OT: Asus IPS 16:10 24" Monitor $439.99 till 6/29

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/19/2011, 5:45 PM

Thanks for the "heads-up" John. I just ordered two of them. ;-)

I was very disappointed that both of my Samsung 215TW 1680x1050 displays died after 3 years of use. One was within warranty but the other was not. At $459 each I was hoping they'd last longer. I believe they were S-PVA panels which was supposed to be good but they looked washed out at an angle and the back light was not consistent.

The reviews sounds positive on this ASUS monitor and P-IPS seems to be the technology to get. I'm hoping it's a better monitor even though I'm paying less at $439

Thanks again for the discount coupon.

~jr

musicvid10 wrote on 5/19/2011, 6:47 PM

Who actually manufactures these? If they are yet another Samsung OEM, by which I have been bitten before, I am not interested.

SuperG wrote on 5/19/2011, 9:08 PM

If they are yet another Samsung OEM, by which I have been bitten before, I am not interested

Do tell. What were the the issues?

Just wondering, some of those Samsungs have impressive features, i.e. 2ms refresh.

musicvid10 wrote on 5/19/2011, 9:18 PM

Samsung?
Blown whites, soft corners and edges, lousy color gamma, early failure, let me count the ways . . .

Actually, they're not too bad for HDTV.
For NLE, totally useless, any and all specs notwithstanding.

But again, I do not know who makes the Asus monitor that is the original topic of this thread.

ushere wrote on 5/19/2011, 9:34 PM

totally agree with musicvid - and i was a long-time samsung user thinking it was my fault that they were so hard to line-up.....

my wife inherited one of my 23" samsungs and regularly has me calibrate it since it has a tendency to go off all on its own.

the other monitor (dual setup) went to a client who loves watching movies on it (oversaturated with backlight leakage).

SuperG wrote on 5/19/2011, 9:45 PM

Thanks guys.

musicvid10 wrote on 5/19/2011, 9:46 PM

"my wife inherited one of my 23" samsungs and regularly has me calibrate it since it has a tendency to go off all on its own."

Not to mention HORRID burn-in, which I forgot to mention . . .
;?)

craftech wrote on 5/20/2011, 4:03 AM

I have no idea who makes the panels for Asus. I do know that massive outsourcing of panels is the norm for most manufacturers. As a P-IPS panel, it falls into a category that does not include a lot of siblings though.

Newegg is very good about replacement and the monitor has a three year warranty.

Stuck pixels can be a problem with any LCD monitor, but unlike Samsung, Asus has a three year ASUS Zero Bright Dot Guarantee. Even one stuck pixel and they will replace it.

Newegg will do the same if you get it that way out of the box.

Not sure if the discussion regarding Samsung is relevant here. It went like this:

"Hope it's not a Samsung" followed by a bunch of posts regarding Samsung as if it were a fact that it is a Samsung.

???????????????

To Super G: who said Just wondering, some of those Samsungs have impressive features, i.e.

No IPS panels have a 2ms refresh, only TN panels do. That's why they are good for gaming only. TN panels are the cheapest and least accurate LCD monitors. PVA and IPS panels are generally what photographers choose for panels. This one is a P-IPS panel.

To John Rofrano:

Let us know how the panels look when you get them and don't forget about the Zero Bright Dot Guarantee. Return it immediately for a replacement if you get a stuck pixel on either of the two panels you bought.

It is also worth noting that the monitor is 16:10 which is a real computer monitor AR. unlike what most people are ending up with these days which is a monitor with a TV screen (16:9) designed for movies instead of computing. Why has the industry done that? To give you less for more. John's 24 inch screen will be larger than a 16:9 24 inch screen.

John

EDIT: Deal now extended to 5/26

farss wrote on 5/20/2011, 4:36 AM

I think I'm going to buy one of these next week as they're now on special down here with a Spyder 3 for $599. There's a review of this monitor here. Maybe not quite as good as the HP Dreamcolor but a fraction of the price. The grid overlay could be quite useful.

Bob.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/20/2011, 8:30 AM

I'll let you guys know how they look once I get them. I think they ship from California so it will be a while before they arrive here in NY. (Sometimes NewEgg ships from New Jersey and I get stuff the next day for free shipping!) ;-)

> "Blown whites, soft corners and edges, lousy color gamma, early failure, let me count the ways . . ."

Exactly! The problem I saw with my Samsung 215TW's is that the color was inconsistent across the display. If I opened Photoshop and created a solid blue background, it would look light blue on one side of the monitor and a distinctively darker shade of blue on the other. I just couldn't trust the darn things and I calibrated them once a month with my Spyder 3 Elite but calibration can't fix an inconsistent display.

I also feel that they suffered from early failure. I have some cheap $100 Samsung monitors that are 5 years old and still going strong. I expected a $450 monitor to last a little longer that 3 years.

My issue was a flickering backlights. I Googled it and tons of people are having flickering backlight problems with these displays. I called Samsung about the display that was only two months out of warranty and explained that I found people all over the Internet with the same problem so I suggest that it is a manufacturing defect and that they should replace my display. It took 3 phone calls to different managers but i finally got one of them to authorize a replacement. So in the end, Samsung did stand behind their product but I had to fight them for it.

In fairness to Samsung, they have an excellent RMA system if something is under warranty. For the other display I didn't even have to call them. I entered my serial number on their web site, uploaded a proof of purchase date, and they emailed me a shipping label for UPS. I just dropped it off on my way to work and it didn't cost me a penny.

