Nixeus VUE 30: 30" 2560x1600 IPS Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 20, 2013 6:00 AM EST
Over the past 18 months, we’ve all been happy to watch as the price of 27” 1440p monitors has steadily fallen. With cheaper import panels becoming available, the cost of moving up to a high resolution panel has fallen considerably. I reviewed the Nixeus VUE 27 last year as it was the cheapest way at the time to get a 1440p panel while still getting a US warranty. Now Nixeus is back with a 30” monitor, the Nixeus VUE 30. With the 16:10 aspect ratio that commenters continually ask for and an IPS panel, will this mark the shift of a downward trend for 30” monitor prices as well?
The design of the VUE 30 is similar to the VUE 27 that I previously reviewed. The controls for the display remain in the lower-right and it has the same OSD interface of its predecessor. Since the OSD was one of my faults with the VUE 27 I was hoping to see this improve but it did not. A welcome change, which I also saw on the ASUS PQ321Q, is locating the inputs on the left side of the display and not the bottom. This makes them far more accessible for quickly hooking up a device like a laptop. As the VUE 30 is so large due to the screen size, it has plenty of space to connect cables without them sticking out the sides of the display.
The connections options consist of DisplayPort, DSub, DVI, and HDMI, along with an audio output for headphones. The HDMI port is listed as 1.4a but it does not support 2560x1600 resolutions; if you want the full 2560x1600 resolution you will need to use a DVI-DL or DisplayPort connection. The back of the display is very solid and metal, but the front is a glossy plastic bezel that I would prefer be matte.
As with the VUE 27 the stand for the monitor screws together with some small screws and not with captive screws or a tool-free mechanism. Compared to the VUE 27 the packaging has greatly improved. Parts are well laid out in the package, and there are no cheap boxes or labels that look like it was transferred straight from a foreign assembly line. The initial feeling of opening the VUE 27 was one of my complaints, as it felt cheap and rushed. Nixeus has learned from that and the packing and presentation of the VUE 30 is much improved.
The stand is also improved from the VUE 27 model. It allows for an easier swivel but lacks any height adjustment and is not as solid as a Dell or ASUS stand would be. The VESA mounting holes are a less common 200mm x 100mm pattern, so aftermarket stands might require an additional adapter to be used. The external power brick and its custom connector have been replaced with a standard IEC port, reducing desk clutter.
One key difference with the VUE 30 from other affordable displays is the use of a wide gamut CCFL backlight. This allows for a gamut that goes well beyond the AdobeRGB gamut, as the testing will show later, and is not common to find except in displays aimed at graphics professionals. The displays that target graphics professionals also tend to have sRGB modes to reign in that gamut but the Nixeus does not. We will see in our testing the behavior that this causes.
| Nixeus VUE30 | |
| Video Inputs | DisplayPort 1.2, DVI-D DL, HDMI 1.4a, Dsub |
| Panel Type | IPS |
| Pixel Pitch | 0.25mm |
| Colors | 1.07 Billion |
| Brightness | 350 cd/m2 |
| Contrast Ratio | 1000:1 |
| Response Time | 7ms GTG |
| Viewable Size | 30" |
| Resolution | 2560x1600 |
| Viewing Angle (H/V) | 178/178 |
| Backlight | CCFL |
| Power Consumption (operation) | 130W minimum |
| Power Consumption (standby) | None Specified |
| Screen Treatment | Anti-Glare |
| Height-Adjustable | No |
| Tilt | No |
| Pivot | No |
| Swivel | Yes |
| VESA Wall Mounting | Yes, 100mm x 200mm |
| Dimensions w/ Base (WxHxD) | 27.5" x 22" x 3" |
| Weight | 22 lbs. |
| Additional Features | 3.5mm Output, stereo speakers |
| Limited Warranty | 1 Year |
| Accessories | DVI-DL Cable, Power Cable |
| Price | $730 |
With an IPS panel, the viewing angles on the VUE 30 are what you expect. Unless you try to sit perpendicular to the display you should be just fine. There is a bit of contrast wash-out at the extreme angles, but nothing you will see in daily use.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
95 Comments
View All Comments
