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Displays Dell U3014 Backlight Uniformity (Rev A03)

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by LennyRhys, 18 Sep 2015.

  1. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    So I was planning to do a kind of "mini review" of the U3014 as it still presents an attractive alternative to all the widescreen and ultraHD monitors out there at the moment.

    But... I just have some hangups about the backlight uniformity, which was the first thing I checked when I took it out of the box this evening, and it kinda sidetracked me somewhat.

    The unit is a Rev A03 flavour which was manufactured in Dec 2013. I don't know its history or usage but I got it from NRG:IT for £679 complete with 3 year warranty - a great price by all accounts - and by all means the monitor is excellent aside from the backlight discrepancy, with no dead pixels or any other blemishes that I can spot. For a gamer or other "casual" user this would not pose a problem; but I'll be calibrating this monitor with a Display Pro for extended daily use in Photoshop, and I'm just not sure it'll cut the mustard with the backlight as it is.

    You can't have flat colour appearing as a gradient in Photoshop, for obvious reasons!

    The picture displayed on the U3014 is a .PSD file set to 50% grey and displayed at full screen size. I haven't modified the image to "enhance" the ripple effect that is clearly visible. It is actually that bad. What's more, the brightness is at 10%. I'm not sure what that equates to in cdm2, but from my experience I reckon somewhere around the 120 mark.

    [​IMG]

    Now let me be crystal clear why I'm posting this here: this is not in any way a slant against NRG:IT, who I have the utmost respect for and who simply provided a monitor which is essentially in perfect working order; it's an open question regarding the usability of the monitor given the state of the backlight uniformity.

    Any opinions/input appreciated, because I am going to have to make a decision about this relatively soon.
     
  2. bartiszon

    bartiszon Minimodder

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    Brightness at 10% seems a bit low. According to TFT Central setting of ~15% should return you a default luminance of around 120 cd/m2.
    In their review of U2713H (not HM) the luminance uniformity was even worse (only ~25% of the screen was within 10% deviance and the rest up to 28%), but apparently it wasn't a big issue for them in day to day use, so I guess it's quite subjective.

    The above most likely doesn't help you to make a decision, but how about the RTC overshoot?
    I found this pretty bad in U2413 and it didn't change by much in U3014, it might be even worse.
     
  3. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    This is what I suspected, and it is helpful to know. If the poor uniformity isn't going to be a big issue in daily use, then I can deal with it. Also , in terms of luminance, 120cd/m2 is actually quite bright for a calibrated screen; 100cd/m2 is what I'll be using.

    RTC overshoot isn't going to be a big problem for me as I probably won't be doing much gaming on the monitor, but I will check it today to see what it's like.
     
  4. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    I take that back - I just didn't check properly against a white background after removing dust from the surface of the monitor (there was a lot of dust, for some reason). The centre portion of the screen is peppered with small bruise marks and some stuck pixels too, so I'll be returning it for a refund and considering something else as an alternative. I'm pretty disappointed about this, but c'est la vie.

    Here's a picture of some of the blemish marks. They are difficult to photograph but they are obvious (and extremely irritating) against a light background.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. bartiszon

    bartiszon Minimodder

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    Gaming wasn't a big problem for me. It was just a regular use that put me off. Even browsing internet and scrolling pages up and down gave me a headache. Especially here on bit-tech the unread posts are marked in kind of yellow with blue fonts = ghosting like hell. I couldn't bare anything above 40% contrast. Not sure if this has been corrected in newer revisions though.
     
  6. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    In honesty I didn't notice ghosting when scrolling pages; more a kind of stuttering/tearing that other users had reported, but nothing unbearable.

    I'm willing to give the U3014 another shot and I'm already in line for an exchange if they have one in stock; otherwise it'll probably be a NEC or EIZO 27".
     
  7. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    LennyRhys, since you seem to be more experienced in these matters, how long does it take for a monitor's colours to fade below acceptable?
     
  8. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    The colour shouldn't really fade as such... it's normally the backlight that degrades over time, but the actual MTBF varies between manufacturers. If you run a monitor at full brightness every day, then you will certainly notice a difference after even just a year of use.

    Generally speaking you should expect to get a good few years from a monitor that is used daily; how that translates to actual hours of use depends on a few factors, eg. brightness, environment, and luck, but 30,000 hours seems to be a commonplace standard. Some hardware just fails out of the blue, in the same way that my NEC developed an intermittent fault, and that's just how things play out sometimes.

    My NEC is sitting just over 5K hours use and (fault notwithstanding) it's still every bit the high end monitor it was, with near perfect backlight uniformity and comprehensive gamut, and as such it still potentially has a few years left in it. But that damn power bug...
     
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  9. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

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  10. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    If I was a gamer, sure, but that's not why I'm buying the monitor, and it's why I'll probably end up spending considerably more on a NEC or EIZO.

    Curved screens are utterly useless for graphics professionals. ;)
     
  11. bartiszon

    bartiszon Minimodder

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    ... and don't have wide gamut.

    Not really. Remember that beast introduced in 2009: NEC CRV43?

    [​IMG]

    but in general I do agree with Lenny.
     
  12. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

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    Fair enough. Didn't know what it was to be used for.
     
  13. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    By way of an update on this experience of mine, things are starting to look up. I found an "open box" NEC PA302W for around £1,150 and I was about to take the plunge when Paypal jumped to my rescue, telling me that the seller's account is restricted.

    So I have decided to go with a replacement U3014 from NRG:IT in the hope that backlight uniformity is a little better, and there are no marks on the screen. In the meantime, I'm using the one I was given first just to see how it fares with daily use.

    My i1 Display Pro arrived today and I had a bash at calibrating the U3014 using Dell's own software. It's buggy and it's certainly not Spectraview II (oh, how I miss it!), but after fiddling with some numbers I managed to get 6517K with a black point of 0.17cd/m2 and luminance of 120cd/m2 (100 was much too dark for my environment). I'm very happy with the results, however it would be nice to get a more detailed report of the calibration process, like deltaE info for starters.

    Apparently the i1 Display Pro isn't the best for GB-R LED backlights but I'm sure it'll be fine for me.
     

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