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This summer I went down the rabbit hole of 4k gopro drone photography and I now have a mountain of 4k video that I need to spend the autumn editing into thrilling instagram clips. I can make a decent enough case to myself to buy a good 4k IPS monitor with which to admire said video. Because this is (mainly) a media creation use and (mostly) not gaming, an IPS panel seems like the right place to start and those monitors seem to be starting to come in at around the right price point. I've looked at some of the cheaper Samsung/AOC/Acer TN 4k panels and they just don't look as vibrant. I'm currently using a Dell U2711 which has been a workhorse of a monitor and a joy to use, and it seems that the new Dell P2715Q is the best option for the price, size, and features I'm looking for (not to mention that they should look good beside each other on my desk). I had it in my mind to wait for Black Friday and see if I can snag a really good deal, but I'm not sure if I should just buy it now. Has anyone got this monitor? Is it good? Is there a better alternative on the market?

Thanks in advance,

-(A)-

Whatever 4k monitor you choose IMHO the bigger the better. I feel the ones under 30" especially 28" ones are way too small for so many pixels. I wonder if they make a mice 4k tv that will do 60hrtz on a HDMI2 capable video card like a Nvidia 950 if you're not gaming.

Whatever you decide ENJOY!

Aye, having used 4k at 28" and 15.6", I can confirm that it's pointless without more physical size. I've even come across 3200x1800 on a 13" laptop and it's laughably unusable.

4K is a 32" resolution, or larger. The extra DPI is nice, up until the point that really can't appreciate it, and text-scaling around the web and older applications is still bad enough that you don't really want to have to run anything other than 100%

Put it this way, 4K on a 28" screen is 50% sharper and smaller than the typical 24" 1080p panels. It's sharp in a pleasing way but graphics and raster work is still large enough that there's some point to it. Good eyesight strongly recommended, 32" would be better I think, though my only other experience is a 42" curved TV and that was lovely but genuinely too large to use as close as a monitor.

If you want something thats going to last, you should really wait for Rec.2020 4K monitors to come out. The first Rec.2020 UHD Blu Rays and players are about to be released. Buying an sRGB or even Adobe RGB 4K monitor now is pretty pointless.

And panel type is really less important than the backlight.
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I have a Dell P2415Q, 4k in 24 inch. For one thing I like uncommon stuff, but also because it's exactly double the pixel density of another old display I'll be using at the same time. I really liked it but I can see how if you just use one display, 27" might be a better choice, because that would still give you relatively good density but allow you to use less scaling and more screen space.

If you want to read up on the details:
http://chenstech.blogspot.ca/2015/03/de ... eview.html

BlackDove wrote:

If you want something thats going to last, you should really wait for Rec.2020 4K monitors to come out. The first Rec.2020 UHD Blu Rays and players are about to be released. Buying an sRGB or even Adobe RGB 4K monitor now is pretty pointless.

And panel type is really less important than the backlight.
.

I don't think that would work because rec.2020 is just insanely challenging. It's like what? 4k 120Hz? You need to wait for the next generation of connectors just for that. And then there are crazy color specifications that are just impossible with LCD technology, so it's also gotta be OLED. Also like any new tech, it's going to be crazy expensive when it finally does become available like, 3 years from now? And I'd say at least 5 to 10 years before that becomes affordable.

144 Hz 1440p > 60 Hz 4K

Prestige Worldwide wrote:

144 Hz 1440p > 60 Hz 4K

yes get a 144z monitor for photo editing for better smoothness in transition when you slide the exposure.

Not gonna lie, didn't read OP.

chengong wrote:

I have a Dell P2415Q, 4k in 24 inch. For one thing I like uncommon stuff, but also because it's exactly double the pixel density of another old display I'll be using at the same time. I really liked it but I can see how if you just use one display, 27" might be a better choice, because that would still give you relatively good density but allow you to use less scaling and more screen space.

If you want to read up on the details:
http://chenstech.blogspot.ca/2015/03/de ... eview.html

BlackDove wrote:

If you want something thats going to last, you should really wait for Rec.2020 4K monitors to come out. The first Rec.2020 UHD Blu Rays and players are about to be released. Buying an sRGB or even Adobe RGB 4K monitor now is pretty pointless.

And panel type is really less important than the backlight.
.

I don't think that would work because rec.2020 is just insanely challenging. It's like what? 4k 120Hz? You need to wait for the next generation of connectors just for that. And then there are crazy color specifications that are just impossible with LCD technology, so it's also gotta be OLED. Also like any new tech, it's going to be crazy expensive when it finally does become available like, 3 years from now? And I'd say at least 5 to 10 years before that becomes affordable.

Actually Rec.2020 is possible with quantum dot enhanced LED backlights which are currently in use(not currently Rec.2020) on some TVs and monitors. It doesnt have to be OLED but i do like OLED.

The connectors are an issue but UHD Blu Ray is Rec.2020 so that should help. And all 4K TVs are supposed to be 120Hz anyway. You would need a GP100 GPU. Thats all stuff thats coming out this year or next.

Considering that 4K 120Hz HDR quantum dot and OLED TVs exist right now, its just changing the primaries because Rec.2020 even uses the same D65 white point as everything else.

Interesting review, chengong. I like high density displays but yeah, scaling is a big issue.

BlackDove wrote:

chengong wrote:

I have a Dell P2415Q, 4k in 24 inch. For one thing I like uncommon stuff, but also because it's exactly double the pixel density of another old display I'll be using at the same time. I really liked it but I can see how if you just use one display, 27" might be a better choice, because that would still give you relatively good density but allow you to use less scaling and more screen space.

If you want to read up on the details:
http://chenstech.blogspot.ca/2015/03/de ... eview.html

BlackDove wrote:

If you want something thats going to last, you should really wait for Rec.2020 4K monitors to come out. The first Rec.2020 UHD Blu Rays and players are about to be released. Buying an sRGB or even Adobe RGB 4K monitor now is pretty pointless.

And panel type is really less important than the backlight.
.

I don't think that would work because rec.2020 is just insanely challenging. It's like what? 4k 120Hz? You need to wait for the next generation of connectors just for that. And then there are crazy color specifications that are just impossible with LCD technology, so it's also gotta be OLED. Also like any new tech, it's going to be crazy expensive when it finally does become available like, 3 years from now? And I'd say at least 5 to 10 years before that becomes affordable.

Actually Rec.2020 is possible with quantum dot enhanced LED backlights which are currently in use(not currently Rec.2020) on some TVs and monitors. It doesnt have to be OLED but i do like OLED.

The connectors are an issue but UHD Blu Ray is Rec.2020 so that should help. And all 4K TVs are supposed to be 120Hz anyway. You would need a GP100 GPU. Thats all stuff thats coming out this year or next.

Considering that 4K 120Hz HDR quantum dot and OLED TVs exist right now, its just changing the primaries because Rec.2020 even uses the same D65 white point as everything else.

And how much are those HDR UHD 120HZ OLED/QDOTLCD HDTVs? Are there any graphics cards that support any of this? Are there any OSs that support system wide wide gamut? Is there even a standard for displaying HDR content?

You know we did have 4k displays 10 years ago, even now most people don't yet have 4k. You're way ahead of yourself if you try to wait for full rec. 2020.

mako wrote:

Interesting review, chengong. I like high density displays but yeah, scaling is a big issue.

It's not that bad honestly, most mainstream softwares support scaling properly. Most of the things I have problems are niche things, for example, repacked pirated games have installers that completely mess up in high DPI environment and you can't click on any of the check boxes.

Other than that, things like web browsers, office, Photoshop, they all work just like on OSX, flawlessly.

Theyre usually $1000 to a few thousand dollars, which is the same as a good 1080p TV was a few years ago and still is considering how bad TVs have gotten below $1000. Thats mostly because the ones that have good color now are huge 55" TVs and have a bunch of useless "smart" features.

OLED and quantum dot TVs arent that expensive now and theyre getting cheaper. LG, Samsung and Sony all make quantum dot or OLED TVs right now so its not like its getting ahead of myself to wait until next year to buy something ill keep for several years.

I definjtely wouldnt buy an expensive 4K monitor right now since youd be getting sRGB, DCI-P3 or Adobe RGB which are all smaller than and about to be replaced by Rec.2020.

Rec.2020 is just the next Rec.709 sRGB standard so its going to be everywhere. Rec.2020 UHD Blu Rays will be out in a couple of months.

BlackDove wrote:

Theyre usually $1000 to a few thousand dollars, which is the same as a good 1080p TV was a few years ago and still is considering how bad TVs have gotten below $1000. Thats mostly because the ones that have good color now are huge 55" TVs and have a bunch of useless "smart" features.

OLED and quantum dot TVs arent that expensive now and theyre getting cheaper. LG, Samsung and Sony all make quantum dot or OLED TVs right now so its not like its getting ahead of myself to wait until next year to buy something ill keep for several years.

I definjtely wouldnt buy an expensive 4K monitor right now since youd be getting sRGB, DCI-P3 or Adobe RGB which are all smaller than and about to be replaced by Rec.2020.

Rec.2020 is just the next Rec.709 sRGB standard so its going to be everywhere. Rec.2020 UHD Blu Rays will be out in a couple of months.

Let me just explain this color standard thing a little bit here. Right now, on Windows, doing anything non-standard is a stretch. If you have an Adobe RGB calibrated monitor for example, most things you use that monitor for, will be screwed up. If you have a video, most likely it won't play properly because the video player doesn't have color management and it will put all the sRGB greens as Adobe RGB greens so they'll be totally exaggerated. None of the full screen 3D content support any kind of color management, too all your games will be screwed up as well. And that's just the color profile issue, up until now we have been living under the assumption that everything will simply be sRGB so we're not even ready to begin the move to any other color standards yet.

Now let's talk about the bit depth issue, rec.2020 requires 10-bit or 12-bit depth. Windows is the only OS that supports 10-bit as of now, and it requires you to turn off hardware desktop compositing, so you're back to Windows 7 basic themes and everything is in software, just so that 10-bit could work, in like 3 applications that support it, one of which is Photoshop. But that's not enough, you'll also need a Quadro FX or Fire GL graphics card that support Open GL 10-bit mode. I know your gaming card now day have a 10-bit option in the control panel but trust me none of them do anything because those are Direct X 10-bit mode, see how screwed up the standards are?

Finally, let's talk about HDR, this is a short one because nothing supports anything remotely resembling HDR output, so that's the end of it.

We're NOT EVEN CLOSE to achieving consumer availability for rec.2020 displays.

I realize how screwed up the standards are, except that a Rec.2020 monitor can easily emulate sRGB since the white points are the same.

The bit depth support can be added in drivers pretty easily since Rec.2020 can be 10 or 12bit. A Quadro also uses the same chips as a Geforce.

You have a serious Rec.2020 agenda! What gives?

Nobody else believes it will make a difference, history has proven that new standards take *forever* to become mainstream and the technology required to comply with Rec.2020 barely even exists - it's certainly exotic and expensive for the next half decade.

BlackDove wrote:

I realize how screwed up the standards are, except that a Rec.2020 monitor can easily emulate sRGB since the white points are the same.

The bit depth support can be added in drivers pretty easily since Rec.2020 can be 10 or 12bit. A Quadro also uses the same chips as a Geforce.

So we should buy a rec.2020 display right now for like 20k, use it on sRGB 60hz non-HDR mode for 10 years as we wait for everything else to catch up. And then throw it out because by that time you can buy a better display for 1/100 the price?

Nothing you say makes any sense, of course you can run a higher gamut display in sRGB mode, and it has nothing to do with the white point. You can run it at any white point there is no difference.
The high bit depth issue is not a drive issue. Even if we all had Quadros it still is an issue. And that being no modern GPU accelerated desktop manager is capable of rendering in high bit depth, and that is because there is no standard support for it in either Direct X or Open GL. First there would have to be a widely agreed upon standard, and then you modify all the operating systems to support them and then having that support on your graphics card can help.
This is a purely an issue with standards and no processing power everybody knows it, we've been doing HDR in rendering for over a decade now, and with the right pipeline you could easily output that raw data in floating point or something. Except that the standard today dictate that we all have to down sample that to 256 levels of brightness on 3 channels.

Lol $20,000? More like the current $2,500-5,000 for a 55" 4K quantum dot or OLED TV. Rec.2020 isnt like OLED was a few years ago. It doesnt need totally new technologies. It needs better versions of EXISTING technologies and only small modifications to them.

You do realize that Rec.2020 is going to be one of the most widely used standards and UHDTV, UHD Blu Ray and digital cinema will all be able to adopt it very quickly. Youre making it sound really difficult but Rec.2020 is basically the DCI-P3 red and blue with Adobe RGBs green primary and the standard for 10-12bit 4K or 8K video.

