Asus VN279Q Review by PRAD

I'm thinking of buying monitor calibration device to get the colours and contrast right for day and night.
I wonder whether Spyder 4 Pro would be good choice.
 
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sobol said:
@James Freeman,
Mine overclocks to 72Hz and 75Hz( this is max ). I can't see any stutter and I come from 120hz Samsung S27A750D.
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Perfect.

Thank you.

sobol said:
I'm thinking of buying monitor calibration device to get the colours and contrast right for day and night.
I wonder whether Spyder 4 Pro would be good choice.
Click to expand...

Do it.

The difference is huge between calibrated and not.
You'll be asking yourself, why you didn't buy a calibrator sooner.

Buy the "i1 Display Pro" instead, you won't regret it.
All the review websites use these including tftcentral, overclockers.ru and prad.de (They also use a spectrophotometer along side the i1 Display pro).
 
Yes, if you use HDMI, you need to use the correct setting. I think it had to do with the output range, 16-235 (wrong) vs. 0-255 (correct)... not 100% sure.

Today i also received my second ASUS. Quoting myself

Mike500 said:
Two things annoy me: The quiet high-pitched noise (my PC is very quiet) and a small speck of dirt in the middle of the screen which i can't get rid of. It's not a bad pixel, just a small dot of impurity of some sort. Because of this, i will return the ASUS, and get another one, but the same model. When that new ASUS makes no electronic noise, i am happy to keep it.
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Good news, the high-pitched noise isn't there on this model. It also has no speck of dirt on the screen anywhere. But i spoke too soon about keeping it.


- Gamma seems to be a bit lower than 2.2 (about 2.1, tested with PixPerAn). No Gamma setting.
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Because with the new one, the gamma is even lower, it's now a bit below 1.9 (again tested with PixPerAn, setting gamma so the crossover point is in the middle of the screen). Since gamma should be 2.2 and ASUS has no way to influence gamma in the menu, i will send this one back as well.

I ordered a BenQ GW2760HS again, the same one i sold before... :(
 
@Mike500

Don't do it !!! :eek:

My perfectly calibrated Dell U2410 IPS to 2.20 gamma with ArgylCMS (Ultra Quality setting) & i1 Display Pro, shows 1.92 in PixPerAn.

PixPerAn "gamma squares" is NOT the way to judge a monitor !!!

Shame, You should have kept the Asus.
 
Well now it's too late. Hey, unless the BenQ has some fault, then i can order the ASUS again :(

But why isn't that a good way to judge Gamma? Why does it show such a difference to the calibrated gamma value?
 
A gamma is a transfer function (curve), NOT a single shade of grey.
It could be 1.9 in the light grey and 2.3 in the darker.

Find Gamma test image with few shades of grey (dark to light).
All of the lines should blend with the squares.

Goolgle Images: gamma test

These tests should be in the middle of your screen and pixel perfect (1:1)..

http://www.lcdreviewz.com/graphics/GrayGammaAdjust.gif

http://www.lcdreviewz.com/graphics/ColorGammaGradient.png

http://www.colorserver.net/articles/calibrate_gamma.gif

I see all of them perfectly blended on my U2410 which soon to be replaced by the Asus.

If you are serious about display calibration, stop changing monitors like socks and just buy a calibrator (i1 Display Pro), you will not regret it.
 
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I'll look at some gamma tests with the BenQ tomorrow. But the first ASUS, i didn't change it on a whim, it was because of two flaws, electronics noise and a dirty spot in the middle of the screen. The second ASUS now, ok, that seems to be my fault, misinterpreting the gamma result.

My original BenQ, i probably should have kept that, to be honest. The image quality of the ASUS is not that much superior, only the stand is. By the way, the second ASUS didn't lock the swivel in a level position, it turned a bit further to the left. First one was perfectly level.

I guess the perfect monitor is a rare beast, you can nitpick here and there on almost any model.

A colorimeter is nice, but rather expensive. And ideally i want to get everything right via the monitor menu, not via profiles. I guess it should be possible to "pseudo-calibrate" like that, get the best possible result just from the monitor's settings...

The i1 Display Pro, is it bound to one user, or can you buy one new, calibrate a few monitors, then sell it again?
 
Mike500 said:
The i1 Display Pro, is it bound to one user, or can you buy one new, calibrate a few monitors, then sell it again?
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I see you have a little habit there. :D

Buy it and its yours, sell it and its not, just like any hardware.
Although you probably would not want to sell it.

