ASUS PA246Q: 24-inch, 1920x1200, IPS

The colour gamut of most plasmas is much broader than the PA246Q (which is roughly sRGB) so don't expect 'plasma-like colours'. The sRGB format is of course more widely supported for computing so the PA246Q should do nicely for most people if it isn't burdened by a sandpaper-like AG coat.

I know I was just having fun!
 
Hey guys, new to the forum here. I just got a PA246Q from Amazon this afternoon. I know basically nothing about professional displays, but boy this is a huge improvement over my Asus VH236H.

I haven't had much time to really use it thoroughly -- just some web browsing and I played a Bluray of Gone Baby Gone on it. It's very bright in the room currently, so I'm getting some indirect sunlight on the screen. Even so, I've had to turn the brightness down to 20. The stand is very nice and the whole monitor seems very solid. The lettering and the red stripe don't really bother me too much, either.

I'll try to provide any additional info that you guys request, but again, I know very little about displays.
 
Just played some Left 4 Dead 2 and NBA 2K11. No noticeable input lag or ghosting. Granted, I'm not nearly as sensitive as I used to be, back when I played Q3A competitively. But basically, for me, it's hard to tell the difference between the PA246Q and the VH236H regarding input lag and ghosting. Picture quality is another story.
 
Just played some Left 4 Dead 2 and NBA 2K11. No noticeable input lag or ghosting. Granted, I'm not nearly as sensitive as I used to be, back when I played Q3A competitively. But basically, for me, it's hard to tell the difference between the PA246Q and the VH236H regarding input lag and ghosting. Picture quality is another story.

Thanks for your impressions shlemielo. I'm in the market for a new monitor so if this monitor doesn't have the QC issues the Dell ones do....I would be all over it.
 
Could you dl the motion testing program, PixerPixAn, click on the streaky pictures tab and compare your Asus models? Will probably have to stick your face pretty close to the screen..
 
Just played some Left 4 Dead 2 and NBA 2K11. No noticeable input lag or ghosting. Granted, I'm not nearly as sensitive as I used to be, back when I played Q3A competitively. But basically, for me, it's hard to tell the difference between the PA246Q and the VH236H regarding input lag and ghosting. Picture quality is another story.

If you used to play competitively, I'm sure you still have a very good eye. That's good news to all of us then.
 
The text on the U2410, in my opinion, looks much better than the NEC PA241W. The NEC was great for images, but reading text made me dizzy. The Dell U2410 doesn't bother my eyes nearly as much, and I was encouraged with Oldie's post that the AG coating on the PA246Q is much better than the U2410.

IPS panels do offer much better viewing angles than the standard TN panels. However, this fact alone does not merit the additional cost. I am a designer and require accurate skin tones with my photography, for instance. Depending upon where I'm sitting and how a TN monitor is angled, a blush could look like a different shade if I was viewing the screen just a few inches off center. This phenomena is much less likely to happen with a 178/178 degree IPS screen. A wide gamut IPS panel also increases the color space to over a billion color shades. A standard TN panel averages colors with the 16.7 million available. I need the images on my screen to be identical to the printed product, so subtle differences in skin tones are important. If this wasn't the case, I would probably go with a nice LED.

Hope that helps.

TN's only do 262,144 colors, they have to dither to get 16.7 million.
 
If you used to play competitively, I'm sure you still have a very good eye. That's good news to all of us then.

Indeed. Quake III is about as hardcore as shit gets, so anyone who played that game on a high level probably knows what they're talking about. I just need a few more confirmations that it's good for gaming, and then I'm buying this sonbitch.
 
Indeed. Quake III is about as hardcore as shit gets, so anyone who played that game on a high level probably knows what they're talking about. I just need a few more confirmations that it's good for gaming, and then I'm buying this sonbitch.

Yup I agree!

I played quake,

Was in several competitions for Quake2 (Oh the mighty RailGun!, so much more powerful than q3a)

and q3a. I still load it from time to time for memories.

