"it expands its range to include 100% of Adobe RGB, 100% of sRGB (plus 100% of Rec. 709), and 90% of DCI-P3 coverage." The chart says 100% of DCI-P3, which is it?
Pro grade monitors have always been seriously expensive (eg NEC wanting $2300 for the 3090 vs Dell/Hp/etc only wanting about half that for their 2560x1600 screens a decade ago). For the target market where an hour of artist time costs anywhere from $40 at the low end to $200+ on the high end it's a rounding error; while the various pro grade features are able to quickly pay for themselves.
$1,299 for a pro 32" 4K monitor would be a great price (the 2K NEC PA302W-SV is $2,250 for instance), but this monitor lacks hardware calibration à la NEC SpectraView II or Eizo ColorEdge, and thus it does not qualify as a pro monitor.
Why try to split hares about what makes a "pro" monitor?
If you're expecting NEC SpectraView or Eizo ColorEdge level features for $1300, well, I have at least a few bridges to sell you. The same applies, if you're expecting a $300 monitor to perform similarly to this.
What you're getting here (if performance matches the specs) is a display with a highly uniform panel that can always be calibrated on the OS side. Since both the panel and the interfaces support exactly 10 bits of color, this doesn't technically lose you anything, it just means you can't calibrate the monitor itself, set the OS to output your color space of choice (and the monitor to match) and be done with it. You need to create and install a color profile for your specific monitor on the OS side.
Of course, with AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 (well, and sRGB) as the only options for in-built calibration, you probably want this anyway. Neither is a complete superset of the other, and many modern displays support colors that lie outside of either.
I've been reading this site over 15 years and just now registered because these image quality matters have bothered me for a long time. I see there's finally some progress being made but I'd like that progress to extend to the journalism and specs quoted as well.
"Color reproduction a key feature"... Correction: It's been a key feature since CGA CRT's if not since color TV's.
"178 viewing angles" So if TFT/IPS have 178 viewing angles, what sort of viewing angles do CRT's have? 17800 degrees? I just bought an Acer laptop with IPS and took photos of it and the photos don't tell the whole story, the entire screen looks completely black with a bit of sunlight coming on the side and even in pitch black room, while colors are less affected than in a cheap TN display, there's quite rapid drop in contrast/brightness and general readability of text if you're more than 15 degrees off the center.
So yes, there may be manufacturer saying "here's how we measured and did the math to get 178" but the "key" issue is that the measurement need to be the same across the board and cater both ends of the spectrum. I measured CRT viewing angles and they were indeed about 175-178 degrees, the thick glass started reflecting other things beyond that point, yet as I just said, if we equate CRT's 175 degrees to "one end" of the viewing angle measurement spectrum, most LCD's actually in my measurement have negative viewing angles because if you have 2 eyes, each eye sees different things. This is because while the colors may look correct straight up front, fact is, only few pixels are straight in front of each eye and if you look straight ahead, neither eye looks at a pixel that is straight in front, so both are getting worse information than from CRT.
TL;DR TFT technology if so flawed that it will always have negative viewing angles. The reason for this is fundamental to how TFT's work.
Well, for one thing, these viewing angles are bs. Once you're off just a few degrees from 90, everything shifts enough so that you can no trust it. For gaming, who cares? But for pro work, you're constantly moving your head back and forth, and even up,and down with a large monitor like this one.
You need to have the entire screen as a medium grey, and you'll see what I mean. When your at the center, the edges look darker. Same with the top and bottom. The top looks lighter if the height of the monitor is set just a bit higher than you eyes, they way it should be for a big monitor.
Mice you head around, and everything changes. It's really difficult to do high quality color work that way. These monitors are too big for this purpose. 27" is about as big as you can get away with when working closely. Even that's marginal.
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Robert Pankiw - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
"it expands its range to include 100% of Adobe RGB, 100% of sRGB (plus 100% of Rec. 709), and 90% of DCI-P3 coverage."The chart says 100% of DCI-P3, which is it?
philehidiot - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
It's anything you want it to be, big boy.Yeh, prostitute speak and monitors don't go together well.
