QNIX QX2710 LED DPmulti True10 Review
by Chris Heinonen on April 11, 2014 6:00 AM ESTConclusions
Nothing in the QNIX took me by surprise when I reviewed it. The menu system, while basic, allows for some adjustments to be made to the display. The monitor stand is like most other entry-level displays and has very little you can adjust on it aside from the tilt. The inputs are nicely side-mounted, which I wish more companies would do. It's not a particularly stylish display, but then we wouldn't expect that from a budget QHD LCD.
The two largest issues in performance are the gamma curve and the uniformity. Since I expect few people to be calibrating a $360 display, the out of the box performance is pretty important and the gamma curve is an issue. Combined with the higher black levels and poor contrast ratios, it leads to a fairly flat, washed out image in comparison to other displays. This incorrect gamma can be corrected by using calibration software, but it only goes so far and you can't completely fix the problem, and there are no user controls to do try to improve the out-of-box experience.
The display uniformity also rules out the monitor from doing serious image editing or other color critical work on it. Even those professionals that have calibration hardware and software will likely want to avoid it because different areas of the screen will display a different image. There are also some color issues but those aren’t large enough to cause me great concern.
So for general use, how is the QNIX? The image is fine, if a bit washed out. The blacks are higher than I’d like them to be as well. For some users the input lag will be a concern, but there are other 27” panels out there that offer 3-13ms lower input lag if you need it. With multiple inputs that support whatever you want to connect, it is certainly more useful than the DVI-only models that came before it.
If you just want a 27" QHD display that has all the inputs you need and lacks any dealbreaker flaws, the QNIX will fit the bill. If you want to hit a really low price point you'll have to make some sacrifices and for the most part, the QNIX made good choices. I do wish the gamma was closer to 2.2 since that would really help image quality. If you want to have higher image quality and color accuracy, spending $100 more for the Monoprice IPS-Glass Panel Pro 27", or getting it on sale, will be a better choice. However, on straight bang for the buck, the QNIX does well for general daily use.
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JarredWalton - Saturday, April 12, 2014 - link
"At a time when a $700 monitor was considered cheap in the United States, these were available on Ebay for around $300 and utilized the same panel as more expensive offerings, though often with a lower grade panel."What's confusing about that? Several years ago, the cheapest QHD panels in the US cost $700+, but you could find a Korean brand display off of eBay for $300. They used the same panel (as there are only a few companies that actually manufacture LCD panels -- AUO, Chi Mei, LG, and Samsung are the biggest), but panels are also graded on quality as well. So the same panel out of LG will have a set resolution and generally similar characteristics, but if it's not very uniform or has a few dead pixels it would receive a lower grade. The shortened form of this explanation given in the article is due to the fact that this is all generally common knowledge, so we don't tend to go into a lengthy explanation every time we talk about a display.
And as to the 4K vs. QHD aspect... sorry if you're not up to speed on acronyms, but QHD has always been 2560x1440. QHD+ is sometimes called 3K (but there are multiple "3K" resolutions) whereas 4K is generally referred to as UHD (and again, there are multiple "4K" resolutions). Here's a link covering nearly every commonly used resolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_display_reso...
pattycake0147 - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
I hardly believe insulting the readers is the best way for one of the authors to express himself. It's unprofessional and goes against everything I have read or heard from Anand when he refers to the readers.Yes it's true that not everyone who reads this site is familiar with all of the terminology, and in this case the terminology even stumped Google because the first thing I did when I came across QHD was a search and the first result was the 2160p article on Wikipedia. Perhaps referring to the vertical pixels early on would have been helpful in this case, because a number (1440) is a lot harder to confuse than letters when describing the number of pixels on a monitor.
z0phi3l - Sunday, April 20, 2014 - link
Since when did stating FACTS become insulting? Get your terminology right and there will less "confusion"brucek2 - Monday, April 14, 2014 - link
"Same panel" and "lower grade panel" appear mutually exclusive to a casual reader or to a literal one (with the latter heavily represented here, I bet.). A lower graded panel of the same model family is still not the "same panel" anywhere outside of a used car lot.At best this was a sloppily constructed sentence and more realistically it was unnecessarily confusing to a lot of readers.
vgu - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
2560x1440 panels are called QHD, while 4K are called UHD.By grade, the author means that they are not rated A or A+.
A panel with a defect, like a dead pixel or a tiny scratch is rated below this, and OEMS like Samsung or Apple won't accept them. Local companies buy them and manufacture monitors like this.
skuul88 - Thursday, January 15, 2015 - link
quad hd means 4 times as many pixels on the screen as 720p ie 1280x720 (921600 pixels) 2560x1440 (3686400 pixels) is quad hd. 4k is a stupid misleading term.jaydee - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Could you please review the new Microcenter Auria EQ276WN?dylan522p - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Pretty much same panel and monitor.QuantumPion - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
I have an X-Star DP2710 and my results are quite a bit different from this review.-My model is the DVI-only version which I got because they supposedly have lower input lag. I don't have a way of testing the input lag, but I have not perceptually noticed any, coming from a 120 hz VA LCD previously.
-My model has no OSD, only brightness up/down buttons.
-My model overclocks to 120hz, however overclocking severely affects the gamma and contrast.
-Similar to the article, my panel has bad uniformity issues and only average contrast.
-My model has nearly perfect gamma calibration right out of the box. This monitor has the best default calibration settings I've ever seen. I don't have a color calibrator but this guy's review indicates similarly that these panels have excellent default color calibration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EMmNmvFcAA
I wonder if I just got lucky and got a good batch, or did they change their product since last year or what.
DanNeely - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
These are low grade panels. There's probably a lot more variation between individual screens than with a Dell or Apple branded monitor; never mind professional level NEC or Eizo monitors.