Sceptre X270W-1080P Review: A Value 27" That Delivers
by Brian Klug on May 17, 2010 10:22 PM ESTBrightness and Contrast
For brightness, black level, and contrast points, we use the same colorimeter setup described earlier. Specifically, an Xrite i1D2 with ColorEyes Display Pro, and take measurements. Dynamic contrast is always turned off, as this throws off our results. We also let the panels settle in for a half hour at the respective settings before taking any measurements. This is especially important for the X270W since it has a CCFL backlight, and as such there is a discernible warm up period.
Black level is an important metric, since it directly represents the extinction ratio of the crossed polarizers in the TN cells. Remember, when a pixel is desired to be black, the photoelectric crystal in the cell changes linearly polarized light 90 degrees out of phase, so it is blocked by the polarizer. Higher extinction ratios (and thus better crystals and materials) result in lower (better) black levels.
We recommend running monitors at around 200 nits of luminous intensity, just because this is often where some of the best color tracking sits, and it’s enough of a balance to not result in eye stress from looking around the room and having your pupil adjust. I personally am a bit of a light-crazy person and usually crank my displays brightness to the max (I consider 400 nits normal), but again, forget I ever said that. ;-)
The charts show the dynamic range in brightness, and the respective black levels at each brightness. Brightness isn’t quite up to the 400 nits spec, falling short at 293. This is still pretty bright, but not quite as bright as I’m used to. Again, CCFL isn’t the brightest, but it does give better color gamut than WLED.
What we’re really interested in, however, is the contrast ratio. At the extreme, we fall short of 1000:1 with 720 and 646 at both brightness ends. Respectable, but not stellar.
Update: We were able to get the X270W up past the 400 nit specification by changing contrast to 100% in addition to brightness. At those settings, the brightness for white is 411 nits, and blacks are 0.47 nits. We've updated the graphs above to reflect those changes. Contrast also improved slightly, up from 720 to 875.
Obviously, the X270W can go bright if you set the OSD settings appropriately. Things are more washed out than we'd like with contrast at 100%, but you do get all of those cd/m^2 you pay for, and 11 more.
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HollyDOL - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
I really wonder whether this screen contains true 8bit per channel mask or whether it uses dithering to fake it...Usualy, TN panels are just 6bit per channel and remaining colours are faked using dithering or frame rate control.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
I wonder that too, and in all honesty it's likely 6-bit and dithered like you said.I'm still trying to figure out a good way to test - displaying the color pattern works, but there's still some dithering on even the highest end stuff I can find. Still trying to get to the bottom of it.
I'm open to any ideas though! ;)
-Brian
Luke212 - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
the Sony G520 does 1024x768x120Hz. I recently bought one for $20 so i'm sure you can find one to testLuke212 - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
sorry, btw the g520 is VGA not DVI. i also had no luck finding a dvi crt.RavnosCC - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
I needs me some high hrz gaming!Brian Klug - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - link
They're definitely coming ;) I'm working hard on getting a number of 120Hz panels in for reviewing pleasure ;)Stay tuned!
-Brian
jaydee - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
Count me among those dissapointed in the resolution. That big has got to be at least 1920x1200. I know it's cheap, but would it really add that much cost?I bought a 20.1" Sceptre LCD above 4 years ago (for around $350, ughh...), which I'm overall pleased with. The only thing that bothered me, was really dark scenes, there was a fairly noticable criss-cross of light coming from the corners. I've heard the only way to truly avoid this was to get a LED-backlit LCD. How bad was this on the review unit? I didn't see mention of, but maybe you covered it and I'm just not familar enough with the terminology.
Also, I'd like to see review(s) of some of the ASUS units, namely the VW266h (25.5" 1920x1200 for $250 AR right now) and the above mentioned ASUS MT276HE (27" 1920x1080 for $320 AR).
theoflow - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
Hey Anand and crew,Really digging all the reviews in the past couple of months and it is definitely helping me steer myself in the right direction for product purchases.
Although this might delve into a realm that isn't your speciality, I would be very interested in inexpensive 32" LCD review for HTPC usage. I think this is a sweet spot that is neglected quite a bit, with reviews and suggestions jumping to 42" displays way too quickly.
Keep up the good work and looking forward to whatever is in the review pipeline.
Brian Klug - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - link
Hmmz, there have been more than a few requests for us to take a look at some smaller (well, is 32" small? Small for a TV, large for a monitor, hehe) TVs and profile them against monitors. I've seen an increasing number of friends dropping their computer-LCDs in favor of LCD-TVs, so I think it'd be an interesting thing to take a look at.It's definitely something we haven't tackled yet. I've got a 32" Vizio of my own (oh boy, the irony of having such nice LCD displays and then two Vizio TVs - though they've improved significantly as of late) that I could try, hmmz. I'll see what I can fit in! Thanks for the idea/feedback!
-Brian
Corporate Thug - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - link
Anandtech/Brian, can you please please please review the DoubleSight DS-2700DW...I know a lot of people who are interested in seeing ONE review of this thing. I think at $399, it would be a nice comparison.