~jr

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/25/2011, 7:23 PM

I just wanted update that I got my monitors and boy are the large and bright and accurate. I went from two 21" to two 24" so there is significantly more screen real estate and resolution at 1920x1200 (my old monitors were 1680x1050). You can really see the difference in richness of the colors of these P-IPS panels and the screen is consistent throughout. I don't have any of the changes in color shading that I had with the S-PVA panels in the Samsung 215TW's. I'm driving them from the two DisplayPort out's from my Quadro 4000.

The AdobeRGB setting is just spectacular for image editing and the sRGB setting seems to be perfect for video editing. You really don't have to touch them right out of the box.

I tried to calibrate them with my Spyder3Elite but they looked worse after calibrating. I contacted Datacolor and they are going to RMA my Spyder3 to see if it's a hardware problem (they came out with a yellow cast).

I'm very happy with the purchase.

~jr

farss wrote on 5/25/2011, 7:45 PM

Thanks for the update JR. Just waiting for mine to be delivered.
Reviews I've read suggest the default brightness is too high and to turn them down to a more standard 120 nits.

Bob.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/26/2011, 6:22 AM

> "Reviews I've read suggest the default brightness is too high and to turn them down to a more standard 120 nits."

Yea, the default will burn your retinas ... lol

I use my Spyder3 to get it down to 120 cd/m2. The strange thing is that by default, the brightness is set at 50 but the contrast is set at 80! If you bring the contrast down to 50 it helps keep the brightness under control. I still had to bring the brightness down to around 30.

If you use the sRGB or AdobeRGB settings, the contrast is fixed and you only need to adjust the brightness.

~jr

craftech wrote on 5/27/2011, 4:10 AM

Newegg extended the deal again. Now it's until 6/10.

John

farss wrote on 5/27/2011, 5:08 AM

The beast arrived and all I can say is WOW!
So that's what HD should really look like huh?
I'm seriously amazed at how much better the best shots from my EX1 now look, it really feels like looking out a window. This is going to take some getting used to.

Bob.

craftech wrote on 6/23/2011, 6:04 AM

Newegg is offering the deal once again. I believe it is until 6/29.

New coupon code: EMCKDHG62

John

JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/23/2011, 7:56 AM

As Bob said, "WOW" is a good descriptive term for these monitors. I previously had $500 monitors that I was replacing, but the difference is like night and day for the same price. The quality is just outstanding.

I have my two monitors perfectly matched using my Spyder 3 Elite and I actually got an increase in timeline playback rate because now I can play full 1080 whereas before, my 21" monitors did not do 1080 and all video had to be scaled which slowed things down.

If you have the money to pick these up, you won't be disappointed.

~jr

farss wrote on 6/23/2011, 2:31 PM

JR said:
" I actually got an increase in timeline playback rate because now I can play full 1080 whereas before, my 21" monitors did not do 1080 and all video had to be scaled which slowed things down"

Mostly due to space constraints in the past I've not had two monitors since I switched to HD. Putting in the Asus as a second monitor and turning off the preview monitor has made a small but worthwhile improvement in playback performance.
For me still stuck with mostly shooting interlaced having the video card do the de-interlacing is also quite a benefit.

One thing that still bugs me is getting the monitor's refresh frequency as a multipl of the "PAL" frame rate. Something doesn't seem quite right about displaying 25fps on a monitor that's refreshing at 60Hz

Bob.

craftech wrote on 6/24/2011, 3:50 AM

Bob,

Take a look at ReClock at the SlySoft Forum. Looks like it has some potential.

John

NickHope wrote on 9/12/2011, 2:38 PM

Bought an Asus PA246Q here in Bangkok today and there's one bright green blown pixel fairly central in the display. Not happy to start with that so I'm going to exchange it tomorrow. The vendor, who built my last 2 tower systems, promised warranty on 100% of the pixels, although I see the official Asus warranty leaflet states >3 bright pixels or >5 dark pixels as being enough for a warranty replacement.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/13/2011, 10:16 AM

> "...although I see the official Asus warranty leaflet states >3 bright pixels or >5 dark pixels as being enough for a warranty replacement."

That was their original warranty which they changed to a "no dead pixel" policy. You can read the new one here:

Asus PA246Q Warranty Policy

~jr

Mr. Peacock wrote on 9/15/2011, 8:30 PM

Long time no post here...

I'm interested in using this monitor via HDMI from an HD source. If fed a 1920x1080 image does it do 1:1 pixel mapping? I would prefer that over scaling the image up to the 1920x1200 native display. If that is the case, I assume then it just has a tiny little black bar at the top and bottom of a 1920x1080 display?

JohnnyRoy, you the said the sRGB setting is close to rec709. Do you think that would be the case via HDMI? I was hoping to use this in sRGB mode fed from a MXO2 mini on my Final Cut system on occasion as well as a regular PC Vegas monitor via DVI.

Thanks in advance,
Jeff

NickHope wrote on 9/15/2011, 11:12 PM

Thanks JR. The wholesaler checked out another couple of new PA246Q for me, and they were also found to have dead pixels, so I'm now waiting on new stock arriving next week. If those are also defective and they try to fob me off with one with dead pixels, your link will be very useful. Cheers

Byron K wrote on 9/16/2011, 2:14 AM

Dead / stuck pixel trick.

I received two monitors one with a green stuck pixel lower left quarter of the screen and the other had a white stuck pixel almost in the center. I was about to return them but decide to flick the pixels with my index finger a couple of times and the stuck pixels disappeared and never came back. Maybe I was just lucky, but it worked. (: