Cabling, USB3 Ports, SDXC Card Reader

2014-05-24 • SEND FEEDBACK •
Related: camera cards, display, laptop, MacBook, MacBook Pro, SDXC camera storage card, Thunderbolt, USB, weather events

Get the Dell UP2414Q at B&H Photo for about $949.

For testing, the the Dell UP2414Q was connected to the to late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display using the supplied Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.

Powering on the 2414Q, the 4K image appeared with the menu bar on it as the main screen—zero configuration needed, perfect behavior from the start. Sleep/wake also worked flawlessly (many times). One can of course arrange the two displays as desired using the Displays control panel.

USB3 ports

To test USB3 support (3 ports on the 2414Q), the supplied USB3 uplink cable was connected to a Tripp Lite USB3 hub and an Apple USB mouse was plugged into one of the USB3 ports on the 2414Q. All of this worked flawlessly.

Built-in SDXC card reader

The Dell UP2414Q has a built-in SDXC card reader. Using a fast SanDisk Extreme Pro card, speeds of 85MB/sec were observed in transferring 1.2GB of image files onto the laptop—slightly slower than the 90.5 MB/sec seen with a USB3 card reader on the 2013 Mac Pro. Possibly the difference could be due to internal SSD speed (destination), so the foregoing should not be taken as an absolute, and the speed is nearly as fast as the card is rated (90MB/sec).

Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt devices on the 2nd MacBook Pro Retina Thunderbolt port worked flawlessly and at full bandwidth—Mini Display port does not consume the data bandwidth on the same Thunderbolt bus (the MBPR has two ports on a single Thunderbolt bus).

Dell UP2414Q connected to late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina

Refresh rate and resolution

By default the UP2414Q runs at 30 Hz, but your author found that mouse-cursor tracking worked quite well with no obvious functionality concerns.

The Apple system information appears to be erroneous for resolution display: the UP2414Q is absolutely delivering 3840 X 2160 resolution as shown below, yet it is listed as 1920 X 1080, in conflict with the screen shot above! As shown below it is running at 30 Hz and is noted as “Television”. On the late 2013 MacBook Pro, it is possible to run at 60 Hz at full 3840 X 2160 resolution.

Dell UP2414Q connected to late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina