Displays User Review: Yuraku 24" M-PVA (HDCP)

[Xtrafresh]

I posted this oroginally in the thread where kenco_uk tips everyone to go get one. Everyone started demanding pics, so i wrote this review

I hope posting it again like this is not against the rules, i couldn't really find anything about it.

Me, myself & my screen

About three weeks ago i saw kenco's thread in the bargain section. I looked for a good price on it on the mainland, and found a german webshop selling it for 277€. I drove 450 km (autobahn cheesecake) to get it, and i haven't regretted it for a second. Now i'd like to share my experience with you guys, so you can make an informed decision.
I am not an expert on screen technology, so me doing benchmarks or any other technical evaluations of the screen would be nonsense, so this review is just based on my personal user experience. Here goes:

Unpacking

First of all, let me say that the Yuraku 24″ screen is a minimalistic thing. Apart from the awesome panel, virtually every conceivable corner has been cut to keep the price low.
The first very obvious place that this shows is the rather dull and disappointing looking box. It says "Create >> Excite >> Inspire" on the side, but the box doesn't do any of those things for me. But let's be fair, we are not buying a box are we?



Opening the box we find the screen sandwitced between two pices op styrofoam, documentation, and the assortment of cables, all in their own plastic bag. The styrofoam doesn't offer much padding, and it is the cheap kind too, so dont toss the box around too much, you really might damage the panel doing that!



Inside the styro, the screen is protected by a plastic bag, and it's covered by a taped-on clear cover for some extra protection of the panel itself. That's about it, really. It's very basic, but let's be fair, we are not buying packaging, are we?

The assortment of cables is ok... i guess. It contains:

• VGA cable
• HDMI to DVI cable
• Power cable
• mini-jack speaker cable
• tulip (?) to mini-jack cable should you want to play the sound from a media device.

I really miss the DVI-DVI cable. If i had to choose just one cable to be included, that would be it. Everyone has tons of power cords lying around, so even omitting that would have made more sense. I think virtually everyone will use DVI-DVI to connect to this screen. On the other hand, the HDMI-DVI does bring some added value, since they are more rare then regular DVI-DVI cables, and this would be a perfect screen to hook up to a console (more on that later).


All cables were neatly packed inside their own bags, and tucked in on the back of the screen in the box.

Inside it's own bag came the documentation, with a helpful manual in awesome engrish:


The text on this bag was very helpful too:



But let's be fair, we are not buying an instruction on how to get the monitor out of standby, are we?

A closer look

OK, all joking aside, let's focus on the screen. Here are a few shots of the connectivity:




... and that's it. A power socket, VGA and DVI sockets, and a mini-jack socket for the speakers. I'm not ever going to use anything else then DVI and power, but for those of you that want to connect the world and everything in it, this is not your screen. But let's face it, we are not buying connectivity, are we?

The screen itself is not particularly well designed. Infact, looking at it from the side it strikes me as being quite fat. There's a lot of empty space in there too, and when it's turned on, this can clearly be seen through the airvents in the back.


But we aren't buying a pretty backside, are we? (that's a different shop alltogether)

What the back does offer though is a rather smooth finish in matt-black, and four tapped holes for wall-mounting. I haven't done this yet, so i have no idea of their structural integrity.



Next, we have the stand. The "leg" is already fitted to the screen on opening the box, but can be removed with a couple of screws for wall-mounting. The "foot" is a very simple oval that just clicks into the bottom of the leg.
Removal works very easy too: just push two plastic flaps in, and wiggle the foot off. It actually works quite well, and the fit is really snug, so no wobble there. The foot itself is large enough to keep the screen stable, while it is not too big to ruin the look of the screen. The whole construction is not rock-solid though, any movement from the desk will keep the screen wobbling for a few seconds. But let's keep it real, most of us don't live on ships or move the desk around too much while computing, do we?



There is one more issue i want to discuss before we plug this baby in: The bezels. The piano-black bezel and the silvery lines look good, they really do. The build quality is ... well, let's just say that even Peter Jackson would not allow it. The used plastic is thin and feels cheap - probably because it is cheap. The rubber bottom part that covers the speakers wasn't even tucked in properly on my screen, i had to push it in myself! There is about 3-4mm of give on the bezel near the Yuraku logo, and all 5 buttons below are wobbly and don't align very well on close inspection. Another annoyance is the hard-to-remove glue from the protective sticker that covered the logo. On top of all that, this picture shows the much talked about too-bright LED.




Anyway, are we buying LED lights, buttons, plastic, rubber or glossy finishes? No, we most definately are not!

