That's the problem.

00:50:50You had applied the rest of it to the replacement order. So now you've given me the restocking fee

00:50:55back to my payment method, which is fine, but you still need to give me the other $711 that you

00:51:00had

00:51:01not previously refunded. I see. I'll be checking some notes here. One moment.

00:51:08Sure, take your time. And that's the current status of this case, okay?

00:51:10Thank you. Thank you for patiently waiting. As for the actual refund status for this,

00:51:18my access is limited. To make sure that you receive the specialist assistance,

00:51:22I'm transferring the call now to our level 2 team. Okay, thank you.

00:51:25I'm able to review the details later. Alrighty. Okay, please stay on the call.

00:51:33Hi, thank you so much for calling. This is Vanessa. How can I help you today?

00:51:37Hi there. I want to let you know this call is being recorded on my end. Did the person

00:51:41who transferred you give me any information?

00:51:44Oh, unfortunately, I wasn't able to speak with someone before your transfer. We apologize for

00:51:51that, but how can I help? All right. So back on December 31st, I placed an order for a display

00:51:57for $829.77. The problem was apparently your returns team had withheld a $118.50 restocking fee.

00:52:06So that was why they couldn't finish processing the replacement order. So I was waiting for you guys

00:52:11to get that figured out. Yesterday, I got an email that I had a refund, but the refund was only

00:52:16for

00:52:17that $118.50 restocking fee. So the remaining $711.27 that had been credited towards the replacement

00:52:25order before, I still need you to refund that remaining amount. Does that make sense?

00:52:32Definitely. And I was able to go ahead and check on that one too. By the way, for

00:52:40verification purposes, may I have a leave here first and last name, please?

00:52:43My name is Jacob Kaufman.

00:52:46Thank you so much for that one, Jacob. Yeah, I think I have it here. This is for a Dell

00:52:52Ultra

00:52:56Sharp Monitor that you have placed on December 31st when checking. Yeah, I was able to see that

00:53:02you were charged for resecting fee of $180.50 and that was that resecting fee was refunded yesterday

00:53:10as what you have mentioned and was able to confirm that it was being processed. So basically,

00:53:17I do see here as well as $711.27 that was issued on January 28th, but that wasn't refunded back

00:53:26to

00:53:26the original payment method, but instead it was issued as a store credit. So for that one, Jacob, I can

00:53:35definitely go ahead and submit a request for that store credit of $711.27 to be refunded back to the

00:53:45original payment method you have until this order. And that is for the PayPal account.

00:53:54Yeah, that's correct.

00:53:57All right. Thank you so much for confirming. Yeah, and you're going to this one.

00:54:02Please allow within one to two business days as well for this.

00:54:06More credit to be refunded back to your card to be completed.

00:54:11Okay. Yeah, because last week on February 5th, I informed you guys that I would do a charge back

00:54:16through PayPal if I didn't have it back by February 12th. So that's still four business

00:54:20days away. So it sounds like if you're on top of it, you should be able to get it done

00:54:23in time for that.

00:54:46Okay, that would be great. That's all I'm asking for. And this person on the phone told me,

00:54:50oh yeah, I see that $700 in store credit and I'll go ahead and submit a request to have that

00:54:55refunded

00:54:56back to you. So if I had not called in, who knows how long they would have just sat on

00:55:00that $711 in

00:55:02credit. Part of what was so frustrating about this whole experience was that it didn't seem like there

00:55:06was any sort of internal queue where they were proactively working on things. They were only

00:55:11working on things and only checking things out when I was directly asking them to. But when I called in

00:55:16that Monday, yeah, somebody told me, oh, I see the remaining store credit. I'll submit a request

00:55:21to have that refunded. And they told me that it would be within one to two business days.

00:55:25And I told them once again, I said, I gave you a one week ultimatum last week, and I'm going

00:55:31to open

00:55:31the PayPal dispute if I do not have this money back by 2-12. This was on 2-9. So

00:55:36one to two business

00:55:37days should have been fine. I should have had the money back by February 11th, going based on what she

00:55:42said. On February 10th, they emailed me back one more time. And they said, the request to have

00:55:47your remaining money in store credit refunded to your original payment method was submitted yesterday.