I have to say that back in those days I was very tuned for network lag, input lag, and graphics lag. I could feel it instantaneously when it happened.
You know you are old school when you can tell me if you know what a HPB and LPB is without looking on google!
 
Hey guys, new user here :p

Been waiting for this screen to appear for a while now and am considering taking the plunge and going to pick one up tomorrow (well, later today I guess).

Will post some thoughts and impressions of it after a bit of use! Again, not a display expert by any stretch, but I guess any opinions are better than none for other prospective buyers.
 
Hey guys, new user here :p

Been waiting for this screen to appear for a while now and am considering taking the plunge and going to pick one up tomorrow (well, later today I guess).

Will post some thoughts and impressions of it after a bit of use! Again, not a display expert by any stretch, but I guess any opinions are better than none for other prospective buyers.

When you sayh pick one up do you mean at a brick and mortar? If so which ones have it?
 
Can someone who has actually purchased the PA246Q tell me if there is a DisplayPort CABLE included? Newegg's specs say there is one, but their picture of the box's contents does not. I have one being delivered today & have to use the DisplayPort connection.
 
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My ASUS PA246Q is being delivered today so I'll post some pics to show what's inside. I'll return and give some impressions, compared to the Dell U2410 which I have also. The plan is for the U2410 to move over to my "work" system and the PA246 to take up residence on my "home" system. Not sure how to test for input lag but I don't play a lot of high end games on my PC's...have an Xbox 360 for game stuff which will be hooked up to this monitor also in my office...

If anyone has any questions, feel free to post and I will reply as best I can...
 
My ASUS PA246Q is being delivered today so I'll post some pics to show what's inside. I'll return and give some impressions, compared to the Dell U2410 which I have also. The plan is for the U2410 to move over to my "work" system and the PA246 to take up residence on my "home" system. Not sure how to test for input lag but I don't play a lot of high end games on my PC's...have an Xbox 360 for game stuff which will be hooked up to this monitor also in my office...

If anyone has any questions, feel free to post and I will reply as best I can...

For anyone who's not sure how to test input lag, the best way to do it is probably to play a music game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Does it work without fucking with the lag settings? If so, you're golden. The ideal would be something super timing sensitive like Beatmania, but yeah... nobody's gonna have that.
 
I don't have it in front of me but I think the standard way is to photograph a clock on the display and compare it to a synchronized clock or something along those lines. I think it was over at avs forums where they were measuring input lag for tvs.
 
My ASUS PA246Q is being delivered today so I'll post some pics to show what's inside. I'll return and give some impressions, compared to the Dell U2410 which I have also. The plan is for the U2410 to move over to my "work" system and the PA246 to take up residence on my "home" system. Not sure how to test for input lag but I don't play a lot of high end games on my PC's...have an Xbox 360 for game stuff which will be hooked up to this monitor also in my office...

If anyone has any questions, feel free to post and I will reply as best I can...

Please compare the difference in AG coating.
 
Can someone who has actually purchased the PA246Q tell me if there is a DisplayPort CABLE included? Newegg's specs say there is one, but their picture of the box's contents does not. I have one being delivered today & have to use the DisplayPort connection.

There is a cable included. Unfortunately for me, I needed a mini DP cable to connect to my 6950
 
I badly need a new monitor. Is it really worth 500$ guys? I'd like to hear more about gaming and lag.
 
Can someone who has actually purchased the PA246Q tell me if there is a DisplayPort CABLE included? Newegg's specs say there is one, but their picture of the box's contents does not. I have one being delivered today & have to use the DisplayPort connection.

Yes, there's a standard sized DP cable in the box. If you use mini-dp you'll need to buy an adapter.
 
And as far as cables included...
- DVI
- Display Port (standard, not-mini)
- VGA
- USB

and a power cord...lol
 
Just got this monitor set up and turned on. Green stuck pixel near the center of the screen. DAMMIT! Software hasn't been able to fix it. Nervous to try hardware solutions. Might have to return to Amazon.
 
