ASUS PA246Q 24" ProArt Monitor: No Adjustments Needed?
by Chris Heinonen on July 2, 2012 1:30 PM ESTThe ASUS PA246Q comes designed to compete at the higher end of LCDs, with a 16:10 aspect ratio, AdobeRGB color gamut, 10-bit panel (using ARFC to extend a native 8-bit panel), and a fully adjustable stand. It also promises better performance out of the box than other displays, so you don’t need to own calibration equipment to get a more accurate image, and has a full CMS that you don’t see on PC monitors very often.
In a few places it delivers but in others it falls short. The out of the box performance might have met their dE target, but there are so many different ways to determine the average dE and no method is given here, so I can’t determine for sure if ASUS is achieving their goal. What I can determine is how it rates using our standard measurements; unfortunately, it came in at the same level as other displays when looking at real world, Gretag Macbeth colors on the color checker chart. Once calibrated the performance is good for colors, but the grayscale is off by quite a bit delivers overall inaccurate color reproduction compared to other high-end displays.
From a strictly personal view, the screen itself looks very nice and clean, and the anti-glare coating shouldn’t distract anyone I don’t think. Much as high-end projectors are said to give a “film-like” image, the PA246Q image looks very nice and natural in daily use. Even with my personal preferences towards the image it produces, the higher black levels and lower contrast ratios also leave a bit to be desired and leads me to wonder when we can finally get a backlit, RGB LED array display to address this.
The one area that really isn’t there yet is the CMS system. While very promising for the future with displays, I would like to see a full 3D system and not 2D, so that you can get all the primary and secondary points dialed in correctly. The main issue is that the math for determining the intermediate points doesn’t seem to be correct, which leads to an image with banding in gradients and image posterization. This is another reason that typical measurements of display performance often fall short as if you only measure the six target points the CMS would look fantastic, but the other billion points look much worse in real life.
Overall the ASUS PA246Q does a lot of things well and is even acceptable for gaming, but it doesn’t do anything amazingly well. I would say it is a great general-purpose display, but the price tag puts it well beyond that category for most people as it clearly aims for a higher level of use. One main competitor would be the Dell U2410, but I haven’t reviewed that so I can’t say how it would stack up in comparison. If the ASUS came in closer to $350-400 it would be easy to recommend, but at nearly $500 with calibrated results that leave a bit to be desired in the grayscale I find that harder to do.
Since I haven’t used the main competitors, the ASUS PA246Q could easily be the best choice in its price range if you need IPS, AdobeRGB, a 16:10 ratio, an ergonomic stand, and decent calibrated results. It just isn’t exceptional enough at what it does for me to be able to unconditionally recommend it for everyone.
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cheinonen - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
The PA246Q had already been requested, and arrived, when the PA248Q was announced. It also an sRGB monitor as opposed to AdobeRGB, so a better comparison for it might be the Dell U2412M, whereas the PQ246Q competes with the Dell U2410. Using such a similar model number is annoying, but really they're complementary products and not competitive ones.Leyawiin - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
Yep - its coming to market late this month (and I think I'm going to pop for one at that price).Spoogie - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
There are serious quality control issues with this model. On my second one in six weeks. 1) humming noise, 2) flickering, and 3) goes blank randomly for 1-3 seconds. The first one did both one and two, the second one has all three problems.I'd return it if I wasn't past the 30-day return window.
aranyagag - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - link
mine was perfectDevo2007 - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
It appears you are missing the results for this monitor in the "Calibrated for Print Average Delta E" graph..cheinonen - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
Sorry about that, fixed it now, not sure how it got left out.funkforce - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
Fantastic review! Even better than many on sites dedicated to TFT-reviews only.I hope there are a lot more of these to come and I would really like to see more on:
What progress has been made in the last years and what are the top monitors in each field/technology today for non-pro users?
(PVA/MVA/AMVA vs. IPS/eIPS vs. TN technology/best in class.)
What would be the best non-TN panel for gaming today?
Does performance differ a lot on the HDMI and DVI-output on the same panel? (In cases where both exists)
Would it possible to manufacture a LED, 120hz, IPS/VA, 2560x1440, with minimum input lag, near accurate colors and good blacks in the near future?
Will OLED make this a reality?
On most comparison sites for shoppers there are a lot of customer reviews that are mentioning problem with backlight bleeding on most IPS panels.
It would be awesome if you could get an extra retail sample of every monitor you review to see if there's a big difference between to identically named panels.
(I know a guy that bought two would be identical LG screens from the same store where one was manufactured in China and the other in Poland and they differed a lot).
Although I understand if it would be an unreasonable wish.
I just bought a LG IPS236V and it has some backlight bleeding in both the lower left and right corner. It has a gamma setting that goes from 1.8-2.6 where the default 2.2 and above unfortunately only emphasizes the problem. Only the very bright setting of 1.8-2.0 (lower is brighter) result in very little bleeding but blacks are not so dark as one would wish.
It has several options greyed out, like black level and white balance no matter if you use an HDMI or DVI Cable. Is this normal and do you see it on lot of screens during your reiviews?
Many thanks in advance!
funkforce - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
You can disregard my last question about the white balance and black level. Totally missed that page in the manual about it only being available on DSUB and HDMI.rickon66 - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
I applaud them for building a computer monitor 16:10 and not a TV set 16:9. Thank You ASUS!Any monitor larger than 23" @1080p = FAIL!
Olaf van der Spek - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
Right. 4:3 @ 1920 x 1440 or 2048 x 1536 would be even better. :p