ASUS PQ321Q UltraHD Monitor Review: Living with a 31.5-inch 4K Desktop Display
by Chris Heinonen on July 23, 2013 9:01 AM ESTComing into this review, I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from the ASUS PQ321Q, or any monitor with this high of a resolution. I love the screen on my iPhone 5 and my retina iPad, but I hold those really close to my face. Since I sit a couple feet away from a monitor, was I really going to notice the difference? Yes, yes I did.
Even coming into the office right after a standard 30”, 2560x1600 display, the difference is huge. You get either a larger desktop, or a far crisper screen, or possibly both. It isn’t a small difference, but one that I can notice easily, and every single time I sit down to my desk. It also is apparent that many application vendors have to hurry up with their software support for DPI scaling, because when it isn’t supported correctly it is really ugly out there.
The ASUS PQ321Q does have its share of problems. The color gamut isn’t perfect and leads to a good number of errors in the red, orange, and yellows of the spectrum. I found yellows to be the only one that I could easily notice when I looked at photos, but I did see red and orange issues as well. The dual HDMI 1.4a inputs are nice, but with HDMI 2.0 possibly coming later this year you are going to be limited to 30p on those inputs. The OSD could also be improved upon, as it works, but lacks any location or size adjustments and takes up almost half the screen when active.
In the end, my feelings about the ASUS PQ321Q wind up being very simple. Of the dozens of displays that I’ve reviewed for AnandTech so far, this is the one I want to hold onto the most. The razor sharp screen is just addictive to use, and you realize this is the future for displays. I’m sure over the next few years that performance will improve, prices will come down, and features will increase, and that helps everyone. But I want this now, and I don’t want it to leave my house.
The ASUS PQ321Q is pricey, and I can’t say that getting three or four 30” 2560x1600 panels isn’t a better deal, but it’s not the same as having one display that looks like this. In the end, I give the ASUS PQ321Q a Silver Award, which is the highest award I've personally given to any display. It's not perfect, but there isn't a display that's come across my desk that left me in constant awe over how incredible it was to use on a day-to-day basis that the ASUS has. It's also effectively killed any thoughts I've had about buying a laptop like a MacBook Air instead of a Retina MacBook Pro, because I can't imagine going back to a regular display. The next few years of high resolution displays can't come fast enough now.
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msahni - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
very costly..... hope these displays become mainstream soon....Higher resolution/ppi does make a big difference atleast for people using their computers all day...
Even when I jumped from a 1366x768 laptop to a 1920x1080 laptop and then to a rMBP the difference is truly there.... Once you go to the higher resolution working on the lesser one really is a pain...
Cheers
airmantharp - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
The cost is IZGO; 4k panels cost only slightly more than current panels when using other panel types like IPS, VA or PLS.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
And where can I buy monitors with the panels you speak of? I'd like a 4k monitor for about 800 €, maybe even 1000 € (I paid 570 for my Samsung 27" 1440p, so that seems fair if the panels only cost slightly more)....airmantharp - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Look up Seiko, they're all over the place. 30Hz only at 4k for now, but that's an electronics limitation; the panels are good for 120Hz.Gunbuster - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Seikisheh - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Why does the response time graph show no input lag for the monitor?Can it accept 10-bit input? Does 10-bit content look any better than 8-bit?
"Common film and video cadences of 3:2 and 2:2 are not properly picked up upon and deinterlaced correctly."
Why expect a computer monitor to have video-specific processing logic?
cheinonen - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Because I had to change from SMTT (which shows input lag and response time) as our license expired and they're no longer selling new licenses. The Leo Bodnar shows the overall lag, but can't break it up into two separate numbers.It can accept 10-bit, but I have nothing that uses 10-bit data as I don't use Adobe Creative Suite or anything else that supports it.
The ASUS has a video mode, with a full CMS, to go with the dual HDMI outputs. Since that would indicate they expect some video use for it, testing for 2:2 and 3:2 cadence is fair IMO.
sheh - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
Thanks.Alas. It'd be interesting to know the lag break down. If most is input lag, there's hope for better firmware. :)
Are 10-bit panels usually true 10-bit or 8-bit with temporal dithering?
DanNeely - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
some of the current generation high end 2560x1600/1440 panels are 14bit internally and have a programmable LUT to do in monitor calibration instead of at the OS level. (The latter is an inherently lossy operation; the former is much less likely to be.)mert165 - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I'd like to know how a Retina MacBook Pro and a new MacBook Air hold up to the 4k display. The Verge com a while back published a demo and the results were not spectacular. Although in their demo they didn't go into depth as to WHY the results were so poor (weak video card, bad DisplayPort drivers, other???)Could you connect up the new Haswell MacBook Air to see performance?
Thanks!