Just got this monitor set up and turned on. Green stuck pixel near the center of the screen. DAMMIT! Software hasn't been able to fix it. Nervous to try hardware solutions. Might have to return to Amazon.

I would return it and get another one if you otherwise like it. Speaking of which, what do you think? What have you had previously?
 
I would return it and get another one if you otherwise like it. Speaking of which, what do you think? What have you had previously?

I have a BenQ MVA panel next to it. Quite honestly, I think I somewhat prefer the MVA, but this is probably because I haven't adjusted the colors quite to my liking. I'm not really a video professional, so I prefer "like" to accurate. I tend to prefer cooler color settings and the Asus is a bit warm.

However, and this is especially noticeable on HF, the colors don't wash out nearly as much on the Asus. The grey bar that has the page breadcrumbs really washes out on the BenQ across the screen. My head is usually near the left of the Benq and the right side of that grey bar is light grey until I move my head to the right. No problem like this on the Asus. If I take MS Paint and make a solid dark grey box and put a solid black circle in it, and move it around the screen, I notice less smearing on the Asus. I think I would def keep the Asus were it not for that stuck pixel. I'm still trying to fix it... sucks having to send it back.

And although I used to be a hardcore Q3 gamer (HPB = high ping bastard, LPB = low ping bastard, timenudge -20, maxpackets 100, etc, etc), I don't really play those types of games on my PC anymore so I can't speak to input lag much.
 
Ok, just got my ASUS PA246Q setup and so far, so good! Started up Dead Pixel Tester and manually cycled through B, W, R, G, B and no dead pixels! Need to put in some more time with it but some first impressions...

Compared to my Dell U2410...
The anti-glare coating is noticeably better than what is on the U2410. It's there but certainly far less. I would say maybe 30-40% less noticeable, at least to me. That alone has made it worthwhile to keep the Asus! I love the Dell but it's anti-glare coating would drive me nuts editing photos in Lightroom because I thought I was seeing high ISO noise when in fact it was the coating on the monitor...

The red stripe...none issue. Yeah, you notice it when unboxing the monitor but once you start using it, you don't notice it. Well, unless you spend the majority of your time working in the bottom of your monitor display. Let's put it this way, if you own the Dell U2410 and don't notice it's blue power LED, you won't notice the stripe after the using the monitor for a few hours. Speaking of the power LED, the Asus glows white when on and is pretty subdued.

The bezel is slightly deeper along the bottom but even on the left/right/top sides, looking at it straight on. The Dell is even all the way around. Doesn't matter to me, I look at the screen, not the bezel. Depth wise, the outer edge of the bezel is even between the Asus and the Dell although the overall depth of the Asus is slightly deeper, when looking from the left/right or from the top. Again, doesn't matter to me but just an FYI to anyone with a Dell U2410.

Calibrated the Asus with my Spyder 3 Pro and the colors look really good. Doing a quick look through my Lightroom library, the colors are better than the Dell but I wouldn't call it a huge difference, but again, it's there. I'll compare more once I have hook up the Dell again later tonight and compare some images side by side again.

All in all, right now, I'm very happy with it...I'll post more later...

Al
 
Ok, just got my ASUS PA246Q setup and so far, so good! Started up Dead Pixel Tester and manually cycled through B, W, R, G, B and no dead pixels! Need to put in some more time with it but some first impressions...

Compared to my Dell U2410...
The anti-glare coating is noticeably better than what is on the U2410. It's there but certainly far less. I would say maybe 30-40% less noticeable, at least to me. That alone has made it worthwhile to keep the Asus! I love the Dell but it's anti-glare coating would drive me nuts editing photos in Lightroom because I thought I was seeing high ISO noise when in fact it was the coating on the monitor...

The red stripe...none issue. Yeah, you notice it when unboxing the monitor but once you start using it, you don't notice it. Well, unless you spend the majority of your time working in the bottom of your monitor display. Let's put it this way, if you own the Dell U2410 and don't notice it's blue power LED, you won't notice the stripe after the using the monitor for a few hours. Speaking of the power LED, the Asus glows white when on and is pretty subdued.

