Nixeus VUE 30: 30" 2560x1600 IPS Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 20, 2013 6:00 AM ESTFor our pre-calibration measurements we target 200 cd/m2 of light output, the sRGB gamut, and a gamma of 2.2. On the VUE 30 there are color temperature settings you can use for the grayscale and the warm setting was found to produce the most accurate image.
I’m also going to approach this review differently than before. The charts for all these measurements will be available in individual galleries. There is a table at the top of the page that summarizes the pre and post calibration measurements to easily see how well the monitor does before and after calibration. This should make it easier to read, and allow me to better focus commentary about the monitor performance on the areas that need it.
| Pre-Calibration |
Post-Calibration, 200 cd/m2 |
Post-Calibration, 80 cd/m2 |
|
| White Level | 201.78 | 195.562 | 77.6183 |
| Black Level | 0.3214 | 0.3197 | 0.1388 |
| Contrast Ratio | 628:1 | 612:1 | 559:1 |
| Gamma (Average) | 2.2552 | 2.2406 | 2.5132 |
| Color Temperature | 6657K | 6593K | 6452K |
| Grayscale dE2000 | 4.0657 | 0.7705 | 1.3304 |
| Color Checker dE2000 | 5.7431 | 4.0627 | 4.3305 |
| Saturations dE2000 | 4.6853 | 3.7814 | 4.1323 |
The major improvement that we see is for the grayscale and gamma. On our 200 cd/m2 target calibration, those both come out nearly perfect. There is a small gamma spike at 95% but nothing really bad at all. The overall dE2000 is so low as to be unseen. When targeting 80 cd/m2 and the sRGB gamma curve, the Nixeus doesn’t perform quite as well. The gamma has a little more variation and the dE2000 is somewhat higher, though still very low. The loss of contrast ratio is the larger issue here.
Both grayscale results highly improve upon the original, which is slightly warm and has a very large error level as you approach peak white. The problem with the Nixeus VUE 30 lies with color reproduction. The errors for both the 96-point color checker and the saturations measurements improve, but not by a huge degree. Most of that improvement can be tied back to the grayscale improving since those numbers are a large part of these later tests. The default 6-point gamut chart is dropped here as the saturations chart covers that, and that dE2000 average is too heavily impacted by the grayscale data.
What we see is a wildly oversaturated gamut where green, cyan, red, yellow and magenta all fall far outside of the sRGB gamut boundary. With Green even the 60% saturation value is outside the sRGB gamut, which leads to very over-saturated colors. Even post-calibration we see that green dE2000 errors are past 5 from 40% on, and approaching a dE2000 of 10 by 100%. Aside from a few select colors in the Color Checker pattern, and the grayscale, almost all the colors have a large visible error.
The Nixeus lacks an internal LUT to fix this, and only so much can be done through the video card. A large gamut is nice, but just like with an OLED smartphone, we don’t want that gamut to be wildly oversaturated and push the color way outside of their boundaries. For any sort of color-critical work, or even just browsing photographs, the wild gamut of the VUE 30 will likely be a bad choice for those people after accurate colors. If you like a big, punchy image, you’ll probably like it.
Since we can’t control this gamut, perhaps using AdobeRGB as a target will lead to a better result? I decided to give it a try and see if that improves things at all, or if it was still an issue.
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DanNeely - Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - link
Read before you comment. This was answered above; there's no off the shelf hardware to do so at 2560.Sivar - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
"Viewable Size 20""Typo -- please fix.
abhaxus - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
it's time to end this farce and stop posting input lag numbers that are not at native resolution. I've bought two monitors in the last 8 months (a 23" eIPS Asus and a 27" Qnix QX2710 from Korea) and got NO help from these Anandtech reviews, due to the ridiculous notion that input lag at 1080p is somehow comparable to what it would be with no scaling. Either don't put the number up there, or do the tests at native res.JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Unless the scaler totally deactivates and thus doesn't contribute to lag, running native won't be any less laggy. For most displays, the presence of a scaler is an all or nothing thing. The old Dell 3008WFP had much worse lag than the 3007WFP because it had multiple inputs and a scaler. Unless something has changed, I wouldn't expect native resolution to be less laggy.As I noted above, however, the problem is in testing for input lag at native. We used to compare to a CRT, which meant we were limited to CRT resolutions. Now Chris is using the Leo Bodnar lag tester...which has a max resolution support of 1080p. Until someone makes one capable of testing native 4K and WQXGA, Chris doesn't have a way to test input lag at native on these displays.
cheinonen - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Adding to what Jared said, testing on displays that offer both 1:1 mode and a scaling stretch mode, I typically see only 1-2ms of delay difference between them.Most monitors are using cheap, fast scalers that doesn't add that much lag. Things like color management and other features, which you'll see in more displays now, add far more lag because that is more intensive work to do.Believe me, if someone makes a lag tester that does more than 1080p I'm buying it. Otherwise buying a scope for a single measurement is just cost prohibitive.
HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Seems inevitable that the 2560x1600 will remain mostly niche with 2560x1440 becoming the go-to resolution in the post-4K world that we'll be soon living in. Monitor makers will be selling these 1440p displays hand over fist when people become convinced they want a high resolution display but find the pricetag on 4K to be out of this world and they come back down to Earth, still wanting a higher resolution display than 720p/768p/1080p.I doubt they'll make 1600p the go-to resolution, so they'll split the difference and go with 1440p to maximize profits (the exact reason they went to 1080p instead of 1200p).
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Frankly, I think about sRGB the same way I think about TN and 16:9 - they are low-quality standards that I would like to see fade away from mainstream monitors. While I agree that any monitor aimed at said mainstream should be sRGB capable, I can't help but think it is really time for the standard to be raised. It is possible to give us full AdobeRGB without breaking the bank - as is proven here.This isn't an LCD thing, of course, sRGB pervades the industry all along the path of software and hardware. But, not many people are demanding higher quality color reproduction, so when is it going to change, if ever?
Well, I'll say it - sRGB is a low-quality standard, and it is time we moved on.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
You're right, but of course 99% of laptops can't even do sRGB let alone AdobeRGB or NTSC, and laptops are now outselling desktops. I've been using a high gamut HP LP3065 for years, though, and while I notice the oversaturation at times, when I'm working with many imaging programs (Photoshop, even most browsers now, and MS Photo Viewer) appear to recognize AdobeRGB properly.SeannyB - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
I hope some day we'll simply have color management on all OSes (namely Windows and Android), and not just OSX. I'm living with a calibrated and profiled extended gamut 1600p monitor in Windows 7, and it's tough. Windows 7 doesn't assume/remap its shell to sRGB, or any other apps. Only certain software like Adobe's, and a few others with effort (Irfanview, Firefox, Media Player Classic Home Cinema) are "color aware". Google Chrome remaps correctly when viewing JPEGs with colorspace tags, but everything else in that browser is oversaturated. (It doesn't assume sRGB from untagged images and web colors.)I think a future of ubiquitous color management will have to happen in a world of ubiquitous OLED displays. That's a future that continuously seems over the horizon.
ZeDestructor - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
There are preferences in FF that sets default colourspace to sRGB (I used it on and off, depending on my mood), so only correctly tagged pictures are rendered with wide gamut.For the windows shell, it doesn't matter, and lastly, for the programs, well, Windows' integrated picture viewer is colour aware, as I was surprised to discover. Its all there where it should be. You don't really care what your UI elements look like, but pictures and video you do care.