Dell U3014 LCD Review
by Chris Heinonen on April 15, 2013 2:00 PM ESTThe Dell U3014 is rated for 350 cd/m2 on the spec sheet, but I found the most I could get it to produce was 315 cd/m2. It would likely produce more if you were to push the contrast all the way to the maximum, but doing so clips the top whites, so all your highlights suddenly become a single shade instead of distinct. It might make the numbers look worse, but not allowing clipping makes for an honest number, and 315 cd/m2 is what the U3014 can do. With the backlight at the minimum, it drops down to only 45 cd/m2 of light, which is good. That gives you lots of room to work with, and most users will be fine with these levels.
Black levels with the backlight at maximum are 0.357 cd/m2, and that drops down to 0.052 cd/m2 at minimum backlight. Dell offers a dynamic backlight on their displays where a pure black screen totally disables the backlights, giving you “infinite” contrast, but that option is disabled in the most color-accurate modes. It also seems be an all-or-nothing approach, and not one where you can selectively enable and disable part of the edge lighting. I’m not a fan of dynamic backlighting unless you have a full backlit LED array, where you can enable and disable it for parts of the screen at once, and find they are usually just tricks to make their contrast numbers seem better than they are. Dell is honest and gives you real and dynamic numbers in their specs, though.
These numbers wind up giving us a contrast ratio in the area of around 900:1. This is maintained from 0-100 percent on the backlight intensity, so it’s an honest 900:1 contrast ratio from the Dell U3014. There are some recent displays that have hit closer to 1,100:1 but these numbers are still quite good overall, and maintaining it across the whole range of brightness is ideal.
This is a decent start for the U3014, but the real question for me is if they can keep the colors accurate in all color spaces with that new G-B LED backlight system.
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Dark_Eternal - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Small typo on page 2: "256x01600"dishayu - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Small typo in the table of 2nd page. "256x01600" should read "2560x1600". I wanted one of those korean 30 inchers just because it's hard to find good 16:10 IPS panels but sadly, for reasons i can not fathom, they are almost 2x as expensive as the 27 inch 1440p counterparts. So, i eventually ended up buying a 27 inch 1440p panel. Although i'm delighted by my choice nowas this "QNIX QX2710" samsung PLS display that i bought is capable of 120Hz at 1440p without any mods and it's going for 289$ on ebay as i speak.Sabresiberian - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Have you actually clocked it @ 120Hz?dishayu - Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - link
I have a shitty GPU (HD6670) so i get artifacting in fast moving scenes at 120Hz. I'm running this at 108Hz currently and it works flawlessly.MikeMago - Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - link
Love my job, since I've been bringing in $5600… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online.(Click Home information)http://goo.gl/0jMj1
Proph3T08 - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - link
How is the input lag on the QNIX?Zibri - Friday, April 19, 2013 - link
Try the HP ZR30W. 2560x1600 wide gamut. There's also a great review here on anandtech.extide - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Have you noticed any motion artifacts (possibly due to the excessive? pixel overdrive used on this display in an attempt to decrease the advertised pixel response time)See this thread for more info: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1754377
Senti - Monday, April 15, 2013 - link
Indeed, we need usability in review, i.e. overdrive artifacts are way more important than initial color accuracy. Dell U2713H looks great on paper unless you see the movement artifacts. NEC PA271W was pretty awful in this aspect too.layte - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - link
Hi. I'm the guy whose Dell forum post was quoted in the HOCP forum post. Dell don't want to know at all about this issue. It would be good if AnandTech could put some pressure on them about the hideous pixel overdrive they have set as default.The mouse cursor on a white background is bad enough, but grey to grey is especially bad because of the overdrive.