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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Filiprino - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - link
Your source of lag must be the use of HDMI.cheinonen - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
HDMI and DisplayPort were virtually identical in this regard.red5un - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - link
How does the new dell stack up against the NEC PA30 color wise? Love your new testing methodology but I wish there was a way to see a direct comparison. Is there a possibility of you guys retesting some of the higher end monitors? Are LED monitors finally ready to do color critical work? We do print and commercial VFX work and the NEC's are great but recalibrating every week plus knowing the CFL's are slowly dying I'm wondering if LED will be the answer.cheinonen - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
I have no idea how the NEC 30" would fare, as I only tested the 27", and that was with the older test format. Getting in an older monitor is less likely to happen, if only because manufacturers often don't have review samples of displays that are older laying around anymore. I'll see what possibility exists, though it would more likely just be a quick review with only the test data, and not the in-depth commentary, since that has been covered before.soerenL - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Thanks for enlightening article!New to wide gamut and display profiling, have been reading a bit about it around the net, but would like know if my workflow makes any sense. Asked this in Dell forums also, apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to ask!
My primary objective is to have accurate colors in Maya and Photoshop. Secondary objective is to have accurate colors in games.
I should use sRGB emulation in Maya, and other non color managed applications, and adobeRGB in photoshop and firefox ?
I should profile the display with the provided Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration software, and store a sRGB calibration profile for example in CAL1, and a adobeRGB calibration profile in CAL2. And have the Dell Display Manager switch to CAL2 when using photoshop, and to CAL1 for all applications that aren't color managed ?
i1Profiler (the software that came with the i1Display Pro) can monitor ambient light, and automaticly reprofile based on changes in ambient light. The Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration software doesn't mention measuring ambient light at all, so I don't think the software have that capability ? Is there a way of using the hardware calibration in U3014 and ambient light measurements at the same time ? Would it be ok to install both i1Profiler and the Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration software, at the same time, do first the hardware calibration with the dell software, and then have the i1Profiler build a (software?) profile, that would mostly just reflect changes in ambient light ?
For accurate colors in games (if at all possible) I should use the games preset (to reduce lag) and then use i1Profiler to create a profile ?
sherlockwing - Friday, April 19, 2013 - link
For $1400 Dell should at least consider going up to 2880X1800 for a 16:10 monitor.Zibri - Friday, April 19, 2013 - link
I still think 2010 HP ZR30W is better than this.Oxford Guy - Sunday, April 21, 2013 - link
The u2412m has higher contrast because it's e-IPS. e-IPS has a simpler pixel structure that allows more light to be transmitted. However, e-IPS monitors always come with just 6-bit color and the thin paper used in the u2412m leads to mediocre uniformity.Also, there isn't a single A-MVA panel in your chart which makes your black level/contrast ratio comparison lack adequate perspective. You should include the best and the poorest in your charts, to provide perspective -- especially the best. The best contrast ratio would be from A-MVA.
ZoeAnderson24 - Monday, April 22, 2013 - link
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Great article!Btw, how come the lag numbers are diametrically opposite to the ones in http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u3014.htm review, where it scored with the lowest lag compared to all tested monitors (some of them tested in this article too)? Could you have perhaps resetted the "Game Mode" setting by accident, or something similar?