Dell U3014 LCD Review
by Chris Heinonen on April 15, 2013 2:00 PM ESTFor AdobeRGB calibrations, we target the AdobeRGB gamut, with a power law gamma of 2.2 as the specification says. We go for 200 cd/m2 as there is no official luminance target, and we used CalMAN 5.1 to do this as well. Everything is done using a C6 meter that is profiled from an i1Pro.
After the calibration, our RGB balance is perfect, as expected. Perhaps you can see a couple points where one color is 3-4% higher, but those are few and far between, and we have an overall CCT of 6482K here. The greenish tint is long gone, and black and white images look totally neutral on this display now.
Our gamma curve only has a small little bump up at 5%, but as you start to run out of as much control in the monitor down low, it’s really pretty close. The overall average comes out to be 2.21, almost perfectly 2.20, and that highlight issue we saw before is gone.
The grayscale with this combination of results shows no issues at all. The average dE2000 is 0.57 and a couple points get close to 1.0, but really there is nothing to fault here after calibrating, nothing at all. The contrast ratio is 894:1, which is slightly better than sRGB but close enough that a small stray bit of light on the 0% measurement would easily cause that difference.
Colors were already good, but the average dE2000 drops down to 1.03 now that White has been corrected. No color gets past a dE2000 of 1.5 and the color points are all very close to the CIE targets. We have a slight bit of under-saturation in Red and Blue still, but even with that they are very close to ideal. Dell manages to use this LED setup to have a full AdobeRGB gamut, which is nice to see.
Now our Gretag numbers are excellent. The average error is a dE2000 of 0.80 and there is no luminance errors to be seen at all. A few numbers are closer to 1.5, but overall you are not going to see anything wrong here. A worry with any display with a larger gamut is that it is only going to get one gamut right, either sRGB or AdobeRGB, but not both; the Dell U3014 manages to do both with near perfection.
The saturations aren’t quite as perfect as they were for sRGB mode, as Red and Blue don’t quite get all the way out there, but only a few pass a dE2000 of 1.0 and then just barely. The average dE2000 of 0.98 is fantastic and shows the U3014 does a very nice job with its electronics and LUT for building a uniform display.
Using CalMAN, we get flat out superb measurements from the Dell U3014 monitor. Before calibration they are good but not excellent, but after they are nothing but excellent. Dell also has their own calibration software that works with the U3014 and an i1DisplayPro sensor which they provided, so perhaps that can coax even better performance out of the display. Let's check that next.
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JDG1980 - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
It was just reported today that a no-name vendor is releasing a 50" 4K TV for $1500 (the same price as this Dell monitor). I hadn't expected prices to drop that quickly. Although this particular 4K TV probably isn't suitable for monitor use (too big, not clear if it supports 60 Hz, probably has a crappy TN panel) it would be great if it was the leading edge of a new wave of inexpensive 4K TV sets. If there was a 32" 4K TV that supported 60 Hz input (HDMI only goes up to 24 Hz at that resolution, you need DisplayPort for 60) and was reasonably priced, it would make an awesome computer monitor with better DPI than pretty much any existing desktop solution. Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer for this.cheinonen - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Sharp has a 32", 4K display but I believe the MSRP on it is around $6,000. I also believe that it has issues running at 60Hz over a single DisplayLink, but the person I know with one was still working on this issue. So one exists, but it costs a fortune right now. For that $1,500, 50" 4K, I really can't imagine how they're getting there with any sort of quality right now, but we will see.Andrea deluxe - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
ok... year 2013 and 33ms of input lag?dell and company... are you kidding people?
DanNeely - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
They're not kidding anyone; they're targeting people for whom the perfect color balance that requires two frames of processing to achieve is more important than getting a latency score that doesn't matter outside of gaming.hackztor - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Low input lag can be had in the 3007wfp-hc (I still use this as my main gaming monitor, and 3011 as my secondary). This monitor did not include a scaler so input lag was low, now all monitors want to put hdmi and display port on so they can be used with consoles hence higher input lag.kasakka - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - link
But the scaler has long been one of the best parts of the high res Dells. I've been using a Dell 3008WFP for years now and due to the high res, many new games just aren't playable at native resolution without multiple GPUs. Thanks to the scaler, I'm happily playing at 1920x1200 which runs well at full detail. Compared to leaving scaling to the GPU, the scaler on the Dell does a far better job resulting in much less blurry picture.For the record I have not been bothered by the input lag either, which I think was reported being somewhere between 20-30ms on the 3008WFP.
mike55 - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
As Chris mentioned, TFT Central found that there was very little input lag in game mode. ~3.2 ms for pixel response time, and virtually no signal processing time. I'm confused as to why the results are different. Why would using an oscilloscope produce different results?bebimbap - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
If you are even thinking about gaming on a 60hz monitor you shouldn't be complaining about 33ms input lag coming out of this one. If a frame is 16.7ms @60hz 33ms is 2 frames, compared to using a 144hz of only 6.9ms per frame, or ~5 frames in 33ms. So even though you are missing only every other frame in reactivity compared to a quicker 60hz monitor, you are missing 4 out of 5 frames compared to a 144hz.if you need something faster you could always go for a TN based benq or asus 144hz 24"/27" gaming monitor they have 1-2ms input lag and lightboost but only up to 120hz.
I have both a u3011 and a vg248qe and I cannot game on my u3011 anymore after gaming on a vg248qe @120hz with lightboost. But I do everything else on the u3011, photoshop, movies, browsing, etc, again everything other than gaming. when i'm not gaming the vg248qe acts as a nice blank screen or pallet space for photoshop.
again if input lag is important to you, get a TN based 144hz asus or benq you will be VERY happy. do not look at PLS/PVA/IPS it's just a waste of time.
mayankleoboy1 - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Remember, they are the same people who put extreme crappy 1366x768 panels on notebooks.So shittyness is synonymous with Dell.
cheinonen - Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - link
Everyone still puts 1366x768 panels in laptops, as I noticed my Dad's Sony and sister's Acer both rocking those on vacation a couple weeks ago. I wouldn't say that's a Dell problem, but an industry problem.