There are TVs and monitors that could get close now but they havent had a REASON to make consumer Rec.2020 stuff yet so they keep selling "fake" UHD TVs. When UHD Blu Rays come out then consumer TVs will have a new thing to market and get people to BUY TVs: reak UHD 4K capability.

BlackDove wrote:

Lol $20,000? More like the current $2,500-5,000 for a 55" 4K quantum dot or OLED TV. Rec.2020 isnt like OLED was a few years ago. It doesnt need totally new technologies. It needs better versions of EXISTING technologies and only small modifications to them.

You do realize that Rec.2020 is going to be one of the most widely used standards and UHDTV, UHD Blu Ray and digital cinema will all be able to adopt it very quickly. Youre making it sound really difficult but Rec.2020 is basically the DCI-P3 red and blue with Adobe RGBs green primary and the standard for 10-12bit 4K or 8K video.

There are TVs and monitors that could get close now but they havent had a REASON to make consumer Rec.2020 stuff yet so they keep selling "fake" UHD TVs. When UHD Blu Rays come out then consumer TVs will have a new thing to market and get people to BUY TVs: reak UHD 4K capability.

except that the $5000 ones don't support rec.2020 in any way. Everyone knows you're not making any sense if you didn't know what rec.2020 was and just wanted to be future proof, well now you do, it's time to back down.
It's not going to be one of the most widely used, it's going to be THE most widely used, like sRGB is today. Nobody is doubting that. It just won't even begin to happen before the year 2020. that's why it's stupid to even consider it as a factor for purchasing displays TODAY. It's not me making it sound difficult, it IS difficult.

chengong wrote:

BlackDove wrote:

Lol $20,000? More like the current $2,500-5,000 for a 55" 4K quantum dot or OLED TV. Rec.2020 isnt like OLED was a few years ago. It doesnt need totally new technologies. It needs better versions of EXISTING technologies and only small modifications to them.

You do realize that Rec.2020 is going to be one of the most widely used standards and UHDTV, UHD Blu Ray and digital cinema will all be able to adopt it very quickly. Youre making it sound really difficult but Rec.2020 is basically the DCI-P3 red and blue with Adobe RGBs green primary and the standard for 10-12bit 4K or 8K video.

There are TVs and monitors that could get close now but they havent had a REASON to make consumer Rec.2020 stuff yet so they keep selling "fake" UHD TVs. When UHD Blu Rays come out then consumer TVs will have a new thing to market and get people to BUY TVs: reak UHD 4K capability.

except that the $5000 ones don't support rec.2020 in any way. Everyone knows you're not making any sense if you didn't know what rec.2020 was and just wanted to be future proof, well now you do, it's time to back down.
It's not going to be one of the most widely used, it's going to be THE most widely used, like sRGB is today. Nobody is doubting that. It just won't even begin to happen before the year 2020. that's why it's stupid to even consider it as a factor for purchasing displays TODAY. It's not me making it sound difficult, it IS difficult.

I know exactly what Rec.2020 is.

You dont seem to realize that the $1,000-5,000 ones only need modifications to their primaries(accomplished with OLED or quantum dots which are both CURRENTLY used in inexpensive devices) and an increase in bit depth(10 and 12bit LCDs exist now) to make them Rec.2020 compliant.

And you think that Rec.2020 Blu Rays and players are going to be on the market for 5 years before TVs BEGIN to come out for that same standard? I guess that UHD Blu Ray is never going to be popular then, or even UHDTV lol.

Personally I'm to wait about four years when I do my next build before even considering getting a 4K monitor. Basically I'm waiting for all the quirks to be fixed first.

At $450, the Dell P2715Q's price makes it attractive vs. the UP3214Q.

At $450, the Dell P2715Q's price makes it attractive vs. the UP3214Q.

True, but at 27" the 4K resolution will make the UI and fonts to small for me to comfortably see.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

At $450, the Dell P2715Q's price makes it attractive vs. the UP3214Q.

I have this monitor. The screen does require scaling to use comfortably but it's a great looking screen. I've only had it a couple weeks now and loving it.

I just bought the P2715q on Black Friday. It is normally $899CAD but was on sale for $599. I can't wait!!!!