Monoprice IPS-Glass Panel Pro 27" LCD Monitor
by Chris Heinonen on October 22, 2013 2:40 AM ESTUnlike the cheaper Monoprice display, the brightness control for the IPS-Glass Panel Pro actually controls the backlight correctly. Set to the maximum level it produces 348 cd/m^2 of brightness. Monoprice rates it for 440 cd/m^2 but hitting that level requires maxing out the contrast setting which introduces color shifts and white clipping.
Unfortunately the minimum setting for the brightness control does not take the Monoprice as low as we would like to see it. The minimum white level is only 163 cd/m^2, well over the 80 cd/m^2 we will try to calibrate to later. This might be by design as a really low light level would cause the glare of glossy screen to be much worse. If you work in a dark or dim environment you might find this light level to be too high for your regular use. I found myself using the display with the backlight at minimum the whole time as I prefer a level closer to 140-150 cd/m^2 in my moderately lit room.
The black levels on the Monoprice are much better than I expected them to be. IPS is typically not as highly regarded for deep blacks but the Monoprice does a great job. At the maximum setting the black level is 0.3524 cd/m^2 and at the minimum it falls to 0.1647 cd/m^2. For an IPS display these are both quite good numbers.
For the first time I had a display produce the exact same contrast level at maximum and minimum backlight settings. That is more of a fluke than anything, but the actual number is the impressive part. The Monoprice comes very close to the 1000:1 that I look for with a 989:1 ratio. This is effectively the same, and means the Monoprice works very well for dynamic content like games and movies. This might change if you calibrate, but it is capable of really good results.
The one thing I would like to have seen from the Monoprice here is a lower minimum backlight setting. Perhaps they have adjusted the backlight to provide better contrast ratios at the expense of minimum light levels, in which case most people would find this acceptable. Overall these numbers are very good and I’m happy to see them.
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jbm - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
ASUS PB278Q is $553 on amazon.com right now. I'd buy that for sure over the Monoprice (in fact I have bought it and I am very happy with it). The PB278Q has a matte screen, is calibrated well, has all the inputs you will ever need AND comes with all the cables in the box (VGA, HDMI, DVI, Displayport) - which also needs to be figured into the price difference.Nfarce - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Nice monitor. If you are lucky enough to get one with no dead pixels or massive light bleeding problems. I tried three of them and returned them all. Two had dead pixels that were towards the middle of the screen and noticeable, and the third a massive light bleed problem in the lower right and left, probably an assembly defect with the bezel not fitting correctly. I gave up and am now spending time researching other 1440p options.jabber - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Buy some carbon fibre vinyl sheeting (or whatever) and cover the bezel in that.l_d_allan - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
> Considering the color accuracy of this display after calibration, it seems like a cheap option for an image professional that wants color accuracy.I infer by "image professional" that you would include a serious Photoshop'er. At that level, I think they would expect closer to 100% coverage of the Adobe-98 gamut, rather than sRGB.
Or not?
foxalopex - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Last I recall Adobe-RGB is a wider colour space than standard sRGB which is closer to what most consumer monitors are tuned to. To display it usually requires a wide-spectrum backlight system which you are not going to find in a cheap monitor.From what I recall it depends on the application. Image Professionals who publish primarily to the Internet or to a consumer's computer will never need more than sRGB because that's what your customer's only capable of. Using Adobe-RGB would likely throw off the picture quite a bit because it won't look remotely correct in sRGB colorspace. I believe the Adobe-RGB users are probably printing images where there's a very wide colorspace or just archiving the pictures and trying to see as much as possible.
piroroadkill - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
I think he's inferring that someone who wants colour accuracy probably wouldn't be looking at a cheap ass monitor.JDG1980 - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
I'm hoping that Monoprice or one of the Korean vendors will soon release a 4K monitor that uses the inexpensive panel used on Seiki 4K TVs, but supports 60 Hz via DisplayPort. (The panel on the Seiki TVs can do that, it's just that they are limited to HDMI input, which only supports 30 Hz.)2560x1440 is OK, but surely we can do better now.
Nfarce - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Have you even looked at the performance hit on modern high end graphics cards that 4K monitors do? See Tom's review on Sept. 18 about it. At high graphics quality settings in games, a 4K monitor (2160p) brings a Titan GPU to its knees, barely making 30fps in games like BF3, and with Crysis 3, forget about it unless you go with two Titans. At some point, the law of diminishing returns steps in to what the eye can appreciate as resolutions move up anyway. But if you've got the money, sure, you *can* do better than 1440p - you just need to pony up for the GPU power to run it.iamlilysdad - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Not everybody is in it just for gaming.DanNeely - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
The few games they benched with no AA gave good results on the single titan. I'd like to see more tests like that with a single 780. While 140DPI isn't enough to not benefit from AA; it's enough of an improvement over 100 that it's not as important.That said; my budgeting is assuming that when I jump on the 4k bandwagon that I'll need to add a second GPU to feed it at native resolution.