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Hi Guys,
So my initial attempts at using 4K TVs as a computer monitor have not been great. My first was a $289 Samsung un40KU6290 from the Black Friday sale at costco. That display had a really nice picture with great contrast. The biggest downside was the poor pixel response times leaving gray smears all over. Well, and that after about 2 months it died with major screen corruption on all HDMI ports. The next display I tried was the Avera 40EQX10. It was on sale at Frys for $199 and with a 15% off google express coupon it ended up costing a rather ludicrous $187 shipped to my door. Unfortunately that's all it was worth. It was difficult to dial good colors in, and the backlight was very dim. Even though it negotiated 4:4:4 chroma over HDMI 2.0, it appeared to be 4:2:2 on the screen even at 30Hz. Most of the settings (like disabling noise reduction) were only accessible from the service menu and couldn't be permanently saved. You can see the thread for that screen here:
https://hardforum.com/threads/avera-40eqx10.1926930/
This weekend I broke down and decided to give the xpr43x800d a try since rtings gave it a good rating as a PC monitor. It is by far the most expensive at $650+tax, but still cheaper than most of the 32+" 4K PC monitors. So how does it stack up vs the other TVs? Well, the first one ended up going back. Panel uniformity was a big problem on that unit. There was a vertical shadow that went straight up and down the middle. I tried to take a picture, though I'm not sure how obvious it is here vs real life:
Depending on the background some clouding was visible too, but it was harder to capture with my phone camera. I don't think the Best Buy manager was thrilled about returning a "working" set, but they were pretty good about it in the end and let me exchange for a new unit. The replacement *still* has some uniformity issues with faint vertical streaks and clouding but it's much better than the one shown above and I think good enough for me.
Other than screen uniformity, this set is far superior to the Avera and superior generally vs the KU6290 I had. Given the price difference it really should be! Without having the 6290 here it's difficult to do direct comparisons, but just eyeballing it I think the contrast is probably in the same ballpark at the 6290, possibly a little lower. Brightness is probably lower, but still much higher than the Avera and comparable to my 24" IPS. Both the 6290 and the x800d blow the Avera out of the water.
Grey to Grey transitions look much better than the 6290. Not the best I've seen, but pretty good. Probably about the same as the Avera which was also pretty good. I don't have any means of testing input latency and I'm not a hardcore FPS gamer, but so far there doesn't appear to be any problems and rtings claims low 30s for 4:4:4 chroma in 4k game mode. Speaking of which, 4:4:4 chroma works perfectly once extended hdmi is enabled in the "home" settings and the picture mode is set to "game" in the "picture adjustments". I'm using HDMI3, but it sounds like you can also use HDMI2 which gives you a little more flexibility than the 6290.
rtings seemed to be spot on regarding color saturation, it's definitely over-saturated out of the box with color set to 60, and probably a little over saturated even with color set to "50" per the rtings settings (though it does look quite nice and I'll probably leave it there). It probably could use a bit of calibration too, but it's not bad using the warm setting (which personally I like better than expert1).
Gamma adjustment is pretty limited, but according to rtings it looks like the default hangs right around 2.2.
Probably the biggest downside to this set is that it's still a flat 43" VA panel with the associated contrast shifts as you move off-axis. It's not bad, and might actually be a little better than the 6290 was, but it's also a slightly bigger panel. Right now I've got it on a 2' deep desk and I definitely plan on getting a bigger desk and pushing it farther back.
As sort of a conclusion, I guess I'd say that in relation to sets like the 6290, this TV is more balanced. I doubt it has the peak brightness that the 6290 has and it may not have quite as high of a contrast ratio, but it's close enough to be in the same general ballpark.
To wrap things up here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
- Good color
- Good contrast (not OLED, but decent)
- Good brightness
- Good motion clarity and GTG pixel response.
- Good (but not great) input latency.
Cons:
- Both units I tested had uniformity issues, though the second was much better than the first.
- Standard VA color/contrast shift which is irritating when close to the screen.
- I hate the remote (only really a problem when adjusting settings).
- Menus in the OSD can lag (though it's not happening very much on the 2nd set).
