DoubleSight DS-277W: Back to the Drawing Board
by Chris Heinonen on June 13, 2012 1:30 AM ESTI own a 26” Doublesight display that we have used for years and it has served us well. Because of that experience I came into this review with high hopes for how the DS-277W would perform. Unfortunately from the time I hooked it up to the time I boxed it up for return, it was an overall disappointment.
The heavy duty case design is nice and cool at first, but unlike the NEC display where the case is designed to allow for incredibly even backlight uniformity, the DS-277W seems to be designed to be industrial looking more than anything. More annoying was the fact that with this huge display there was nowhere to put an internal power supply, side mounted USB slots, or make the video connectors more accessible. I continue to not be a fan of touch sensitive controls on an LCD, or having arrow buttons that control both up and down, then left and right. With all the space on the DS-277W they could have easily installed a 4-way D-pad.
The 200 nits calibrated numbers were good, but moving beyond that was risky as the brightness control didn’t work properly for a computer monitor. The combination of these incorrect controls could make it easy to lose black or while levels, and there was no way to adjust the backlight that I could find aside from the brightness setting. The contrast ratios only ranged from decent to awful, and the dynamic contrast was so easy to watch in action that it would drive me crazy with its pulsing in daily work.
Finally the plethora of video inputs proved to be less useful as the HDMI crops off pixels, and the component video didn’t work for me. I’d happily remove these to instead gain a DisplayPort interface, since that is becoming more and more common and works with high resolution displays much more easily than DVI. I really don’t understand the lack of a DisplayPort connector, and the webpage at the DoubleSight website even claims the display has one!
In the end the DS-277W was the first monitor that truly disappointed me in my reviews at AnandTech so far. Most displays might not be for everyone, but there is a user category that they would work for. With the DS-277W I really don’t know who that could be. If you want a cheap 27” display, buy the HP ZR2740w or one of the Korean import brands if you are willing to gamble. If you need a lot of video inputs on your 27” display, the Dell U2711 has all of them available and actually performs well for around the same price.
Hopefully DoubleSight can go back to making monitors like the DS-263N that are high quality and high value, but at least with this display they have lost that distinction. They need to fix the OSD controls so that proper backlight intensity adjustments are available, allow better control over scaling (and over/underscan), and create a better user interface. Once that's complete, DoubleSight should ditch the current industrial design and create something more with the times. When there are so many better options for the same price or less, there's just nothing here worth buying right now.
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esSJae - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - link
3 monitors? I use DP for my main monitor on my AMD 6970, DVI for the other 2.6 monitors? Better have DP.
dertechie - Monday, June 18, 2012 - link
Anyone using Eyefinity is using either DP or an expensive DP to X converter. Given what those cost, a lot of us just use DP if we picked up the 3rd monitor in the last 3-4 years.DP has a lot more support than just Apple. It's cheaper on the transmitter side than DVI or HDMI (and probably VGA by now), so such insignificant players as AMD, NVidia and Intel are dropping legacy connectors as quickly as they can get away with it. Much less penetration on the monitor side of things though.
cheinonen - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Well, the specs said it had DisplayPort, but really we were trying to do a round up of as many 27", 2560x1440 models as possible. There aren't too many of them out there but this was one of them.Mitch89 - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
I'm also a little confused about this sentence:"... the DS-277W is to make a monitor that can work with all of your devices, not just your computer. It has multiple AV inputs (HDMI, Component) for your Blu-ray player or video game systems, and there are integrated speakers for audio from these devices as well. "
The Dell U2711 has DisplayPort, 2x DVI, VGA, HDMI, Component and even composite connections, and has been out for quite some time (updating previous 27" Dells that had similar connectivity).
It would seem if multimedia and all-round connectivity is the priority, then the Dell has this thing beat.
That's without considering Dell's excellent exchange warranty.
cheinonen - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
In the conclusion I mention the Dell U2711 and that if you need that connectivity, you should buy the Dell instead. I see no reason to pick the DS-277W over the Dell, or really any other 27", and mention that in the conclusion.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
All these screens really need to start featuring touchVoo - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
Yep stretching your whole body so that you get into touch range of your 30" monitor (you hardly sit 20cm away from one do you?) and then having to deal with all those fingerprints and smears sounds PERFECT! Can't wait for this totally useless feature that will probably double the price of monitors.Jedi2155 - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Yamasaki Catleap, which is a potentially 120 Hz capable 27" IPS display, but I've been really wanting to get one once the people organizing it, can get some more built. I would love an Anandtech review on it as well. I already plan on getting one as soon as they are available, so I don't need you guys to tell me to get one, but it would be good to get more manufacturers on the 120 Hz PC bandwagon that isn't a 3D TN based display....http://120hz.net/content.php
anishannayya - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't you really need to push 120+ FPS to discern the benefits of 120hz? How could you do this when you are already trying to drive the display at 1440p? Furthermore, once you SLI cards, don't you restrict the maximum hz a display can be set at?Sure, you could do it when you aren't gaming, but what is the point of that? Making your cursor move more "smoothly"? Does it even matter unless you are gaming?
MamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Not every game is Crysis. There are plenty of games that a modern card can render at 120+ fps