00:55:52Refunds normally take one to two business days to be completed. Please allow until the next business

00:55:56day for the refund to be processed. So this was February 10th. So we are nearly two weeks into the

00:56:02next month after the entire month that I spent dealing with this in the first place. We're like six

00:56:07weeks out from when I first placed the order. At this point, I had already said everything I was going

00:56:11to

00:56:11say to them. I gave them a specific date that I was going to open a dispute by. They had

00:56:16told me

00:56:16they're claiming that they're going to refund the money before that date. And so at that point,

00:56:20I didn't bother applying again. I was just going to plan to give them until 2-12, like I said,

00:56:26and I was even going to be nice. And I was going to wait until the end of the business

00:56:30day,

00:56:30the next day on the 13th, that was when I was going to submit the PayPal dispute. On February 12th,

00:56:36I got a phone call from Adorama. This sounded like a completely different person talking to me,

00:56:41by the way, when this process was going on, I did start interacting with some of Adorama's

00:56:46social media posts. Adorama seems to have a marketing team that's utilizing automated systems

00:56:51to make a lot of picture and short videos, social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,

00:56:57lots of different platforms. So I just went on Facebook and I started commenting on some of

00:57:01their posts while this was going on, just letting the general public know, hey, you might want to

00:57:05consider not doing business with these people. And I could tell that their system,

00:57:08their social media system is mostly automated because they did not reply to me at all for the

00:57:14first few days I was doing that. And then a few days later, they went through and replied to my

00:57:19comments on a bunch of their different posts at once when a real human actually logged into their

00:57:23Facebook account for the first time in a while. And they asked me to DM them my info on Facebook.

00:57:27I did. I told them I'm already working with your customer service team on this, but if there's anything you

00:57:32want to do to escalate it, feel free. So I actually don't know if the person who called me

00:57:37on February 12th was with their customer service team or was with their marketing team. I do know

00:57:42that they sounded, once again, much more of an American accent. And I have a feeling that they

00:57:46were actually stateside as opposed to part of the outsourced Singaporean customer service that

00:57:52Adorama uses. And this person on the 12th was letting me know that they had gone ahead and refunded the

00:57:57amount to me. And I checked PayPal and it showed up, you know, immediately when she told me that

00:58:02under my pending transactions that a refund was pending on the PayPal side. And this person who

00:58:06called me back on February 12th was actually apologizing pretty profusely for this entire

00:58:11process. I regret that I didn't record that last call, that third phone call with them. The reason I

00:58:18didn't record is because once again, they called me. I was not in front of my computer with my microphone

00:58:22ready to record like I was when I called them. They called me. It caught me a little off guard.

00:58:27I did pick up the phone. And yeah, to Adorama's credit, this woman who called me back,

00:58:32she acknowledged this was an internal process issue. She acknowledged we had too many people

00:58:37involved in this and it took way too long. So it was nice to have some acknowledgement and then not

00:58:42just pretending like this all went as planned or like this was just me freaking out for no reason

00:58:47as a customer. You know, six weeks from start to finish and an entire four weeks they had my defective

00:58:52product between when they received it at their warehouse and when I actually got my refund four

00:58:58entire weeks. That's like a 12th of the entire year. You know, this was very frustrating. Um,

00:59:03and the woman who called me back actually asked if I wanted a gift card to Adorama as a an

00:59:09apology for

00:59:10this taking so long and being such a bad process. She asked if I wanted to, if I would be

00:59:15open to

00:59:15receiving a gift card and I told her, well, right now I'm not very inclined to make another purchase

00:59:21for you guys, but if you'd like to send a gift card, you feel free to do that and maybe

00:59:26I'll use

00:59:26it in the future. That's exactly what I told her. She asked if I wanted it to my email or

00:59:30physically

00:59:31mailed to me and I said email would be fine for that. And she said it might take up to

00:59:35a week to get

00:59:36that apology gift card to my email. In true Adorama fashion, it has now been 10 days, more than a

00:59:42week,

00:59:43and I do not have that gift card yet. So that's the cherry on top. That's the end of the

00:59:46story.

