

4K for $649: Asus' PB287Q monitor reviewed - ismavis
http://techreport.com/review/26510/4k-for-649-asus-pb287q-monitor-reviewed

======
kayoone
Here's a chart which shows the ideal viewing distance for various resolutions,
based on the smallest detail the human eye can discern at 20/20 vision.

[http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-
LL-4cd4431b_200ppdeng...](http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-
LL-4cd4431b_200ppdengleski.png)

This monitor is pretty close to retina level DPI based on the typical viewing
distance, but i guess a 24inch 4K would be even better.

~~~
Retric
Your information is wildly inaccurate. Take a 30' black screen vs one with a
single white pixel and someone can tell the difference from across a football
field if it's dark enough. Do the same thing with one white pixel vs 2 next to
each other and you can't tell the difference. The important point is screens
showing normal video have aliasing effects so under some situations with
unedited video you get differences such as flickering at fairly long
distances. Edit: Basicly if you have 480p and 720p video having a 720p monitor
is worse than a 720x4 monitor at fairly long distances.

Toss in compression artifacts and you want a screen at least 4x the resolution
as your showing in that chart.

~~~
kayoone
The chart is just about how many DPI you need based on a specific distance to
reach the point where the average human eye would stop seeing benefits vs even
higher DPI.

Your points are more about refresh rates, video compression and lightning. For
example, in gaming antialising and other "smoothing" techniques are wildy used
to improve image quality, but when playing in 4K resolution on a 24inch screen
you wouldn't need those anymore because your eye can't see a difference.

~~~
Retric
Aliasing is vary easy to notice even on a 4k screen. Look at the second immage
it's got way to much white and you can easily have the same issues at 4k or
8k.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing)

In the end increasing resolution does help in most cases, but with the right
fractal pattern there is no 'safe' resolution.

PS: It's basically the same reason that QuickSort is a O(n^2) sorting method
in the worst case. Pick the wrong data and your assumptions fall apart.

------
zokier
> Web browsers can be a problem. _You may want to choose Internet Explorer_
> rather than Chrome, since Microsoft has clearly done more work to support
> high-PPI configs. However, note that IE ditches the ClearType sub-pixel
> antialiasing scheme and snap-to-grid GDI font rendering in favor of simple
> greyscale antialiasing. As a result, the effective text resolution with IE
> at high PPIs isn't a huge leap from other browsers with ClearType on
> conventional displays. [emphasis mine]

Umm.. I know Firefox is not fashionable these days but ignoring it completely
seems bit odd, especially if both Chrome and IE produce suboptimal results.

Also can't you these days force compatibility bitmap-scaling for applications
like Fraps that apparently do not work correctly with HiDPI? Sure it is one
extra step that ideally shouldn't be necessary, but it is not like you need to
live with broken UIs.

~~~
sergiosgc
Firefox does not handle high DPI screens. It renders fonts at a fixed 96dpi
and your only option is to crank up the devPixelsPerPx pref, which is akin to
page zoom.

The bug has been reported multiple times. It always ends up being closed as
wontfix, which is just burying the head in the sand. My laptop is 210dpi, and
I guess we'll just go up from here.

One instance of the
bug:[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512522](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512522)

~~~
zokier
> your only option is to crank up the devPixelsPerPx pref, which is akin to
> page zoom

Since Firefox 22 you shouldn't need to adjust it manually. See eg this bug:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844604](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844604)
(Status: RESOLVED FIXED). I'm not sure why you seem to think that "akin page
zoom" is not the proper result, what else you expected?

Quoting Anandtech:

> Chrome is scaled 150% as Windows asked, but it is hazy and blurry. Disabling
> DPI scaling for the application and then scaling to 150% inside Chrome
> produces crisp, clear text. Firefox also didn’t scale automatically, but it
> has a setting to adjust to make it follow the Windows DPI scaling rules.
> Once set, Firefox looks very nice and crisp. For most people, that setting
> should already be set to follow DPI scaling.

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-
pq321q-ultrahd-4k-mo...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-
pq321q-ultrahd-4k-monitor-review/2)

Note that the review predates the release of Firefox 22.

edit: This is the tracking bug for Firefox HiDPI support on Windows:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=82067...](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=820679&hide_resolved=0)
. Hardly burying their heads in sand.

~~~
sergiosgc

      > I'm not sure why you seem to think that 
      > "akin page zoom" is not the proper result,
      > what else you expected?
    

