Acer XB280HK 4K G-SYNC Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen & Jarred Walton on January 28, 2015 10:00 AM ESTAcer XB280HK: Display Uniformity
The backlighting of the Acer leaves a bit to be desired. As we see with the White uniformity, the left side of the display is much dimmer than the right. The right side has almost the same level of light as the center, but the left falls off by almost 25%.
Surprisingly the whole screen shows a drop in black level compared to the center of the screen. Every single measurement is 10% darker or more. I’d chalk this up to measurement error, but I redid the center measurement to be certain and it is correct. For whatever reason the center of the display is brightest, and the rest of the display will probably have better contrast ratios.
As expected, everywhere else on the screen has better contrast ratios than the center of the screen. While the center is only 728:1 the average is 807:1 and the median is 809:1. So our measured contrast ratios might be the worst case scenario for the Acer.
Color Uniformity on the Acer is not great. The right side, where we have the better white levels, is decent but the left side has larger errors due to the decrease in luminance. This large shift from left to right doesn’t reveal itself in gaming so much, but is more noticeable watching a movie or something else from a distance where you see the whole screen better.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
I suppose the question on 4K gaming is this: would you rather have 4K medium or QHD high settings (possibly even QHD ultra)? There are certainly games where 4K high or ultra is possible with a more moderate GPU, but most of the big holiday releases come close to using 3GB RAM for textures at ultra settings, and dropping to high in many cases still isn't enough. I think people really after 4K gaming in the first place will want to do it at high or ultra settings, rather than to juggle quality against resolution, but to each his own.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
I had the Dell P2715Q for a bit and swapped it for the U3415W. I really didn't like the trade-offs you have to make with 4k (performance, etc.), and didn't really notice that much of a difference in graphics quality.Mustalainen - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
I also looked at that monitor(the U3415W). It is beautiful but it came down to the fact that it was priced at 990 euro. In hindsight I think I'm happier with 4k as text is so sharp. I also like having 2 or more monitors as I can run one application in full screen on one monitor while being able to see whats happening in the other applications on the other monitors. I don't know if I would want to put yet another monitor beside that 34", maybe works great, maybe not, I do not dare to comment on that. The important thing is that everyone has the hardware that fits them the best.I'm mostly happy that companies seems to be releasing a variety of monitors at reasonable price points. It felt like monitors 20"-22" were stuck at 1080p forever while mobile phone screens were improved every month. Lets hope that improvements will continue on both markets.
Mustalainen - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Oh, I cant edit, It was supposed to say 20"-27" were stuck...Mustalainen - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Jarred, you are probably correct. I just wanted to give an alternative opinion to those who are looking at 4k and are leaning towards working(involving a lot of text) and being happy with not maxing out the graphics. I feel happy with 4k. It feels like "something new", have a lot of area to work with, scaling is almost a non-issue in win8.1 (with most of the applications I use).Taristin - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
Acers always have that blue tint problem. I have 3 acer monitors on my desktop and each of them leans too far into the blue spectrum, even after playing with calibrations. Leads to some rapid eyestrain.B3an - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
TN panel? Nope.FreeSync or fuck off.
Pork@III - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Yes! Indeed!Write TN and we now know that the only use is to fence in my pigsty.
Pork@III - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
WoW I read this article now: http://gamenab.net/2015/01/26/truth-about-the-g-sy...Cheers for those who paid lot of money for display with G-Synk module!
JarredWalton - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Interesting, though a bit too laced with conspiracy theory stuff to convince me he's not off his rocker. I'd like to see a game with clear videos of VSYNC Off, On, and G-SYNC modes on that laptop. Part of the issue of course is that a cell phone video of a display is going to be difficult to tell if the refresh rate is really 50Hz, 60Hz, or more importantly variable. The pendulum demo is a bit too staged for "proof".