The best thing to happen to the computer monitor marketplace has been the introduction of inexpensive QuadHD displays from South Korea. At a time when a $700 monitor was considered cheap in the United States, these were available on Ebay for around $300 and utilized the same panel as more expensive offerings, though often with a lower grade panel. The introduction of these displays forced mainstream vendors in the USA to introduce more affordable models, and saw other vendors introduce more affordable products as well.

As good as this introduction has been for consumers, I always held back from recommending the displays to most people. One reason is that as an imported product that lacks a US distributor, there was very little warranty associated with them. If you received a model that had issues from a seller on Ebay, the service or replacement options you could expect were really up in the air.

Second, there was no real testing being done on them. A review sample of a foreign, imported product was impossible to get, and just buying them to test isn’t feasible. Now I finally have been offered one of these displays to test, the QNIX QX2710 LED DPmulti True10 (henceforth called the QNIX in this review). With an updated 10-bit panel and a DisplayPort input, it offers more spec-wise than the previous models. Instead of being limited to a DVI input, it also includes DSub, DisplayPort, and HDMI inputs. The panel is a 10-bit model which it accomplishes by being 8-bit with A-FRC to simulate the last two bits. Taking full advantage of a 10-bit panel is hard to do and is usually limited to just a few applications, but being true 8-bit is important.

There is an on-screen menu system that offers adjustments for Brightness and Contrast, color temperature, and a dynamic contrast mode. Enabling the Dynamic Contrast mode disables the Brightness and Contrast controls, while also setting the light output to a retina-searing level. Navigating the menu system is pretty easy overall, though not at the level of the best displays.

There is a pair of 5W speakers built into the rear of the display and they sound like most speakers on the rear of a monitor. Sound is muffled and they’ll work in a pinch, but I wouldn’t want to use them on a daily basis. One semi-interesting feature is that the QNIX can accept a 4K input and then it scales it to 2560x1440. I don’t see a reason to do this with a PC, but with a video device (i.e. a future 4K Blu-ray player, or a video game system) where your output choices are limited to 4K or 1080p, the downscaled 4K image could look better on the QNIX than upscaled 1080p.

The specs suggest that the QNIX can be overclocked to 120Hz by using a custom resolution setting for the video card, but I am unable to make it work in any configurations that I've tried (DisplayPort or DVI, AMD or NVIDIA cards). Going to 110Hz worked fine, but higher settings did not for me. It might be a panel lottery, where some work at 120Hz and some do not, but I wouldn’t assume you will get 120 Hz to work for certain. Still, pushing beyond 60Hz is at least possible.

Update: Commenters pointed out that the QNIX "overclocks" by dropping frames. To test this I used the QNIX on TestUFO.com at both 90Hz and 60Hz and took 1/5 second exposures of the Frame Skipping Check. Below you can see screenshots showing that at 90Hz, the QNIX is simply dropping frames instead of creating extra frames. At 110Hz I began to get sparkles on the screen, obviously pushing the limits of what the panel can do. Because of this, I'd discount any overclocking mentions from the QNIX as it isn't a true higher referesh rate panel.

The monitor stand offers only a tilt adjustment, with no height, pivot or swivel. A nice design cue is the inputs being on the side of the monitor and not on the bottom. Placing them on the bottom makes hooking things up hard and I wish fewer companies would do it, particularly on budget models with no height adjustment.

QNIX QX2710 LED DPmulti True10
Video Inputs HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort, DVI, Dsub
Panel Type AHVA
Pixel Pitch 0.231mm
Colors 1.07 Billion
Brightness 350 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio 1000:1
Response Time 4ms GtG
Viewable Size 27"
Resolution 2560x1440
Viewing Angle (H/V) 178 / 178
Backlight LED
Power Consumption (operation) 46 W
Power Consumption (standby) 0.5 W
Screen Treatment Anti-Glare
Height-Adjustable No
Tilt Yes
Pivot No
Swivel No
VESA Wall Mounting Yes, 100mm VESA
Dimensions w/ Base (WxHxD) 25 3/8" x 18 1/2" x 6 3/4"
Weight 10.2 lbs.
Additional Features 3.5mm stereo in, 3.5mm stereo out, 2x5W speakers
Limited Warranty 1 year
Accessories 3.5mm audio cable, DVI cable, power adapter
Price Around $365 via eBay

 

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  • anandtechbug - Friday, April 18, 2014 - link

    I was willing to pay for a good monitor around $700 but I found that Qnix DVI-D is equal or better than those monitors. Was really looking forward to purchasing this model. Pls suggest a good one for photo editing.
  • cubebomb - Sunday, April 20, 2014 - link

    I have two of these i bought 6 months ago.

    They are amazing. I have them OCed at 96hz which makes everything smoother than 60hz.

    Only one of the panels can go to 120Hz without problems. The other one will just give weird red lines so the sweetspot was a 96hz for me. Games running at 96FPS or 120 FPS is hard for me to tell that much of a difference. I love these badboys.

    The resolution is amazing and i have no problems with colors. I am not doing photography or webdesign. I am playing video games and they look no different than my old 1080p panel.

    I am playing 96fps at 1440p ! amazing
  • Z15CAM - Sunday, April 27, 2014 - link

    You have reviewed the WRONG QNIX. The popular one is the over-clockable QNIX QX2710 Evolution II PLS LED Display with a single DVI-D interface that cost approx $300 from South Korea.
  • aithos - Friday, July 25, 2014 - link

    Clarification of Overclocking on QNIX:

    The reason you were unable to overclock without dropping frames is because you have the wrong version of this monitor. Only the base models (single dual-dvi input) of the QNIX QX2710 and XSTAR 2710 and Yamasaki Catleap 2B that are able to overclock. None of the multi-input models are able to overclock, the only reason the base models are able to overclock is because of the bypass board (and lack of a scaler). As a side effect, you cannot hook up console gaming systems because they will not be able to output a supported resolution due to the lack of a scaler on the monitor.

    I have seen countless posts on this topic, seen countless screenshots of the proof they don't frame skip and I personally own the XSTAR version (same monitor, different reseller) and have it overclocked to 110 without any frame dropping. I was able to get to 120hz but I start getting artifacts in some games (Skyrim) at that framerate and so I chose to drop down for ease of use.
  • Phreedom1 - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link

    Yes..they know that now. It's been brought up many times over the last several months in this thread.

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