It is not what I expect because it does not affect the browser chrome. See a
screenshot of my current Firefox:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/461223/screenshot.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/461223/screenshot.png)

Notice that the i3 bar at the top has the font at the correct scale. The page
itself too (via devPixelsPerPx). Chrome elements such as tab names or the URL
bar are at less than half the correct size and barely usable without a hack
plugin (I use Theme Font and Size Changer).

Everything other than FF or Thunderbird scales correctly. The X server is set
to 210dpi and GTK reports the correct density too. It is firefox that is
misbehaving.

This is FF nightly (34, I believe), so way way after FF 22. It is not fixed,
and it is not a loved bug. Time will make the bug bite the developers and by
then it will be fixed, I'm sure.

Edit: Here's a second screenshot, this time witout devPixelsPerPx, showing FF
completely ignoring the system set DPI:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/461223/screenshot2.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/461223/screenshot2.png)

~~~
zokier
Oh, Linux. Yeah, the story there might be significantly worse, possibly even
more if you are not running GNOME. I'll have to test that myself, but I can
imagine that it is not as smooth as Win/OSX. I'll just say that it is not
representative of Firefox as a whole.

edit: Here is Firefox on Windows 7, Windows being configured at "150%", no
tweaks on Firefox:
[http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_150.png](http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_150.png)

here is 100% for comparison:
[http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_100.png](http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_100.png)

Some of the icons etc are bit blurry, but at least they are scaled.

~~~
sergiosgc
From what I gather about in several submissions of the bug in the past, the
problem is that properly setting display density in Linux has changed over
time. So, it is inconsistent and is thus in many instances false. Firefox then
concludes that X lies about display density and ignores it.

It is a wrong assumption, and one that pegs FF to 96dpi on Linux. It is not a
sustainable decision, but I guess it will only be reverted when the noise
about it is enough, which will only happen when high dpi displays become more
common.

Anyhow, it is not correct to assume X lies about the display density. Modern
distros set the density correctly, ever since the infrastructure for xrandr
was put into place. Its only fault, today, is that display density can't be
set per display. It is a setting of the root window, I believe, so it is
shared by all displays.

Side note: This is i3 running on top of a gnome3 session. For the sake of this
problem, it can be seen as a gnome session.

~~~
zokier
> the problem is that properly setting display density in Linux has changed
> over time

Yeah, I just tested this on my GNOME3 system, and there is no simple DPI
setting anywhere in sight. `xrandr --dpi 144` which seemed like the logical
solution had absolutely zero effect on anything (gnome or firefox). Anyways
this is what I ended up with: GNOME scale factor at 1.5 and
layout.css.devPixelsPerPx also 1.5:
[http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_linux_150.png](http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_linux_150.png)
. Looks pretty good to me.

edit: and just for completeness sake, I also tested this on KDE4. Before
changing session I reverted GNOME scale factor to 1.0, so it did not affect my
results. I again started with `xrandr --dpi 144` and launched Firefox and the
fonts actually had been rescaled! UI was not, but that was fixed with
layout.css.devPixelsPerPx=1.5, end result:
[http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_kde_150.png](http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_kde_150.png)

In conclusion, it seems like Firefox on Linux queries the DE for fonts (size
and family). KDE4 seems to use X DPI settings in determining the font sizes,
while _GNOME3_ is ignoring them and instead using its own "scaling factor".

edit2: this is getting bit out of hand. I also tested this with just a WM (in
this case Fluxbox), without DE. `xrandr --dpi 144` had no effect _but_ setting
Xft.dpi to 144 with xrdb did adjust the font size in Firefox. Like others,
devPixelsPerPx needed also to be set to 1.5 for UI to scale:
[http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_fluxbox_150.png](http://zokier.net/stuff/firefox_fluxbox_150.png)

So in further conclusion I'd say Firefox is handling the situation relatively
well, considering the mess that DPI scaling seems to be on Linux.

------
The_Sponge
I'm bothered by the usage of "whore of babylon". I feel like that sort of
language doesn't belong in a review like this.

~~~
rjknight
So, I think this phrase may benefit from some context. Specifically, the
cultural backdrop to the statement is that we[1] have a recent tradition of
using the transition from "pure, sweet good-girl teen" to "raunchy, sexualised
young woman" as a kind of marketing event for female pop stars who began their
careers as teenage TV stars. Part of their marketing value derives directly
from the public and "shocking" nature of the transition. It's essentially
exploiting the Madonna-whore complex[2] for marketing purposes.

There are ambiguities, of course. Perhaps the "shock" value of female
sexuality is a good thing and is helping us all to get out of outmoded views
about female purity. Perhaps the presentation of female sexuality as being
about raunch and nudity is catering to male fantasies and is thus bad. Perhaps
the problem lies with the excessively "pure" image that teenage female
entertainers need to maintain in order to be deemed "family-friendly".

