NEC EA244UHD Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 7, 2014 2:30 PM ESTsRGB Test Bench
The NEC EA244UHD has a built-in sRGB mode that is used for all of these measurements. SpectraView II can only calibrate the NEC to native gamut and while CalMAN 5.3.5 can use ICC-aware patterns for doing measurements, we do not use that option. Most programs are not ICC-aware and we want to show the most real-world performance that we can.
| Pre-Calibration |
Post-Calibration, 200 cd/m2 |
Post-Calibration, 80 cd/m2 |
|
| White Level ( cd/m2) | 202.6 | 198.5 | 80.5 |
| Black Level ( cd/m2) | 0.2677 | 0.2783 | 0.1143 |
| Contrast Ratio | 756:01:00 | 713:01:00 | 705:01:00 |
| Gamma (Average) | 2.06 | 2.17 | 2.37 |
| Color Temperature | 6347K | 6734K | 6593K |
| Grayscale dE2000 | 2.48 | 0.46 | 1.3 |
| Color Checker dE2000 | 2.21 | 0.79 | 0.87 |
| Saturations dE2000 | 2.42 | 0.78 | 1.1 |
The sRGB mode has a slightly red tint to the grayscale that gets worse as you get closer to 100% white. The gamma has a larger issue with it falling below 2.0 past 70% and giving us an average gamma of 2.06. Even with this gamma issue the color checker has a very good average error of 2.21 and the saturations error is only 2.42. The largest issue we see is actually the 100% white error, and this is something that calibration can usually correct quite easily.
As expected, calibrating to 200 cd/m2 using CalMAN gives us an RGB balance that is almost perfectly flat. The gamma drops down a bit at the end, but I expect we will see this happen more as I move to 256-point readings instead of 21-point. If I drop the readings back down to 21 it looks virtually perfect, so I wouldn’t worry. The grayscale dE2000 has an average of 1.0, so it is very good.
Color saturations are not adjusted, but the luminance is adjusted because of the improved gamma after calibration. This lets the color checker error fall to 0.79 on average and the saturations error fall to 0.77. Both of these are incredibly good and it means you won’t see any flaws when using the NEC EA244UHD after calibration. The contrast ratio takes a small hit from correcting 100% white, but not a major one.
Calibrating for the sRGB gamma and 80 cd/m2 also produces results that are very good. They are not as good as at 200 cd/m2 but are still good. I included gamma using both 21-point and 256-point charts so you can see the difference it makes in reporting. I don’t see this gamma issue past 90% that the chart indicates, but I also don’t do much work with nearly-white images. Overall these results are great and only look not-great when compared to the 200 cd/m2 ones.
I wish that SpectraView II could calibrate the gamut of the EA244UHD for sRGB but it doesn’t need it. If you own the hardware that can calibrate it you can use software like CalMAN or DispCalGUI and get fantastic results.
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DanNeely - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Win 8.1 does support different DPIs for different monitors. AIUI Metro/WPF apps have the ability to handle it built into their UI library; apps using anything else can either set a flag saying they support per monitor DPI or are locked to render in the DPI of the first monitor they open on and are scaled when moved to one with a different DPI.jay401 - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
That sure is an ugly stand for such an expensive monitor.Sabresiberian - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
The DPI isn't too high; the applications are simply behind the times. Software engineers should have had this figured out by now and acted so that UHD @ 24" wasn't a problem. And, scaling is only going of become more of an issue if they don't in the next few years.althaz - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Agreed. Developers (of which I am one), have the tools at their disposal to make applications scale well. For the most part however, they don't and I'm really not sure why.MikhailT - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
From what I can see, it has to do with the custom UI frameworks. If you stick with the MS's UI widgets as much as you can, you shouldn't have a problem scaling it. However, if you're using a custom coded one, you're going to have a bad time.In Delphi for an example, some components would render just fine by setting a manifest on it but some components require you to give it custom scaling calculations to make it work. So, you can see different reactions from different components that were coded differently at different eras. For them, they just don't have the time and/or resources to figure it out as the market for folks with HiDPI screens are still a niche.
Penti - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Plenty of Windows components still doesn't scale at all except bitmap. If the OS it self can't do it well why should anybody follow?Pinkynator - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
This is the first time I've ever seen calibrations to 80 and 200 cd/m2. Usually it's 120...Clorex - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
We already have monitors that do 4k single-stream over DP 1.2; so why are there still MST monitors being released?SanX - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
I really do not understand people who want 24" 4K monitors and not 30-40". They have different DNA. I do not understand producers either.MrSpadge - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
That's probably why are not one of the display producers, then. Not everyone has the desk space to put 30 - 40" monitors far enough away so that the viewing experience is pleasant.