00:59:47Um, again, sorry if this went on too long and you didn't like hearing me rant about this, but it

00:59:52was

00:59:52just a little crazy how long this was taking. And again, I understand the idea of separating out your

00:59:58customer facing service people and your internal hardware processing people. A company that I have

01:00:04worked for, I've worked in a customer service department where I was in that position of talking to

01:00:09customers. And then I wasn't physically handling the returns. I was talking to a different team

01:00:14who was physically handling the returns. I totally understand that setup and why those job roles are

01:00:19separated. However, when I was at this much smaller company fulfilling that role, I still had final

01:00:25control over the money. I still had to get sign offs from people if I was going to do something

01:00:28non-standard. But like if our returns team was doing something dumb and not giving me the money back,

01:00:33I could go to a manager and get that money refunded before the returns team finishes processing it

01:00:37because it's the right thing to do if your returns team is taking four weeks to check something in.

01:00:42I really don't think the problem with Adorama was any of the individual employees. You know,

01:00:46I've been mentioning this Singaporean customer service team and it's not anything against the

01:00:50people working on that team, but it's the fact that I can tell from how this went down that they

01:00:56do

01:00:56not have the power to actually help customers. Their job is to talk to customers, but they don't have

01:01:01control over the funds. They don't have control over the returns. They don't have control over

01:01:05sign offs or anything. All they can do is kind of report what other teams are doing back to the

01:01:10customer without any ability to actually influence it, which leads to very poor customer service as

01:01:16happened in this case. So yeah, I don't think it was any of the individual customer service people.

01:01:20It was a business process issue that Adorama has going on here, and I hope that they rectify that

01:01:26in the future. You know, I doubt that my one case is going to do anything. The fact that I

01:01:30did

01:01:30eventually get somebody a little bit higher up calling me back is a little bit encouraging,

01:01:35but there are humans working there who are not just completely on autopilot. But yeah,

01:01:39this whole thing was crazy. And once again, I just wanted to finish the order. I wanted them

01:01:43to fulfill the order I paid for and get a replacement product. By the end of this whole thing,

01:01:48of course, I was a little nervous. What if the replacement is defective and I'm having to deal

01:01:52with them for another month about this? So they ended up refunding me, even though that wasn't

01:01:56even what I was primarily asking for. And I am kind of glad they did because I'm not sure if

01:02:01I'm

01:02:01going to get the Dell display from another store now. The reason I bought from Adorama was because

01:02:06they were the cheapest. At the time that I bought it, B&H had it for about $30 more. By

01:02:11the way,

01:02:12I've returned a product to B&H before. No questions asked, super quick processing,

01:02:17much better experience. That was years ago at this point, but my returns experience with B&H is much better.

01:02:23I've returned products to Newegg in the past. Newegg has their problems these days, but the

01:02:27returns process, still fairly smooth compared to this. The replacement process, still fairly smooth

01:02:33compared to this. So yeah, I'm going to have to think on it if it's still worth picking up this

01:02:37monitor. I was really happy with it other than the stuck Pixel, so I might get another one in the

01:02:42future and I'll probably record another quick unboxing showing you if I do. But for now, that was

01:02:47a defective Dell UltraSharp display. Kind of a poor first impression on the UltraSharp line for me,

01:02:52but you know, it is what it is. That's how it went and you guys saw all of it firsthand.

01:02:56So thanks

01:02:57for sticking with me. I know, again, this was a longer video, much longer than I expected an unboxing

01:03:01to be. If you enjoyed this video, or even if you didn't, but you've enjoyed some of my other videos,

01:03:06please subscribe and stay subscribed. It's free for you to stay subscribed and I'm trying to make

01:03:10YouTube send me one of those silver play buttons since I've been doing this for like 15 years. Feel

01:03:14free to leave comments about your own online return experiences with different stores. If you've got any of

01:03:18those experiences, leave those comments on YouTube, Dailymotion, Rumble, nerdonthestreet.com,

01:03:23any platform that you're watching this on. But for now, I'm Jacob Kaufman, I'm the Nerd on the Street,

01:03:27and I'm going to get back to editing this on my old display. See you guys later.

01:03:48you

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