Personally, I interpreted the comment in the article as being one about the
exaggerated nature of the image change that stars like Miley Cyrus go through
once they hit the age of consent. She's neither the whore of Babylon nor
Hannah Montana, but it suited advertisers to portray her as both at different
times.

Is this a suitable topic for a joke or a metaphor? I didn't interpret it
negatively, so for me it was fine. I can appreciate why other people would
disagree, but I thought adding some context might be useful[3].

[1] Actually this is mostly an American thing, so I'm not entirely entitled to
use "we" here

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex)

[3] Who am I kidding? I'm just giving my 2c on an internet forum like everyone
else who has nothing better to do right now

~~~
nemof
your explanation is reasonable as far as it goes. Yes, the two states are
being used to contrast the shocking change in nature of the product. However,
this doesn't speak as to whether it's ok.

1) commodifying women is not ok.

2) comparing women as an object/product to a piece of tech is again
problematic.

3) half your potential audience for your review is women. Do they want to read
about other women being talked about like this?

4) using language like this makes it easier to accept it's reasonable and
inoffensive. It's not inoffensive.

just saying oh well this is advertising and marketing is not enough.
Questioning it's validity is worthwhile. Questioning whether we want to see
this kind of exclusionary and sexist language in professional copy is
worthwhile.

~~~
devcpp
So much argument... I can't believe some people get this offended by simple
words. In this case, Miley doesn't even deny it, she's trying hard to give
that image, so it's really childish to complain about it.

I hate this attitude that makes people watch their words. It may be true of
public and influential personalities, but who cares your choice of words as
long as you convey the message? I believe that everything and everyone can be
laughed at.

Sure, you may feel offended inside. But you should at least understand that it
makes no sense and refrain from sharing your "I'm offended" feelings. Same
thing goes for the other end of the spectrum by the way: you can be sexist but
as long as you don't act on it, I don't see a problem. That's what freedom is
about.

~~~
nemof
> So much argument... I can't believe some people get this offended by simple
> words.

I'm a man, I can walk down the street without being wolf whistled, leered at
or otherwise feeling threatened.

Every single woman I know has been hassled in public by men with sexist,
threatening language like this. walking down the street they will get an
unwanted comments about their appearance, if they ignore them or complain,
they get called the kind of things you call "simple words".

Because this kind of language is in the everyday lexicon of of some men, it's
used to hurt, threaten and intimidate women.

but y'know, please don't get upset by my simple words yeah.

------
Kayou
I may be a nitpicker, but for me 4k is 4096x2160, or am I wrong? This screen
is UHD, or 2160p but not 4k.

~~~
byuu
For me, it's 7822x4096. Or even 7112x4000 if you must. This really should be
called 2160p, but you know, marketing. Also really loving my 976GiB "terabyte"
hard drive, and my "ten meg" 1.25MiB/s broadband.

~~~
polshaw
____P is a broadcast specification, and was never meant to become a display
measurement. It intentionally only defined the vertical resolution as this was
the only specific resolution requirement; for example 1440x1080 is a valid
1080P broadcast resolution (it would still be displayed in 16:9 however).
Moreover specifying Progressive is utterly redundant in modern displays (and
thankfully is becoming universally redundant).

____P is no less of a marketing label than 4K, just a different one. Any
monitor should be defined by its resolution; however this is clunky as hell-
as demonstrated by the sheer mass of people keen to inappropriately use the
____P nomenclature.

UHD seems a valid shorthand of this resolution; and to be fair it tends to get
used; although often alongside 4K.

~~~
byuu
I would be quite happy with the demise of interlaced display modes as well.
But I'm not so hopeful that we won't see a "4Ki" resolution for
cable/satellite UHD channels in the future. All of the channels I get are
1080i still.

------
hackerboos
$649 in US

$699 in Canada

$1000 in UK <\- What on earth is going on here - even with 20% VAT?

~~~
albinoloverats
But still, at £600 it's much less expensive than most other available 4K
displays (that I've seen)

~~~
hackerboos
There's a Samsung 4k pre-order for £500 on Amazon, Overclockers etc.

~~~
cbartlett
You wouldn't happen to have a link or know the model number would you?

