Review : Asus PA246Q - 24" IPS Eye candy

Asus PA246Q

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Introduction

I still remember the day when I moved from my CRT desktop monitor to my first LCD Screen. It was a TN panel and my impression was of washed out colors compared to the CRT. Later I came across IPS panels and since then I have been fascinated by IPS technology and their color reproduction, though its market penetration has been somewhat limited when compared to the more affordable and easier to produce TN panel. Even today the scenario is more or less the same. There are very few manufactures with a good IPS panels.

Asus can now boasts a 24" IPS panel - The " PA246Q" from their ProArt Series. This LCD panel comes with the usual resolution of 1920*1200. Offers 1.07 billion colors, a 8-bit panel + FRC (10 bit as claimed by Asus)* and covers 98% of adobe RGB. With the following specifications on paper the PA246Q should be able to reproduce colors as real as possible. Does it ? Lets read on.

*For 10 bit color you need to have GPU and application which can support the same

Specification

 

[Saiyan]

re: Review : Asus PA246Q - 24" IPS Eye candy

Package and Accessories

The graphics on the box is simple and neat at the same time looked inviting (minus all those tapes). As soon as you open it you can find the quick start guide, support CD, Color calibration Testing report sheet and all required cable including the HDMI, Display Port ,DVI and the USB cable. The LCD comes with the support stand fixed and firmly secured in the box in the portrait mode as shown in the picture, so you don't need to assemble anything manually. Connect the power cable and the display cable, you are good to go.

Design

With companies opting for more glossy design for their panels. Asus comes with a matte finish and a very simple and neat design. It is a bit thick given the number of ports it comes with. The buttons are placed in the lower right corner. They give a good tactile response and are spaced fairly well. The entire unit including the stand is really sturdy and has got a good height and swivel range. You can tilt adjust the panel from -5° to +20° and rotate it 90° from landscape to portrait mode. Asus has shown its love for red by including a stripe in the lower bezel.

The output ports, power input and hard switch are placed in the rear bottom and the USB port plus the card reader are placed in the left side of the monitor.











OSD Controls

The OSD controls requires a special mentioning here. A very simple menu, easy to navigate and Asus have included all the required options including the 6-axis color adjustment which will be required by a graphics professionals. Name the control you want and it'll be there. In the user mode you can just play around with all the possible settings . Asus have included 6 preset modes - Adobe RGB Mode/sRGB Mode/Scenery Mode/Theater Mode/Standard Mode/User Mode.

Quick Fit Grids - Professional tag is written all over this. With push of the extreme left button you can get the grid layout of a 8” x 10” / 5” x 7” and 4”x6” / 3”x5” / 2” x 2” photo, Letter (Portrait & Landscape), A4 (portrait & Landscape), a 1*1cm and a .25"*.25" Grid. This will be a very useful feature for the designers.

 

[Saiyan]

Test Bench

Xbox - HDMI

PC - AMD HD5850-Display Port

Image Quality & Observation

This is the major part of the reason why one would buy this kind of LCD. Do note below observations are purely mine and can be speculative. So as soon as i switched on the LCD and did a factory reset. I was greeted with some really good colors. Refreshing change from the array of TN panels surrounding us. Freaky was with me when i was doing the initial check and his comments and mine were in sync. The colors appeared to true to the eyes. Preset was kept in the standard mode and I connected the Xbox 360 and fired up "Fruit Ninja". The colors were fantastic, the pictures here will not do justice to the IQ of this LCD. I was expecting such colors from this LCD and was not let down.

Black is strictly ok in this unit. Notch down the brightness a bit like always and the black should look fine. This is something that can be found in most of the IPS panels.

Spyder 3 Elite Calibration - Thanks to the Spyder 3 elite i didn't do much of any manual calibration. Spyder 3 measured the Ambient light and suggest the brightness level (120 cd/m2), gamma was at default 2.2. After the calibration I felt the colors were a bit more accurate and to my likeness.

Color Gamut - Below is the gamut graph of this display's color saturation. Red is the color corrected profile using the Spyder 3 and the violet is the default Adobe RGB for comparison. Wide color gamut as expected.

Screen uniformity - with brightness set at 50% the variation from the center to other quadrants in the panel ranged from 1 % to 17% with the top area suffering much of the variation. Though in the real life condition didn't make much difference to my eyes. I don't think anyone would notice it either.

Gaming & Movies - I tried Fruit Ninja (Xbox), Forza 2 (Xbox) and FEAR 3 (PC). Kept the Movie preset mode where the gamma is set at 1.8. Didn't notice any ghosting.

As for movies. Tried Hitman Blu Ray and it came out very well. Loved the colors.

Viewing Angle

One of the strong points of any IPS display and this is no exception - 178°.

 

[Saiyan]

Conclusion

Asus PA246Q stands out among the crowd of panels available in market today. In the 24" segment it is there along with the Dell Ultra Sharp 2410. PA246Q offers lots of options to the user. I really couldn't nitpick any issues with it apart from the black level. For some might find the design odd compared the models available today, this area is very subjective again. Though originally targeted towards the professional segment, when has that ever stopped us from getting the best provided we got the money. Be it image editing, gaming, movie watching PA246Q doesn't disappoints a bit. Pricing can do away with some revision to attract more buyers.

