Monoprice Zero-G Slim 27" IPS Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 26, 2013 12:00 AM ESTDisplay Uniformity is measured using CalMAN 5.1.2 at 25 locations on screen. Every measurement is compared to the center reading, which is the reference point. Here the Zero-G does very well. I expected a far less uniform display than I got.
White level is very even, staying in the 90%-100% range over most of the monitor. Even viewing gradients and full-white test patterns on the screen I don’t notice issues with the uniformity here.
Black level has a larger uniformity issue. The upper-left corner suffers from a fair amount of light bleed. It is more bleed than I have seen from other displays, and is easily noticeable. The other corners are better, though the upper right is also a bit light. The upper-left is easy to notice in daily use.
Because of that bright corner, the contrast uniformity drops in that area. The right side of the display has better contrast than the center due to a lower black level on that half.
On our color uniformity test, the Monoprice is nearly perfect. The highest dE2000 error compared to center is 2.13, and even that is virtually invisible. Despite its low cost and some backlight issues, color uniformity is nearly perfect on the Zero-G.
I expected to see results that were more similar to the Black Uniformity on the Monoprice Zero-G, but the results on White Uniformity and dE2000 Uniformity are very impressive. I’m really surprised in a good way by these results.
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arcanes - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
It was. Because Skyrim and Borderlands 2 are not the games I would call demanding. So I guess if you want to play last gen game engines at 120hz@2560x1440 you will be fine. I would rather play at 60hz and get a stable frame rate with higher quality settings. Don't get me wrong, I would love to play at 120hz ,but with the graphics engines/video cards of today I would stick with 60hz. Btw the Catleap 2B looks nice. Recommended?vLsL2VnDmWjoTByaVLxb - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
Because you can play at 61-120fps, which a 60 Hz LCD can never ever do. It's not just about the top frames per second.Also, you buy these monitors for much longer than you buy PC's. The gaming PC's 3 years from now will be able to play Crysis 3 at 120 fps with ease.
DanNeely - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
I wouldn't hold my breath on PC gaming hitting 120hz within a few years on single GPU setups. With the new consoles lifting low end target GPU performance up several orders of magnitude, I expect a major jump in requirements needed to max setting as well. Needing SLI/xFire to game at high/2560/60hz again wouldn't surprise me at all.arcanes - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
My thinking as well. That is why I'm skeptical about 120hz@2560x1440 gaming in the future.DanNeely - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
I'm sure it'll happen; it just won't be cheap anytime soon. It's not any more pixels than 4k @ 60hzblackoctagon - Tuesday, August 27, 2013 - link
The people out there who have spent $650-2000 on GPU hardware are admittedly the minority, but plenty of them exist. For these people, their rigs are effectively wasted when gaming on 60Hz 2560x1440 monitors or 120Hz 1920x1080 monitors.FYI I game on a 2560x1440 monitor OC'd to 120Hz, and I just have a single 7970. How do I get 120fps? Buy....(drumroll)...adjusting the in-game settings! I start by minimising or disabling AA and work from there. I prefer fluidity of motion over 'maxing' out graphics. So there you go, that's my reason.
name user - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
Again I'd like to request 110/120hz overclocking support information in these reviews.After all, it was here reading Anandtech that I learned the benefits of 120hz several years ago, and have been chasing that feature ever since. I think it's strange that you guys don't even mention it anymore when you're the ones who sold me on the feature. I'm still sitting on 10 year old 19" LCDs because thanks to you I refuse to upgrade to anything but high hz monitors.
Koblek - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
Check out Overlord monitors. It is an American company that sources 27" LG panels and a driver board that is easily overclocked to 120Hz. I got one a few weeks ago and it I was able to overclock to 120Hz easily using dual 7970s. BF3 looks great. It does not usually hit above 100Hz, but the experience is much smoother than just 60Hz.mikato - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
I have heard of these a couple times but not much beyond something in a forum and then visiting their site. Any reviews from major sites?Koblek - Tuesday, August 27, 2013 - link
To be honest, I had only read about them on various forums before ordering one. The major drawback to these is that there is only one dual link DVI input and that's it. There is also no OSD. All color calibration needs to be done from your video card control panel. I loaded a color profile for the monitor from the Overlord forums and it's a good starting point. I have a Dell U2410 right next to it. Once I loaded the color profile, I used Catalyst Control Center to get the colors as close to the Dell as I could.Apparently, the lack of OSD and scaling makes the total response time very low. I brought it to my friend's and hooked it up to his 690. The 690 was able to drive most of his games at or near 120Hz and it looked incredible.
I would really like to see Anandtech do a review of these...