U3011 or ZR30W?

E

ebolamonkey3

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 2, 2008
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Hey guys, I'm having trouble deciding between the two.

So far as I can tell, both monitors have the same performance in terms of color reproduction and image quality, since both use the same panel. So the only differences are in the stand, extra inputs on the Dell (card readers, HDMI, etc...), OSD, and Scaler.

So a question is that since the HP doesn't have OSD or a scaler, how would I calibrate the monitor (besides brightness) and what would happen if I play a game that doesn't support 2560x1600? For example, SCBW only goes up to 800x640, and War3 only goes up to 1600x1200. Given that a 30" probably isn't the best monitor to use for a 12yr old game in the first place, what would happen?

Oh and what do you guys think, is the Dell worth $250 more than the HP?
 
Well the advantage of the HP is the lower cost, and also lower input lag. The disadvantage is as you noted no adjustability. So any adjustments are in the video card itself. As for lower resolutions on the monitor, your video card will have to support scaling and do that. As far as I know both nVidia and ATi can do that fine.

The Dell is going to be more adjustable, including being able to do aRGB and sRGB colour space, the HP will be cheaper and have a lower input lag.
 
This depends mostly on you. You know the differences, you have to decide if YOU want to spend the money for the extra features. You did not even tell what you will use the display for. Only gaming on PC and do not care about colors? ZR30W then. From what I read here graphics cards are going to lose their calibration while gaming.
 
How much experience have you had with wide gamut monitors?
Do you know what you're getting yourself into with the ZR30?

I've read that wide gamut colors can be toned down in a pretty satisfactory way with ATi's control panel, but that's just something I read once or twice...
In my opinion the ZR30w seems like a very risky choice.
 
Jonte said:
How much experience have you had with wide gamut monitors?
Do you know what you're getting yourself into with the ZR30?
Click to expand...

I apologize, don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm very curious as to what you mean by this. I'm shopping around for a monitor myself but don't know a whole lot... what could possibly be bad about a wide gamut monitor??
 
omniscence said:
This depends mostly on you. You know the differences, you have to decide if YOU want to spend the money for the extra features. You did not even tell what you will use the display for. Only gaming on PC and do not care about colors? ZR30W then. From what I read here graphics cards are going to lose their calibration while gaming.
Click to expand...

Jonte said:
How much experience have you had with wide gamut monitors?
Do you know what you're getting yourself into with the ZR30?

I've read that wide gamut colors can be toned down in a pretty satisfactory way with ATi's control panel, but that's just something I read once or twice...
In my opinion the ZR30w seems like a very risky choice.
Click to expand...

Mostly just regular office usage, some gaming (mostly RTS) and some photoshop and video editing.

DaRuSsIaMaN said:
I apologize, don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm very curious as to what you mean by this. I'm shopping around for a monitor myself but don't know a whole lot... what could possibly be bad about a wide gamut monitor??
Click to expand...

Yea, what is bad about wide gamut colors?
 
You can find a lot by searching this subforum (go to advanced search).

Here are two example pics

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1814/230lwx.jpg
http://d.imagehost.org/view/0591/standard_gamut_vs_wide_gamut_verdriven

Here's a discussion (probably from the 2490 thread) between a user that was getting good results by using ATi's Control Panel and the famous user Albovin

The oversaturated color problem with wide color gamut displays can be fixed just by having an ATI card and Catalyst Control Panel. The Color Correction Saturation control works very well for this problem. I had this problem with the Dell 3007, Planar PX2611, Doublesight 263 and tried everything including the Spyder 3 calibrator. Nothing worked. Part of the problem was the Nvidia control panel which although has a Saturation control would not reduce the saturation enough even when set to zero.
The ATI Catalyst saturation control is excellent. Saturation can be adjusted to zero color if desired. I am very happy with my wide color gamut monitors now
Click to expand...


WG problem cannot be fixed by video adapter abrupt settings.
It does not do anything to WG vs Standard Gamut color mismatch problem.
With Catalist you can dim the most annoying pop-ups, but other tones will be further distorted as well.
That picture will be far from color accuracy.
Click to expand...

Well I have to disagree. While it might not make for perfect color accuracy the ATI Catalyst Saturation adjustment does take care of the oversaturation problem with wide gamut monitors.

I have spent a lot of time and experimenting with different monitors on this. I could never get the colors adjusted when I had a Nvidia based card. I tried the Spyder 2 and 3 but no luck. This is with a long list of monitors to include the Dell 2407HC, DS263, Benq 241W, Planar PX2611, Dell 3007WFP-HC and just recently HP w2558HC which is the only TN panel of the bunch. I could not get the colors adjusted with any of these monitors until I switched over to ATI. It takes care of the oversaturation problem completely. At this point I am very happy with how the PQ looks.

Another example is with the Dell Studio 17 notebook computer I have with the RGB LED display. People that ordered this notebook with the Intel based video were complaining about oversaturation and PQ because they lacked the saturation control. I have the ATI card and with the Saturation turned down to about 50 I have no problems and the picture is excellent.
Click to expand...
 
This same topic again?
Forum needs a moderator and some stickies...
Anyways, when comparing those two monitors, don't forget about differences in return policy, customer support, dead pixel policy, etc.
 
Ohhh, that' right too. Are Dell and HP monitor return policies on par, or is one of them waaay better?
 
