ASUS PQ321Q UltraHD Monitor Review: Living with a 31.5-inch 4K Desktop Display
by Chris Heinonen on July 23, 2013 9:01 AM ESTSince the ASUS has a pair of HDMI inputs, but there is effectively no 4K HDMI content right now, the performance of the internal scaler is essential to know. To test it, I use an Oppo BDP-105 Blu-ray player and the Spears and Munsil HD Benchmark, Version 2. The Oppo has its own 4K scaler so I can easily compare the two and see how the ASUS performs.
First off, the ASUS is poor when it comes to video processing. Common film and video cadences of 3:2 and 2:2 are not properly picked up upon and deinterlaced correctly. The wedge patterns are full of artifacts and never lock on. With the scrolling text of video over film, the ASUS passed which was strange as it fails the wedges. It also does a poor job with diagonals, showing very little if any filtering on them, and producing lots of jaggies.
Spears and Munsil also has a 1080p scaling pattern to test 4K and higher resolution devices. Using the ASUS scaler compared to the Oppo it had a bit more ringing but they were pretty comparable. This becomes very important for watching films or playing video games, as you’ll need to send a 1080p signal to get a 60p frame rate. 24p films will be fine, but concerts, some TV shows and some documentaries are 60i and would then appear choppy if sent at 4K over HDMI.
Brightness and Contrast
In our preview of the PQ321Q, we looked at how it performed out of the box with the default settings. What we did see is that the PQ321Q can get really, really bright. Cranked up to the maximum I see 408 cd/m2 of light from it. That is plenty no matter how bright of an office environment you might work in. At the very bottom of the brightness setting you still get 57 cd/m2. That is low enough that if you are using it for print work or something else in a darkened room the brightness won’t overwhelm you.
The change to IGZO caused me to wonder how the black levels would behave on the ASUS. If energy flows far more freely, would that cause a slight bit of leakage to lead to a higher black level? Or would the overall current be scaled down so that the contrast ratio remains constant.
I’m not certain what the reason is, but the black level of the PQ321Q is a bit higher than I’d like to see. It is 0.756 cd/m2 at the lowest level and 0.5326 cd/m2 at the highest level. Even with the massive light output of the ASUS that is a bit high.
Because of this higher black level, we see Contrast Ratios of 755:1 and 766:1 on the ASUS PQ321Q. These are decent, middle-of-the-pack numbers. I really like to see 1,000:1 or higher, especially when we are being asked to spend $3,500 on a display. Without another IGZO display or 4K display to compare the ASUS to, I can’t be certain if one of those is the cause, or if it is the backlighting system, or something else entirely. I just think we could see improvements in the black level and contrast ratio here.
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peterfares - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
It's pretty easy to tell why they're getting 3200x1800 monitors. The super high DPI at that size and distance is unnecessary, but it has one HUGE advantage: You can use 200% scaling. That means things that aren't DPI-aware can run at standard DPI and then be doubled in width and height. This avoids the fuzzy effect like this article was complaining about when you use 150% on unsupported programs. With 200% scaling they'll look just like they do on a standard DPI display, not worse which is when happens when you use a decimal scaling factor.APassingMe - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I'm concerned since you mention the "low" contrast numbers. The last time I checked, any number over 100:1 was due to software enhancements and was equivalent to a higher quality contrast that racked lower due to not having much or any software enhancement meaning that the current contrast numbers thrown around are just a bunch of marketing jumble.So wouldn't it be better to just measure the contrast with a 3rd party tool? As the numbers provided from the manufacture are pretty much a product of fiction + the marketing team, just my two cents
APassingMe - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
my bad, that's ranked* not rackedcheinonen - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
The number on the specs page is the one that the manufacturer quotes. In the test results you can see what we actually found. Desktop LCD numbers far fall behind what is possible with plasma TVs and the best LCOS projectors, or ever rear array LCD TVs. 100:1 would be insanely low and a poor design. Desktop LCDs are capable of 1000:1, without any sort of trick.APassingMe - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I see, I could of been confusing the data with that from projectors; regardless I'm glad the test results are posted regardless as the definition of "contrast" can be a varying thing. Thanks for the swift responsefreedom4556 - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Yeah, you were definitely thinking of those "dynamic" contrast ratios that are complete BS. They are usually more in the 100,000:1 or 1,000,000: range, though. Completely unreasonable.sheh - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
The official specs table lists the contrast as "800:01:00".cheinonen - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Great, I'll fix that since apparently Excel decided to change that to a time or something else. But it's fixed now.Streetwind - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
31.5 inch is still too big for me. I'm not puttin anything over 24" on my desk. I've tried it, and I just can't like it.Unfortunately it seems that vendors are producing either tiny portable screens or gigantic TVs, and no real midsize desk monitors anymore. At least not outside the same old 1080p that we've been getting for the past 4 years.
cheinonen - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Well rumors are that Dell might be coming out with a 24" UHD display using a panel from LG. If that happens then I'll be happy to review that as well.