blackoctagon - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Glad to hear you're so insensitive to input lag. However, what you experience is by no means the cream of the crop. One can maintain the pleasant colours of IPS and still have good motion clarity by getting one of the overclockable 27-inch 1440p screens. Their input lag is much less, and further mitigated by the (approx.) 120Hz refresh rate. Orders of magnitude better for FPS gaming than what a 30-inch IPS screen can deliverDanNeely - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
The 2408 was infamously bad. Unlike previous laggy Dell panels that only bothered some gamers the 2408 was slow enough that it annoyed a lot of people who were just working at the desktop. While continuing to insist nothing was wrong and it was working as designed; Dell/etc pulled back (and eventually started listing it on their spec sheets) and the display industry generally insisted on nothing slower than ~2 frames (32ms) which are good enough that no one other than some action gamers complain. I occasionally notice what might be the 30ms on my NEC 3090 when playing POE (an aRPG); but it's intermittent enough I'm not sure if it's actually panel lag or just me hitting the limits of my reaction time.ZeDestructor - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
>overclockable 27-inch 1440p screensRPS or bit-tech (can't remember which) tested that when the Titan came out. They only achieved ~72Hz before the panel itself just started dropping frames because it couldn't keep up.
Besides, as I said up there, image processing and DP->LVDS conversion takes time. constant time, but time nonetheless. If you had a TN panel at 2560x1600@60Hz, you'd see at least 12ms of processing lag + some more for the panel itself. If you can rip out the on-board processing entirely, you're reducing the lag quite a a bit, which is exactly what game modes do: pipe the signal straight to LVDS conversion with no post-processing. On the U2410, that drops the latency from ~30ms to ~14ms.
In any case, you missed the point of my comment, where I mentioned it being in the same range as most other wide-gamut, professional-use panels and perfectly fine for single-player gaming, where you can learn to compensate for it. Hell, my LoL-playing friends used to pull off skillshots by timing it just right with a a 300ms ping time to US servers. If you think 30ms is bad...
blackoctagon - Tuesday, August 27, 2013 - link
I would like to see this "RPS or bit-tech" review if you can find it. There are plenty of 2560x1440 monitors out there that overclock SLIGHTLY, but VERY few that support refresh rates up to approx. 120Hz. Unless the reviewers looked at one of the latter monitors (which would surprise me) then I'm not surprised that they started seeing dropped frames.davsp - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Viewable Size = 20" I'm guessing typo on spec sheet. :)ingwe - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Nah, didn't you see the HUGE bezel?ZeDestructor - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
> Note also that lag might be lower running at the native 2560x1600, but I can't directly compare that with most other displays as they lack support for that resolution.Please don't do that. People who buy/want these big, 30" 16:10 panels are paying the hefty premium for the full resolution, not to run something lower through the scaler. As such, I (and others, probably) would appreciate native resolution response times rather than scaled. 2560x1600 is uncommon because of the hefty price (1.5k per screen so far!), not because wqe don't want 2560x1600.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
I believe Chris is using a Leo Bodnar device now (http://bit.ly/WXV7Vv), where formerly he used a CRT as a reference display sending the same content to both. To do native 2560x1600 lag tests, you'd need a device (CRT or Leo Bodnar or similar) that supports WQXGA...which doesn't exist. Chris can correct me if I'm wrong, though.saratoga3 - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Apparently that device can't do > 1080p. Unfortunately this means using the scaler, which I think is a really bad idea. Resizing a 4 MP image can easily take an entire frame worth of latency. Its entirely possible that the actual input lag at native resolution is much lower.mdrejhon - Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - link
The Blur Busters Input Lag Tester, supports 4K, 120Hz, WQXGA and any other resolutions. It will be released before the end of the year. There is also a second input lag tester (SMTT style) that I have invented as well, which is undergoing tests. Keep tuned at the Blur Busters website.