ASUS PQ321Q UltraHD Monitor Review: Living with a 31.5-inch 4K Desktop Display
by Chris Heinonen on July 23, 2013 9:01 AM ESTGiven the lofty price tag, there is a good chance the ASUS PQ321Q is targeting graphics and print professionals, so meeting the sRGB standards of 80 cd/m2 and its custom gamma curve will be important.
Looking at the grayscale first, sRGB is just as good as our 200 cd/m2 target is. The gamma is virtually perfect, and there is no color shift at all. The contrast ratio falls to 667:1, which I expected as the lower light output leaves less room for adjustments. Graded just on grayscale and gamma, the PQ321Q would be perfect.
As soon as we get to the gamut, we see the same issues here as I expected to. That gamut is just a little off which gives us some noticeable dE2000 errors at 100% saturations for all colors.
Here with the color checker charts, we see a large difference between the Gretag Macbeth results and the 96-sample results. The error rises from 1.62 to 2.05 as we are sampling more orange/yellow shades that fall outside of the gamut. Nothing really different than the last calibration, so the same issues apply.
The saturations are also identical to see here. They start out with small errors but by the end, every color except for Cyan is showing a noticeable error at 100%.
For 200 cd/m2 and a gamma of 2.2 or for 80 cd/m2 and the sRGB gamma, the ASUS PQ321Q performs almost equally. The grayscale and gamma are perfect, but the gamut has some issues. Once we start to see more displays using this same panel, but different electronics and possibly different backlights, then we can determine what is causing this shift in the gamut. With the initial target for the ASUS likely being professional designers, these errors seem a bit out-of-place.
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chewbyJ - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
this is great news! i've been wanting to replace my ancient Dell 2009WFP's with something larger, feel like experimenting with that Seiki SE39UY04 for $700 that got announced last month. hopefully you guys can get your hands on one of those soon and have something to compare with this ASUS model.can't wait to do Photoshop and Lightroom work on a giant 4k display and use a more expensive/high quality uniformity display for color accuracy of prints and media.
Panzerknacker - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
btw, why is everybody worrying so much about gaming and graphics cards not handling 4k? I mean when you have that many pixels available it should be no problem to upscale, run the game at 1080p and simply upscale to 4k. I doubt there will be quality loss due to this and it will probably still look better than on a native 1080p screen.How does this work btw? Is it possible to let the screen do this by itself like with a TV? So you input 1080p, 1024 x 768, whatever ress, will it be upscaled by the screen to 4k and display fullscreen? This is really important for me because I would use the screen for everything, also playing older games that do not support 4k.
sheh - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
Of course, like any current monitor, monitors do scaling. Some do it better, some worse, some let you configure more scaling options, some don't. It's probably best to handle scaling with the graphics card (/drivers), because that gives you, at least potentially, the most control.pattycake0147 - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
The paragraph describing the black levels is missing a zero after the decimal and before the seven. Confused me until I looked at the graph.pandemonium - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
Nice spreadsheet you got there. Clearly shows the necessary amounts per distance and size of display. More people need to be aware of such things!LordSegan - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
"The ASUS PQ321Q is pricey, and I can’t say that getting three or four 30” 2560x1600 panels isn’t a better deal, but it’s not the same as having one display that looks like this. "I don't mean to be harsh, but this story needs more careful copy editing. There are run on sentences and other pretty amateurish errors.
Mondozai - Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - link
I don't mean to be harsh, but your comment needs more careful copy editing. You should spell it run-on sentences, not run on sentences.It helps having correct grammar when trying to correct others.
Just a tip.
bill5 - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
Heh, what a surprise the reviewer loved a $3,500 monitor...It's almost like you get what you pay for
Confusador - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
So when can I get a 23" 2560x1600 display? 32 is a bit much for me, but I'd love the dpi.sheh - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
2014, probably.