I even calibrate my parents old 2002 Samusung TN panel (not that they care).
And it looks just as good (after calibration) as my u2410 when sitting directly in front and not moving my head.
 
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Okay, i did a few tests with the BenQ that arrived today. Again, the factory setup is different from my first model. I set mode "User", brightness 12, sharpness 4, but R100, G97, B100, saturation 52 now. Again, it can not be compared to any settings they ended up with in the reviews.

Gamma is also different. At setting 2, it is now almost 2.4, at setting 1, it's around 2.15. You are right about gamma being more complex than PixPerAn suggests, being a curve over different levels of grey/color. But even testing with different images and different amounts of grey etc., i found that the PixPerAn value is a good approximation, at least for the BenQ. I don't know which setting i like more. Looking at real-life images with 1 (gamma 2.15), you see more details in darker areas, but it seems slightly washed out. With 2 (gamma 2.4) it looks deeper, maybe even too deep. I set it to 1 for now.

One more thing about the BenQ is not a very good color temperature uniformity. It differs visibly from left to right across the screen. First time i noticed it this much. Maybe i should stop scrutinizing monitors so in-depth, it would save me some hassle. Anyway, i will keep this BenQ, i can't return another monitor and get some new flaws with a new one...
 
And about the "greyish" picture, hopefully those people have figured out by now that it's really just a HDMI setting.

Read here for example: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1729604

If you use DVI, you will always get the correct output range and a vivid picture. With HDMI, depending on the graphics card and driver, you have to set full range output manually!
 
an I'm using display port with the same problem. Unless it exists also on display port.
 
I was ready to return this monitor, first I had it with the included HDMI cable to my gtx770, I was having the 16-235 issue (all colors 0 to 15 were black and all 236 to 255 were white), so I did this but that did not work.

Then I tried the Nvidia control panel, setting it from 16-235 to 0-255 , that did not work.

Next I tried the included display port cable, that worked, but the blacks were now gray.

Then tried the included HDMI to DVI cable, same problem as the HDMI cable.

I figured at that point the issue was the monitor and was going to send it back, but a little later in the day I tried it on the Intel gpu for fun with the HDMI cable and it was fine, so I knew the monitor was good at this point and the issue was with the graphics card.

So I went digging on the internet, found other solutions than the registry edits (the aforementioned tool) that did not work (probably because I'm on windows 8.1). One of them was to edit the Nvidia driver files before installing, I didn't test that (might be a solution for those who need 60Hz), another was overclocking the monitor's refresh rate, tried it and it worked, full 0-255 range now.

I overclocked it to 71.928Hz using the timings in this post : http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038342324&postcount=6

The settings on the monitor are :
Splendid = Standard Mode
Brightness = 10
Contrast = 75
Color temp = User Mode = R96 G93 B100
Trace Free 40
VividPixel 0

The way it's set up there is less ghosting than my Dell U2311h, the blacks are MUCH better (the blacks on the Dell have this blue glow), the anti-glare on the Dell is terrible (everything looks grainy), on the Asus it's good, the viewing angles on the Dell are not too good, everything turns blue quickly, on the Asus the image turns slightly yellow but it's not too bad until extreme angles.

Unfortunately it seems like Nvidia does not care about the problems they are creating with forcing HDMI to 16-235 and I'm sure other people will purchase this monitor and return it because of that, thinking the monitor is faulty.
 
I have not read the whole thread, but I was wondering whether HCFR/CalMAN measurement results were already posted? Where is black level for this baby? 0.05 cd/m^2 or less? How's color gamut accuracy? Are there any controls to adjust CMS or grayscale?
 
I see a bunch of dead links to reviews, and I saw one review on a Russian site, but there were no saturation sweeps. I don't understand why they and some other review sites test the colorspace but not the entire gamut by running at least 4 sweeps for each color. Your colorspace can be 100% accurate, but hues and saturation accuracy within it can be way off. A ColorChecker run is also needed... I also don't understand why they use that Blue Eye Pro software (evaluation copy!) instead of free HCFR or CalMAN.

I just bought i1Pro spectrometer to profile my i1Display Pro colorimeter and I should seriously have manufacturers send me monitors for testing and review. I'll get it done properly :D.
 
So I've been looking at monitors and this one seems to be one of the best aside from the greyish black issues, which I would think defeats the entire purpose of getting a VA monitor.