~~~
hackerboos
There's also a Dell UHD for 450

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IOUBOB2/](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IOUBOB2/)

------
bsimpson
My Chromebook Pixel has spoiled me. A 28" 4K monitor isn't sharp enough. Dell
has a 24" that yields 180 ppi. I'd be interested to see that in person, but it
probably still isn't sharp enough comparatively.

~~~
kayoone
You typically sit closer to a Laptop screen than to a Desktop screen, so this
should be pretty close to retina level DPI depending on the viewing distance

[http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-
LL-4cd4431b_200ppdeng...](http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-
LL-4cd4431b_200ppdengleski.png)

------
bainsfather
Good to see the price of big high resolution screens coming down, after so
many stagnant years.

> The one thing that may freeze you from pulling the trigger right now on the
> PB287Q is, oddly enough for the monitor market, the promise of better things
> coming soon.

Any guesses about how the market will progress in the next year or two? I have
an old 30" 2560x1600, bought for £1200 6 years ago - good enough for my uses
(coding). Would like to get a second similar screen, when they are cheap. At
the moment I see e.g. 27" 2560x1440 for £420 [1] - would buy it today, except
maybe I can get something cheaper and better soon ...

[1]
[http://www.cclonline.com/product/95902/U2713HM/Monitors/Dell...](http://www.cclonline.com/product/95902/U2713HM/Monitors/Dell-
UltraSharp-U2713HM-27-Widescreen-LED-Monitor/MON1192/)

------
cpks
I'd buy one if I knew it would work. Heck, I'd buy two or four for a
multimonitor setup. The process of figuring out whether a given laptop or
graphics card will drive 4k over a particular standard is daunting. Knowing if
it will work with Ubuntu, in particular, is beyond me.

I wish there was a standard -- perhaps over USB -- where ordinary people who
don't play games and just want a machine to work on (emacs, xterms, web
browsers, word processors, rather than gaming) could make many monitors and
large monitors work plug-and-play.

~~~
zokier
> I wish there was a standard -- perhaps over USB -- where ordinary people who
> don't play games and just want a machine to work on (emacs, xterms, web
> browsers, word processors, rather than gaming) could make many monitors and
> large monitors work plug-and-play.

You mean like DisplayPort? If your system supports DisplayPort (1.2 or later),
you should have no issues getting image on screen. EDID/DisplayID can be used
to autoconfigure DPI/PPI scaling, so ideally the experience should indeed be
just plug-and-play.

------
headShrinker
> The sRGB option does produce colors that appear to be closer to our post-
> calibration settings than the default "standard" mode, for what it's worth.

Hmmmm... I need something that can do a little better than "closer to". Guess
$650 and color accuracy is too much to ask at 4k.

~~~
wlesieutre
Dell's UP2414Q was on sale for $765 a couple of times this month. It's a
smaller screen, but has really great color. Details from Tom's Hardware:
[http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-up2414q-monitor-
rev...](http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-up2414q-monitor-
review,3781-7.html)

------
nailer
So how long till we get 4K touch displays?

These displays are fantastic, but I'd worry about touch models being released
in a couple of years. If you use Windows, or OS X gets good touch support, you
might regret the purchase.

~~~
bsimpson
I'm still holding out for the ThinkVision 28:

[http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/ThinkVision%20Spec%20She...](http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/ThinkVision%20Spec%20Sheets.pdf)

------
rayiner
The Miley comment is totally unprofessional and unnecessary.

------
firefoxNX11
Good to see prices of 4K coming down. Are 4k displays better at rendering text
for those who read and work with code a lot?

------
akilism
why not a seiki 39" 4k for $399?

[http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-
Ultra-120Hz/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-
Ultra-120Hz/dp/B00DOPGO2G/)

~~~
what_ever
Err, 30Hz refresh rate at 4k as the review mentioned?

------
MartinMond
Can someone explain how this is 4k? Apple's Thunderbolt Display has a
resolution of 2560x1440 [1] and ASUS' PB287Q also has 2560x1440 according to
Amazon [2].

What am I missing? UPDATE: I transposed digits and looked at the PB278Q not
the PB287Q.

[1]
[https://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html](https://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-27-Inch-LED-lit-Professional-
Gr...](http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-27-Inch-LED-lit-Professional-
Graphics/dp/B009C3M7H0)

~~~
bsimpson
I believe you're looking at the 278Q. The 287Q (note the digit changes) has a
resolution of 3840 x 2160 according to the article.

~~~
twic
So it's 3.84K then. Almost 4K.

A bit like how a carrier one sold me a phone with EDGE as 3G. I mean, 2.75G is
pretty much 3G, right?

~~~
izacus
Um, anything that's marked as "4K" has 3840x2160 resolution.

Pretty much any "<something>p" and similar marking is misleading in terms of
marketing anyway.

------
vdm
vs Samsung U28D590D
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YzTJheuFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YzTJheuFs)
(4:48)