Warranty -

Warranty Period : 36 Months onsite support in 94 cities

DOA Period : 7 days from the date of end user invoice

Pricing - ~ Rs.27,000

Summing it up

Pros

• 10 Bit IPS Panel
  
• Good color reproduction with the factory calibrated preset (Adobe RGB/sRGB)
  
• 16:10 Ratio
  
• Matte Finish
  
• Good selection of all the available ports
  
• Inclusion of DVI, VGA, Display Port and USB cables.
  
• No manual assembling required. Remove the unit from the box and use it.
  
• Wide color Gamut
  

Cons

• Uniformity of the brightness is a concern but in real world not much noticeable difference.
  
• Black levels are strictly ok.
  

Special thanks to

• Asus for providing us with this unit for the review.
  
• Datacolor, Hong Kong for sponsoring TechEnclave with the "Spyder 3 Elite" for review purpose.
  

 

[bottle]

re: Review : Asus PA246Q - 24" IPS Eye candy

Nice Review!

 

[Gannu]

Nicely compiled Divya! :thumb:

 

[Dark Star]

Nice review

Keep up the good work

 

[sarang]

Good job Divya! Any backlight bleed shots in Complete dark would further help comparison. As it is its only between these two (U2410 and this) for a fight in the Indian market right now.

 

[Supra]

Nice Review ...Its too pricey though...make it around 20k or so and ppl will lap it up.

 

[Saiyan]

Will see if i have any pictures, have returned this Unit back to Asus. I just have feeling that you shouldn't judge the backlight bleeding based on a single unit. I have seen really horrible bleed with the U2410 as well. As far as this unit is concerned with the brightness increased there were some visible bleeding. But at optimal brightness setting i didn't find any issues besides i use it usually in dark.

 

[Saiyan]

Nice Review ...Its too pricey though...make it around 20k or so and ppl will lap it up.

True but even in US this is retailing for 500$+tax, same as the Dell U2410.

 

[asingh]

Good review Saar. Informative and to the point. Hoping for many more like this.

 

[nish_pinto]

Very nice review saaar.

 

[mjumrani]

Good review

One question, is there a software which will allow manual calibration of an IPS panel?

I need one and google is not very helpful

 

[Freaky]

Good job Divya! Any backlight bleed shots in Complete dark would further help comparison. As it is its only between these two (U2410 and this) for a fight in the Indian market right now.

Actually yes. There is a picture I took showing bleeding but that apparently disappeared after reducing brightness / calibration. So, that cannot be actually called bleeding in this case

Sent from Alienated MAtrix using T'Talk Pro

 

[Saiyan]

Good review

One question, is there a software which will allow manual calibration of an IPS panel?

I need one and google is not very helpful

Don't know any.Sorry. If possible you can try your hands on the Spyder 3 express. Few years back quite a few members bought one and were happy with it.

Added couple of more pictures.

 

[Saiyan]

Have updated the Warranty details here

Onsite service location

Agartala | Calicut |Gorakhpur|Jamshedpur|Mysore|Salem|Tirunelveli
Agra| Chandigarh| Gurgaon | Kanpur| Nagpur| Sangli| Tirupur
Ahmedabad| Chennai| Guwahati| Karnal| Namakkal| Shimla| Trichy
Allahabad| Chrawa| Haldwani| Kolhapur| Nanded| Sikar| Trivandrum
Alwar Cochin |Hubli| Kolkata| Nashik| Silchar| Udaipur |Vadodara
Amravati |Coimbatore |Hyderabad |Kota | Parwanoo |Siliguri |Vashi
Amritsar |Cuttack |Imphal |Kottayam |Patna |Solapur |Vasai
Aurangabad |Dehradun |Indore |Lucknow |Pondycherry |Srinagar|Vijaywada
Bangalore |Delhi |Jabalpur |Ludhiana |Pune |Surat | Vishkhapatnam
Beharampur |Dhanbad |Jaipur |Madurai |Raipur |Thane
Belgum |Dombivali | Jalandhar |Mangalore |Rajkot |Thanjavur
Berhampur | Durgapur | Jalna | Mathura | Rampurhat | Thoothukudi
Bhopal |Ghaziabad |Jammu |Moga | Ranchi | Thrissur
Bhubneshwar |Goa |Jamnagar | Mumbai |Rishikesh |Tiruchi

 

[SwOrd_K]

nice review..

 

[cranky]

Two questions:

1. Does it have the white 'shimmer' common to all IPS panels? Noticeable when viewing prominently white screen with small type.

2. Is it a proper 10-bit panel or 8bit + compression?

Nice review

 

[surya_neo]

Nice review...How does it compare to Dell U2410..I am thinking of getting Dell One..just wanted to check if this is better than U2410...How about that Spyder Elite..Do all IPS panels have to be calibrated using these..aren't the factory settings good enough for watching movies and games..