The bezel is slightly deeper along the bottom but even on the left/right/top sides, looking at it straight on. The Dell is even all the way around. Doesn't matter to me, I look at the screen, not the bezel. Depth wise, the outer edge of the bezel is even between the Asus and the Dell although the overall depth of the Asus is slightly deeper, when looking from the left/right or from the top. Again, doesn't matter to me but just an FYI to anyone with a Dell U2410.

Calibrated the Asus with my Spyder 3 Pro and the colors look really good. Doing a quick look through my Lightroom library, the colors are better than the Dell but I wouldn't call it a huge difference, but again, it's there. I'll compare more once I have hook up the Dell again later tonight and compare some images side by side again.

All in all, right now, I'm very happy with it...I'll post more later...

Al

How do you like the Spyder 3 Pro? I might get one since im gonna get 3 of whatever IPS I get whether ASUS or HP ZRs.

Is it easy to use and does it take all the "20 years experience required to calibrate" out of the equation?

Thanks for the monitor inputs too, we are looking forward to those.
 
As for the Spyder 3, I like it but have no experience with other calibrators so not sure if there are better ones out there but I like it.

No...it's pretty easy to use...Plug it in, open the Spyder utility and follow the steps. Basically, the first time, you run it, you let it take a sample, then set your brightness (or if you enabled the custom settings, you can set your individual R/G/B levels on your monitor also). It just shows a target range for brightness (or R/G/B) levels and keep adjusting those on your monitor until your in the target range. One you have done that, you let it go. It runs through the calibration process and then it's done. At the end, it shows a sample which lets you toggle between your previous and calibrating settings so you can see the difference. Then you save your profile and your good to go. Probably takes about 15 minutes from start to end.

Now that I've been using the PA2460 for a few hours, I'm loving it compared to my Dell U2410...the colors just pop more and things are more clear without the heavy anti-glare coating that is on the Dell...

Tried a few games and a some movies and haven't noticed any ghosting. I'm not a hard core gamer so I'm not as concerned about that but so far, I'm really happy with what I'm seeing. Fired up my Xbox 360 connected via HDMI and the games there look better also. On the Dell, everything seemed to have a slightly washed out look but on the Asus, they are richer and deeper so again, I'm happy.

If I would have known about this monitor four months ago, I would have skipped the Dell altogether...

Al
 
Sounds like a winner aloper. If the AG coating is less aggressive I'm going to jump on board but I want color values so I'm gonna wait for a proper professional review and I'm curious of the black levels (any thoughts?)

I love my U2410 and its been a great monitor but the anti-glare has always annoyed me.
 
Sounds like a winner aloper. If the AG coating is less aggressive I'm going to jump on board but I want color values so I'm gonna wait for a proper professional review and I'm curious of the black levels (any thoughts?)

I love my U2410 and its been a great monitor but the anti-glare has always annoyed me.

Yes Aloper, please tell us how you perceive the black levels. Say with an all black screensaver on, watching a movie, a game, etc....
 
How bad is the back light bleed esp in a dark room? I.e, if you turn off the lights and display a black screen is there an obvious amount of bleed in the corners? I tried an HP IPS monitor (20inch) and it was horrible in one corner; complete wash out. My two dells (22 inch and 19 inch) are fine; though the 19 inch is about 5 years old and the one i'm looking to replace.
 
To answer the question, I'm based in ON, Canada, and found just one brick and mortar store with them in stock at this time; Canada Computers. Went and picked mine up last night.

Firstly please let me start by saying I am an absolute display novice. I use my PC for general use and gaming primarily, so my comments will be from that of a layman's perspective. Reason for an IPS panel purchase was mainly because I used to own an NEC 20WMGX2 screen which I loved and future TN panels always seemed lackluster in comparison. Now that that's out of the way...