Using the ATI CCC to reduce colour saturation will involve serious shade loss. If the U2410 and U2711 sRGB modes are used to predict the quality of the U3011 sRGB solution, then I would strongly recommend choosing the U3011 if you are interested in achieving correct colour saturation for games and video.
 
I'm having a hard time deciding between these same two monitors. For the U3011 owners out there, is the input lag noticeable at all in FPS games? The only use this monitor will see is for gaming.
 
I dunno, in that case I think you're really going to be better off w/ a 120hz monitor like the Alienware one. Unless you really want 2560x1600 resolution.
 
I own a U3011 and there is ghosting in FPS. I mostly play WoW so it doesn't matter me.
 
bad144 said:
Wow, that's the best price anyone has posted thus far. Congrats.
Click to expand...

Thanks! If you use Discover credit card, there's another 10% cash back. But I used it w/ another card and got $200 cashback for spending over $500 in the first 3 months :p
 
You can get HP ZR30W for about $1,100. I was also on the fence between U3011 & ZR30W about a month ago. I haven't seen Dell's U3011, but I received my ZR30W about a month ago.. and I'm definitely happy with this monitor. I was concerned that I would be too big for my desk vs my old 24"... but I was wrong... Now that this 30" is sitting on my desk... I imagined that it would be bigger... but it's just right... Definitely loving my HP 30".
 
Hey guys,

I'm on the fence between the Dell and the HP as well...I have a question regarding the scaler that's in the Dell - I've heard in a few forums that the scaler causes the Dell to have a bit more input lag. Does this also apply to the Dell if I'm playing in native resolution?

Also, on the HP canada website, there are two models of the ZR30: VM617A4, and VM617A8, and there is a substantial difference in price ($300)...I can't seem to find what the difference in the two are.
Can anyone provide any insight?

Happy holidays everyone!

L.
 
I'm starting to feel that the misinformation about having a scaler is getting out of hand. Why on Earth would you not want a scaler? Your HDTV TVs have built-in scalers. My old 60GB PS3 has a scaler and so does the Xbox 360. Very few games run at native 720p, everything is scaled up from 600p to 720p or 1080p . All of upscaling Blu-Ray and DVD players have scalers. Yet no one complains about lag when watching a movie or playing a game on their HDTV.

The ZR30W does not have a scaler and it is a cost-saving measure. Moreso, it does not have OSD so you cannot do hardware calibrations, only through software.

Always listen to this axiom: You Get What You Paid For. You are paying for less electronics in the ZR30W. Some people are ultra-sensitive about input lag, but they are starting to sound like we should reward the company that does less than the company that does more.
 
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Sycraft said:
The Dell is going to be more adjustable, including being able to do aRGB and sRGB colour space, the HP will be cheaper and have a lower input lag.
Click to expand...

It may have lower input lag but you have to have really good muscle reflexes to exploit the one frame advantages of the Hazro. The Dell is fast enough that it won't be a limitation to the majority of gamers who can't time things at two frames to begin with.
 
I have the U3011 and use sRGB mode. I find the Adobe RGB too saturating.

I did notice more input lag with this monitor compared to my old 20" NEC WMGX2. I only play Dragon Age so it doesn't matter much to me. But for FPS gamers you may want something with lower input lag to be honest.

Aside from that though, I love my U3011. Colors are nice and text is super sharp. :)
 
I own a U3011 and I've played the following games with ZERO so called input lag:

- PC -
BFBC2
Fallout3
Bioshock
Bioshock2
ModernWarfare 1 & 2

- PS3 -
Uncharted

Im not a pro gamer, but who is. Through the years I've "upgraded" my displays, as no doubt most of you have, always looking for something better/bigger. My "upgrade" path has been as follows: SONY CRT ---> NEC 90GX2 ---> U3011. Now I read that my SONY CRT was actually the BEST for gaming well WTF. No guys be that as it may Im never going back. Yes I still have my sony and I still use it to diagnose PCs, but thats it. I cant comment on the 30" HP monitor, but I can say this I dont notice any input lag on my U3011 having come from two very fast monitors.
 
pedophilekiller said:
I'm starting to feel that the misinformation about having a scaler is getting out of hand. Why on Earth would you not want a scaler?
Click to expand...

Hmm, well the only reason I could think of for wanting one is if you do not use it with a PC. Almost every single video card has an option in the drivers for GPU scaling. There are a few reasons for not wanting one, mostly because of input lag.
 
I am trying to explain that HP decided to exclude the scalar because it was unnecessary for the types of inputs on the monitor. The only inputs in the panel are DVI-D and DisplayPort which are naturally connected to your video card that provides the scaler. HP assumes you have the adequate hardware based on the proprietary function of the inputs. Alternatively, HP would not add HDMI or component inputs because the types of devices that link with them are not exclusively video card related. In other words, HP knows most systems have redundancy in scalers because the hardware that connects to DVI-D and DisplayPort are supported by video cards. This is a smart business move because they do not have to buy extra electronics. However, this also means that the ZR30W is not a multimedia display because it does not have the hardware to support component or HDMI to non-scaler sources.

The Dell includes the scaler because it has to in order to support the multitude of connectors. I think the scaler can be set as active or passive depending on your graphics preference. However, I believe Dell did not draw the circuit to have the option to bypass the scaler completely on PC mode. Hence, there is a difference input performance.
 
I just got my ZR30W and all I have to say is WOW. Huge display, great colors...just had to turn down the brightness and it looks great.
 
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