Tips: Generally follow the rtings settings. Here's a couple of things that I had to double check since changing Picture modes might adjust them:
- Enable 4:4:4 chroma
1) home -> external inputs -> HDMI signal format -> Enhanced format
2) Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Picture mode -> Game
- Disable Light sensor
Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Light Sensor -> Off
- Set Contrast to max
Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Advanced Settings -> Contrast -> Max
- Set Color to 50
Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Color -> 50
So my initial attempts at using 4K TVs as a computer monitor have not been great. My first was a $289 Samsung un40KU6290 from the Black Friday sale at costco. That display had a really nice picture with great contrast. The biggest downside was the poor pixel response times leaving gray smears all over. Well, and that after about 2 months it died with major screen corruption on all HDMI ports. The next display I tried was the Avera 40EQX10. It was on sale at Frys for $199 and with a 15% off google express coupon it ended up costing a rather ludicrous $187 shipped to my door. Unfortunately that's all it was worth. It was difficult to dial good colors in, and the backlight was very dim. Even though it negotiated 4:4:4 chroma over HDMI 2.0, it appeared to be 4:2:2 on the screen even at 30Hz. Most of the settings (like disabling noise reduction) were only accessible from the service menu and couldn't be permanently saved. You can see the thread for that screen here:
https://hardforum.com/threads/avera-40eqx10.1926930/
This weekend I broke down and decided to give the xpr43x800d a try since rtings gave it a good rating as a PC monitor. It is by far the most expensive at $650+tax, but still cheaper than most of the 32+" 4K PC monitors. So how does it stack up vs the other TVs? Well, the first one ended up going back. Panel uniformity was a big problem on that unit. There was a vertical shadow that went straight up and down the middle. I tried to take a picture, though I'm not sure how obvious it is here vs real life:
Depending on the background some clouding was visible too, but it was harder to capture with my phone camera. I don't think the Best Buy manager was thrilled about returning a "working" set, but they were pretty good about it in the end and let me exchange for a new unit. The replacement *still* has some uniformity issues with faint vertical streaks and clouding but it's much better than the one shown above and I think good enough for me.
Other than screen uniformity, this set is far superior to the Avera and superior generally vs the KU6290 I had. Given the price difference it really should be! Without having the 6290 here it's difficult to do direct comparisons, but just eyeballing it I think the contrast is probably in the same ballpark at the 6290, possibly a little lower. Brightness is probably lower, but still much higher than the Avera and comparable to my 24" IPS. Both the 6290 and the x800d blow the Avera out of the water.
Grey to Grey transitions look much better than the 6290. Not the best I've seen, but pretty good. Probably about the same as the Avera which was also pretty good. I don't have any means of testing input latency and I'm not a hardcore FPS gamer, but so far there doesn't appear to be any problems and rtings claims low 30s for 4:4:4 chroma in 4k game mode. Speaking of which, 4:4:4 chroma works perfectly once extended hdmi is enabled in the "home" settings and the picture mode is set to "game" in the "picture adjustments". I'm using HDMI3, but it sounds like you can also use HDMI2 which gives you a little more flexibility than the 6290.
rtings seemed to be spot on regarding color saturation, it's definitely over-saturated out of the box with color set to 60, and probably a little over saturated even with color set to "50" per the rtings settings (though it does look quite nice and I'll probably leave it there). It probably could use a bit of calibration too, but it's not bad using the warm setting (which personally I like better than expert1).
Gamma adjustment is pretty limited, but according to rtings it looks like the default hangs right around 2.2.
Probably the biggest downside to this set is that it's still a flat 43" VA panel with the associated contrast shifts as you move off-axis. It's not bad, and might actually be a little better than the 6290 was, but it's also a slightly bigger panel. Right now I've got it on a 2' deep desk and I definitely plan on getting a bigger desk and pushing it farther back.
As sort of a conclusion, I guess I'd say that in relation to sets like the 6290, this TV is more balanced. I doubt it has the peak brightness that the 6290 has and it may not have quite as high of a contrast ratio, but it's close enough to be in the same general ballpark.
To wrap things up here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
- Good color
- Good contrast (not OLED, but decent)
- Good brightness
- Good motion clarity and GTG pixel response.
- Good (but not great) input latency.
Cons:
- Both units I tested had uniformity issues, though the second was much better than the first.
- Standard VA color/contrast shift which is irritating when close to the screen.
- I hate the remote (only really a problem when adjusting settings).
- Menus in the OSD can lag (though it's not happening very much on the 2nd set).
Tips: Generally follow the rtings settings. Here's a couple of things that I had to double check since changing Picture modes might adjust them:
- Enable 4:4:4 chroma
1) home -> external inputs -> HDMI signal format -> Enhanced format
2) Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Picture mode -> Game
- Disable Light sensor
Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Light Sensor -> Off
- Set Contrast to max
Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Advanced Settings -> Contrast -> Max
- Set Color to 50
Action Menu -> Picture adjustment -> Color -> 50
So far I've just been using it as a monitor which has been working quite well. I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping it.