Initial Impression


Perhaps a stupid comment, but this thing is BIG. The 23" TN screen it's replacing fit snugly at the back of the desk, but this thing swamps my workspace! For those with smaller desks, you might even want to consider a wall-mount or other means. I've come up with means of seating it at the back of the desk for testing purposes now, but it was initially a shock! ;)

Quality Control

Not good. Like many other people who own the first batch of these, I have been plagued by the stuck/dead green-pixels of doom. I have two; one dead-center, the other at the bottom-middle. Both are prominent when viewing any black/dark images which is a huge annoyance. I'm surprised ASUS let this through with their first venture into the world of professional IPS screens, but there it is.

I tested for backlight bleed and found nothing discernible.

Image Quality

This thing will take a LOT of getting used to. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of any professional calibration tools, so I had to use software and my own eye for the most part. I put the screen into the AdobeRGB preset, then promptly turned down the brightness and desktop gamma as low as I could to try and save my retinas! Greens and blues looked a little vague in this preset, whereas reds seemed very strong and vibrant. I'm sure with proper calibration it'd look great though, so I can't really comment too much here.

The black level did leave a little to be desired - again, perhaps this is something vastly improved with calibration, but out of the box it wasn't blowing me away.

Something which makes me start to think that my panel might be faulty, but the viewing angles are terrible. Looking at the screen in a dark room from anywhere other than straight-on is like staring through a thick fog - I can barely make anything out. Be interested to hear what other owners have found with the viewing angles, as I'm sure it must be a problem with my screen rather than the model as a whole.

Gaming

This is probably my primary use for this screen, so here we go.

Fired up World of Warcraft first, which seemed like a good start as it's a very color-rich game. Way too washed-out to begin with, but once I'd turned down the in-game gamma all the way to zero, thing improved dramatically. It looked very good with no concerns (apart from those dead pixels - grrrrrr!).

Next I tried my X360 via the HDMI connection. I always find the FIFA soccer games to be a great test for ghosting, and am happy to report that I didn't notice any worse ghosting or input lag over my previous TN panels. That's not to say it was stellar, but didn't cause me any problems either. Not a fan of the stretched out display over the 1920x1200 resolution, but I'd learn to live with it I'm sure.

So for gaming, sure it looks good and there's no real input lag or ghosting. Is it really worth the extra premium over a good-quality TN screen if gaming is your primary focus? Probably not IMHO.

Conclusion

I'm taking mine back and getting a full refund. That's not to say it's a bad screen as it really isn't, but the problems plaguing mine are all I need to hand it back (they don't have stock to replace it like-for-like so I'll put the cash back in my wallet for a while).

If you're looking at this for professional use and have the know-how and tools to calibrate it properly, then I'm sure this guide didn't help you at all and this screen would be great for you :)

For the average joe and/or gamer who just wanted to try something non-TN based for a change though, I would say definitely wait for professional reviews and hopefully a panel revision or two before taking the plunge!

Hope this helped, please let me know if you have any questions/tests to carry out!
 
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Hohum....sounds like you definitely got a bad monitor! While I was reading your post, I checked the viewing angles on mine and I'm not seeing any degradation of the viewing angles until I move to the extreme left/right/up/ of the screen...

As for the the screen being stretched when you hooked up the Xbox 360, I got that also initially but in the OSD, under Image, you can change the Aspect Control from Stretch to 1:1 which will fix that...

I'm going to hook up my Dell U2410 to my other system which sits diagonally from the Asus and do some more checking off the image quality between those two later today...One thing I do miss from the Dell though is the way the OSD works..the Dell with it's touch sensitive controls is a little more intuitive to use whereas the Asus uses the more traditional button arrangement...
 
Price dropping already, fortunately.

PC Connection and PC Connection Express have the monitor for $483 shipped, but if you use a cashback site (like Fatwallet), price comes down to $472 shipped.

I will probably wait until it hits the $450 mark or so, and let them work out the kinks in the first production run models. Sounds like a winner so far, though!