Doing a little more research this is an Nvidia driver issue and not the actual monitor? Correct? All I need to do is run a registry tool and it resolves it?

I would like the pick this one up since its pretty reasonable right now in newegg but the benq EW2740L looks good too though its a bit more. I have no issues going with that one though if the colors are better. It also seem to lack the mysterious glow issues the Asus seems to have.
 
I bought this monitor because the price it was going for was too good to pass up, a full hundred+ dollars less than anything else I was looking at. I can absolutely confirm that at least with Nvidia the black issue is the drivers and not the monitor.

I plugged the monitor into the HDMI port for my motherboard...blacks were fine
Plugged the monitor into the HDMI port of my GTX 770 black were grey
Ran the RGB toggle registry fix and the blacks came back.
 
I got a really good deal for one of these refurbished on Amazon. Was like new, no dead or stuck pixels either, and it fits my desk perfectly. So I'm really happy with the purchase.

What I don't understand is why I need a 200€ display calibrator (i1Display Pro) to get the best color accuracy on a monitor that I paid 240€ for. The 130€ ColorMunkey is certainly more affordable, but still, it's 130€... about half of the monitor's cost, and it's supposed to be worse than the Pro.

I mean, wouldn't it be possible for 1 guy who has one of these expensive display calibrators to upload the color profile that the calibrator created? I know ambient light matters and what not, but honestly, why can't someone just upload a calibrated color profile? :confused:
 
Trendle said:
I got a really good deal for one of these refurbished on Amazon. Was like new, no dead or stuck pixels either, and it fits my desk perfectly. So I'm really happy with the purchase.

What I don't understand is why I need a 200€ display calibrator (i1Display Pro) to get the best color accuracy on a monitor that I paid 240€ for. The 130€ ColorMunkey is certainly more affordable, but still, it's 130€... about half of the monitor's cost, and it's supposed to be worse than the Pro.

I mean, wouldn't it be possible for 1 guy who has one of these expensive display calibrators to upload the color profile that the calibrator created? I know ambient light matters and what not, but honestly, why can't someone just upload a calibrated color profile? :confused:
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Each and every single unit requires its own calibration. All units are not made equal and are different enough to a point where using another's profile will result in a 4% chance of improvement and 96% chance of making it worse. Either buy ColorMunki, which really is plenty, or don't touch it...
 
kossair said:
@sobol Hello, I just received the monitor and it's perfect. No dead pixel or bleeding.

I have one issue with it though. The monitor is connected with a Displayport cable and colors look all washed out and blacks are grey. I tried with the HDMI port and the software for nvidia cards that allows full range and colors/blacks look as they should (fantastic!).

Do you also have this problem? Are you using the HDMI port? Could it be the Displayport cable or the graphic card? I also tried a displayport-hdmi converter cable, but it says: "No Signal"...

I don't want to return it, because I really like it, but if can't find a solution I guess I'll have to. :\
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I'm actually having this same issue when using displayport. I have two of the monitors, the one thats using HDMI looks fantastic, the one using displayport looks washed out. Settings for both are identical and when I swap the cables the issue swaps too. I have also tried another displayport cable.
 
Look at my post on the last page. Its the Nividia driver that cause the washed out colors. They do not display the full rgb range over HDMI OR Displayport. look up either vn279 greys and/or vn279 nvidia rgb color toggle. You run that and it fixes the issue.
 
loki993 said:
Look at my post on the last page. Its the Nividia driver that cause the washed out colors. They do not display the full rgb range over HDMI OR Displayport. look up either vn279 greys and/or vn279 nvidia rgb color toggle. You run that and it fixes the issue.
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That didnt solve it for me, picked up a Color Munki and the problem is completely solved.
 
So how is this monitor overall?

I picked up a Sony 32W705 a couple of weeks ago and had 2 replacements because of awful colour smearing during dark scenes, and I've decided just to get a refund on the thing and now I'm debating whether to get this Asus or the Philips 402 4K monitor... bit of a difference I know, the Philips has higher input lag at 24ms than this current TV which is at 15ms but better response times, higher res, and is a larger set but the Asus has a lower input lag which would be awesome, can't decide!
 
Hey guys,
does VN279Q have the exact same panel as the VN279QLB?

I have read that the only difference is on the bezel, but I would like to be 100% sure that they have the same panel before purchasing the VN279Q.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my broken English. XD
 
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