Sarchasm - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Also says 5ms GTG in the writeup but 1ms GTG in the table. It's most likely 5ms, but that chart is dodgy as hell.DanNeely - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Behold the power of copypasta table generation instead of a proper templating system.Alistair - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Any reason this one is 300 dollars more than the LG equivalent model? Just the calibration?fanofanand - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
I was drooling over this monitor until I got to the price. Sweet monitor and I like the trend this follows but this is out of my league.DanNeely - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Pro grade monitors have always been seriously expensive (eg NEC wanting $2300 for the 3090 vs Dell/Hp/etc only wanting about half that for their 2560x1600 screens a decade ago). For the target market where an hour of artist time costs anywhere from $40 at the low end to $200+ on the high end it's a rounding error; while the various pro grade features are able to quickly pay for themselves.fanofanand - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
I didn't say it was overpriced for it's function, simply that it's out of my league :)fazalmajid - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
$1,299 for a pro 32" 4K monitor would be a great price (the 2K NEC PA302W-SV is $2,250 for instance), but this monitor lacks hardware calibration à la NEC SpectraView II or Eizo ColorEdge, and thus it does not qualify as a pro monitor.chaos215bar2 - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Why try to split hares about what makes a "pro" monitor?If you're expecting NEC SpectraView or Eizo ColorEdge level features for $1300, well, I have at least a few bridges to sell you. The same applies, if you're expecting a $300 monitor to perform similarly to this.
What you're getting here (if performance matches the specs) is a display with a highly uniform panel that can always be calibrated on the OS side. Since both the panel and the interfaces support exactly 10 bits of color, this doesn't technically lose you anything, it just means you can't calibrate the monitor itself, set the OS to output your color space of choice (and the monitor to match) and be done with it. You need to create and install a color profile for your specific monitor on the OS side.
Of course, with AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 (well, and sRGB) as the only options for in-built calibration, you probably want this anyway. Neither is a complete superset of the other, and many modern displays support colors that lie outside of either.
chaos215bar2 - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Err… split hairs. Let's not go around cutting bunnies in half.jack5150 - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
wow, this looks like a dell ultrasharp clone, from the looks down to the lofty price.chrnochime - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
Lofty price ha! This is nothing for the pro market.And compared to any run of the mill half decent road bike without any custom parts this is nothing either.
BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, May 10, 2017 - link
I'm not sure I understand the value in comparing the price of a computer monitor to a motorcycle.JanW1 - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Since when do Monitors have video outputs? Did someone proofread this?vladx - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
Wow that's a pretty low price for a 4k creative display.avfx - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
I've been reading this site over 15 years and just now registered because these image quality matters have bothered me for a long time. I see there's finally some progress being made but I'd like that progress to extend to the journalism and specs quoted as well."Color reproduction a key feature"... Correction: It's been a key feature since CGA CRT's if not since color TV's.
"178 viewing angles" So if TFT/IPS have 178 viewing angles, what sort of viewing angles do CRT's have? 17800 degrees? I just bought an Acer laptop with IPS and took photos of it and the photos don't tell the whole story, the entire screen looks completely black with a bit of sunlight coming on the side and even in pitch black room, while colors are less affected than in a cheap TN display, there's quite rapid drop in contrast/brightness and general readability of text if you're more than 15 degrees off the center.
So yes, there may be manufacturer saying "here's how we measured and did the math to get 178" but the "key" issue is that the measurement need to be the same across the board and cater both ends of the spectrum. I measured CRT viewing angles and they were indeed about 175-178 degrees, the thick glass started reflecting other things beyond that point, yet as I just said, if we equate CRT's 175 degrees to "one end" of the viewing angle measurement spectrum, most LCD's actually in my measurement have negative viewing angles because if you have 2 eyes, each eye sees different things. This is because while the colors may look correct straight up front, fact is, only few pixels are straight in front of each eye and if you look straight ahead, neither eye looks at a pixel that is straight in front, so both are getting worse information than from CRT.
TL;DR TFT technology if so flawed that it will always have negative viewing angles. The reason for this is fundamental to how TFT's work.
fanofanand - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
So what would you like the author to do differently? Re-define the industry standard for viewing angles single-handedly?melgross - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
Well, for one thing, these viewing angles are bs. Once you're off just a few degrees from 90, everything shifts enough so that you can no trust it. For gaming, who cares? But for pro work, you're constantly moving your head back and forth, and even up,and down with a large monitor like this one.You need to have the entire screen as a medium grey, and you'll see what I mean. When your at the center, the edges look darker. Same with the top and bottom. The top looks lighter if the height of the monitor is set just a bit higher than you eyes, they way it should be for a big monitor.
Mice you head around, and everything changes. It's really difficult to do high quality color work that way. These monitors are too big for this purpose. 27" is about as big as you can get away with when working closely. Even that's marginal.
melgross - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
Wow, way too many typo's I didn't notice.