Still waiting to hear a comparison between the HP24z
 
I'm going to purchase one from NCXX locally to test. Its priced at $509.99 but they will price match at $469.00.
http://www.shopbot.ca/m/?m=ASUS+PA246Q&x=25&y=11

The Zr24W sells at $454 and the U2410 at $529. These are all local purchases.
Unless the Asus gets some damn good reviews I cannot see them competing against the HP and Dell. The resale value of the last two are great. Its like BMW and Mercedes versus any Japanese car. In resale not quality.
 
Here are my updated thoughts as of now…And I’m mainly comparing it to the Dell U2410…I’m not a monitor expert in any way also so these are my subjective opinions…

Red stripe along the bottom:
As I mentioned earlier, it’s a none issue… Having used the monitor now for a day and a half, I don’t notice it at all. My girlfriend thought it was cool compared to the Dell with the plain bezel so if you want to impress the ladies, the Asus is the way to go! lol

Anti-glare coating compared to the Dell U2410:
After comparing images from my Lightroom catalog, side by side between the two, the Asus coating is not as severe. It’s there but I would guess it’s about 10 to 20% less noticeable. They may be exactly the same for all I know but if so, the Asus coating is more uniform and even and maybe that is the reason. When I compare gradients in color swatches between the two, the Dell just looks “dirtier” than the Asus because of the coating. From a distance, you can’t really tell but when you zoom in images, you can. Plus, text seems slightly shaper on the Asus which might be a result of the lighter or better coating…

OSD:
I really prefer the touch based interface of the Dell compared to the Asus! Not that the Asus is bad…it isn’t but the OSD on the Dell is more intuitive and easier to use. One thing better though on the Asus is switching sources…there is a dedicated button for that where on the Dell, you have to open the OSD and select it from there.

I calibrated both monitors with my Spyder 3 Pro. Set both monitors to both brightness / contrast of 50. Set at “Medium” ambient lighting in the Spyder settings, the target brightness was cd/m2 of 180. The final settings on both monitors to achieve this were:
Asus: Brightness=80, Dell: Brightness=52…I didn’t do the advanced RGB calibration but just keep each monitor in its “standard” mode.

Overall Colors: They both look almost the same…Colors are pretty uniform between the two, but to me the Reds on the Dell seem to pop a little more than other colors. On the Asus, I would say Reds are more uniform and even with other colors. Browsing web pages, you would be hard pressed to notice a difference. But looking through my Lightroom catalog, images on the Asus seemed to have slightly more richness and depth to them. Not a huge amount…just slightly. I asked my girlfriend to come take a look for a objective viewpoint and after looking through images on both, she thought the same thing. Pretty even between both but the Asus was just slightly better…

One thing for certain, switching to the HDMI connection and firing up my Xbox 360, the colors on the Asus are deeper and richer compared to the Dell. On the Dell, everything seems just slightly washed out.

Black/Grey/White levels: Opened an image in Lightroom with good shadows and compared the two on both monitors. The Asus showed slightly more shadow detail for the most part. It’s not a night and day difference but just slightly more detail on the Asus. I opened this page on both also and compared side by side:

http://tft.vanity.dk/monitorTest_scale.html

Looking at this on both monitors, from a distance, they look pretty even. When you really look closer, it appears the Asus has an edge in the darker greys and blacks. The transition from white to greys on the Asus is just slightly more uniform and even. Slightly less banding in the stepping also… Is it a huge difference? No…Just ever so slightly better on the Asus, at least to my eyes.

Conclusion for now:
You can’t go wrong with either monitor but if you put me on the spot, I would say this…

If you’re mainly a gamer and general computer user, the Dell might be the way to go depending on the price difference but if it’s within $50-100, you may want to look at the Asus.

If you do graphics, design and photography, I would say the Asus is the better option compared to the Dell U2410. Just slightly better gradients and even color reproduction but mainly, the anti-glare coating on the Asus isn’t as bad as on the Dell…

Finally, a point to remember…I’m relaying what my eyes see. Every one of us has a set of unique eyeballs so you may interpret what I’m seeing differently so take everything here with a grain of salt…lol
 
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Thx Aloper

Really appreciate the info many thx

Still waiting for Asus to release it in the UK.
 
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