Using the screen

Let's turn it on, and see what can be saved after that bucket of bad impressions. What's the first thing that happens when windows boots up? Right, you get that annoying startup-tune that i have intended to replace with something more snazzy - but I won't.
Anyway, this gave me afirst impression of the speakers, ans a pretty good comparison to everything else i ever used, since they all produced that sound at one point or another. I have never owned worse speakers then the ones in this monitor. They do the job, the sound is audible and can even be turned up pretty loud, so it is perfectly functional. If that is how you use the speakers, (skype, system sounds, etc) fine. Put on any music, movie or game, and the speakers fail. Oh well, they are integrated monitor speakers, that was to be expected. Plus, we aren't really interested in buying speakers, are we?

What are we buying? A screen! And oh boy does this baby deliver on that front! The image is bright, intense, deep and precise. Viewing angles are pretty much perfect, which is very important for those who want to use the screen as a TV or as a display for a console. I attended a LAN last weekend, and i really cannot stress enough how much better games looked on my desk. People kept walking over to me, commenting on how good a particular game looked. No matter that they passed four people playing the exact same game in the exact same server to get to me. Even other 24" panels were beaten to pulp. I have no comparison pictures, so you will have to take my word for it, but the image is just better on this. For those of you that are into long gaming sessions or watch a lot of movies, look no further!

Here are some pictures of it sitting next to my trusty laptop, showing viewing angles and colour depth. Even though it is only a humble laptop screen, and a glossy one at that, the pics might give you an idea of how good the screen actually is.





Scaling

One question that big screens always meet is: how well does it scale down? The answer to that is this: horrible. I only did one test, which was play Assassin's Creed at 1680x1050, but it had jagged lines all over the place. It's obviously possible to improve the situation with 1:1 pixel mapping or other solutions, but after playing around with it for over an hour, i never got a satisfactory result.
For those of you not blessed with a powerful GPU: just use the native res and turn down the other options, or buy a smaller screen.

Is it all bad?

Now, given all the disadvantages from above, you'd almost expect me to see the good panel as the only plus on this screen. There's more though:

It's light! Since it has no overdose of connectivity, and flimsy panels, it saves a lot on weight. You pick this thing up just like your average 19" screen, no trouble. Because of this, it's also a perfect sreen for LANs. The packaging, while not too secure, is quick & easy, making it even more LAN-proof. You can pack, unpack and setup the whole thing in minutes.
Another advantage: the thin plastic used in the bezels means it can be stripped down quite easily. I am going to mod this baby, and it's going to be a lot easier than your average samsung. Maybe somebody will beat me to it, but this thing sure as hell has the potential to be a modder's favorite.
Finally, and i haven't emphasised this enough, all the disadvantages above seem to be there because Yuraku chooses them to be there, to make the thing cheaper. The pricetag is the biggest advantage of the whole screen.

Use it for...

The screen seems to fit certain scenarios better then others.
The Yuraku is good for:

• Enthusiasts on a budget. This screen is simply the cheapest way to get the performance out of your PC.
• LAN parties. It's light, simple and awesome, the good viewing angles make it fit for multi-user scenarios (movies, consoles), and showing up with a 24" is just ePeen++.
• Modding. The good panel, easy-to-remove bezels and low price make this screen a dremelmagnet like no other.

Scenarios that the Yuraku does not fit:

• Professional users. While this may be an amateur's best shot at coming close, this screen simply lacks the support that a photo-editor would demand.
• High-end users. This basically includes anyone who is not on a tight budget. The way the Yuraku presents itself simply isn't high-tech enough to give somebody who just dropped 5k on the ultimate gaming rig the needed satisfaction.

Competition


It's hard to compare this screen with it's competiors. In fact, it's pretty hard to even determine what Yuraku's main competitors are.
Given the fact that the Yuraku is not a display for Professionals or high-end users, there really is no competition from the 22" side. The price puts it only a tiny premium away from the cheapest 22" TN-panels, and all the M-PVA panels are more expensive at 22".
When it is pitched against other 24" screens it obviously leads the low-end by miles and miles. TN-panels are not as good and just as expensive. The ones with better "extras" like connectivity, stand, bezels etc are more expensive, and still don't have as good a picture as the Yuraku.
In a battle against other 24" M-PVA panels the Yuraku is clearly inferior in all aspects. It is half the price though.

Conclusion:

The Yuraku offers very much, and very little. The panel is absolutely fantastic. Everything else isn't, or isn't even there. Still, the screen has many valid uses, and for the money, there simply isn't a substitute. Even the 22" screens at this price have worse image quality. In what it offers, the Yuraku stands on an island. This island is a tropical paradise for me, but for some, the mosquitos and the unproper latrines might spoil the holiday. Make sure you are the type that can enjoy quality when it isn't surrounded by more quality, and you'll be finding your own bit of paradise at your desk.

I award this screen the "Bit of Excellent Tech" award!



I hope this was helpful!

[badders]

Awsome review Xtrafresh.

With regards to the Scaling to 1650x1050 etc - if you need to run at those resolutions, could you use 1:1 Pixel mapping to retain image quality?

[Xtrafresh]

hmm, maybe. I didn't have time to examine the matter really, so all i did was put the resolution on 1650x1050 and be horrified by a truckload of jagged edges.

Maybe i'll get into it later, but my point remains. Justthrow the resolution up and the rest down if your card fails, it'll look all the better.

[kenco_uk]

Aye, regarding the sticker on the logo - I tried peeling it off, too and got the same result, i.e. a gooey mess. It looks better left on, tbh.

I can vouch for the mounting screws on the back working okay. I've got mine mounted to an Ergotron LX desk mount and it works very well indeed.

I totally agree that it's nice and light - I was a bit wary getting a desk mount as most specs say they can only handle up to a smaller screen size, but they go off the weight more than the size. As you say, the plastic used to encase the panel is not the best, some of it flexes easily when pressure's applied.

I haven't tried any scaling, but I'd say you could do 1:1 using the graphics card control panel applet (it should work through the NVidia settings, anyway).

Oh btw, nice review Xtrafresh!

[ch424]

Nice review, thank you Have to agree totally - the panel is fantastic, everything else isn't, or isn't there! I didn't have the problem with the stickiness over the logo, but my logo is lopsided! Also, I didn't get the dual-RCA ("tulip") to jack cable with mine - maybe that's the European version? Anyway, it's an awesome monitor for the price and I'm extremely happy with it

[mcolbourn]

I got the same screen yesterday and compleatly agreee with the review the pannel is great. It just toook a bit of tinkering with the brightness and contrast etc to get it right. I checked the menu on mine and found it has a SA-LTM240M2-L01 panel that's also used in the Eizo CE24W. I think that Eizo Retails for around £600 +

[ch424]

Hey, mcolbourn, how do you find what panel is in it? I can't find it in my OSD...

[kenco_uk]

I think you press MENU and + at the same time. Mine's a V3.

[mcolbourn]

Originally Posted by kenco_uk

I think you press MENU and + at the same time. Mine's a V3.

Kenco_uk is correct on press the "Menu" and the "+" buttons.

[ch424]

Ahhh, thanks people. I have a AU-M240UW01-V0, just to add to the list...

[Xtrafresh]

i wonder what the difference is. I have the L01 like mcolbourn

[jbloggs]

Originally Posted by Xtrafresh

i wonder what the difference is. I have the L01 like mcolbourn

Have a look Here

[Xtrafresh]

nice site that, very useful! So this means i have a different panel then advertised then? it doesn't matter really, since it's still awesome, but it is misrepresentation if you think of it...

Why are manufactureres all so secretive about the panels they use?

[mcolbourn]

I don't think Yuraku are being secretive. I expect they just buy cheep bulk loads of panels from Samsung and use what they get. I bet the loads are mised and sometimes you are lucky and get one with a slightly better panel.

[kenco_uk]

This is a better list of the panels, tbh

V0 is 1000:1 and 500cmd2, V3 is 800:1 and 300cdm2.

[IanW]

It seems to me that the "flimsy panels" mentioned in Xtrafresh's review might be an advantage to modders,
especially if one were planning on doing something like this.

[Xtrafresh]

Originally Posted by IanW

It seems to me that the "flimsy panels" mentioned in the Xtrafresh's review might be an advantage to modders,
especially if one were planning on doing something like this.

I was thinking the same calling this thing a modder's favorite

I was actually thinking of doing something more like this

[IanW]

Sweet.

I'm going to have to get one of these monitors soon.
(I can't this month due to my last post in the "Latest Purchases" thread - new mobo & 1Tb hdd.)

[mcolbourn]

The only problem I am getting with this monitor is getting the colour setup nice at time tiome I am running as below:

Brightness: 45%
Contrast: 57%
Colour temp: User
Red: 47%
Green: 45%
Blue: 44%
But I am not totaly happy yet and still messing with the RGB

[A[L]C]

Im really happy with this monitor.

Heres a pic of it on my desk