Official page for the Asus VG278H now online.

[mentaur]

Just plugged mine in and out of the box, running the nVidia test app there's an awful lot of ghosting. Then again the test app always did ghost a lot, but with one eye closed I can very clearly see an outline of the other image. Hmm.

Obviously I haven't fiddled with anything at all yet, apart from setting it to sRGB mode for the desktop. In 3D mode there isn't much to alter apart from the contrast and lightboost, neither of which change the ghosting.

Rather disappointing I'd say, as I was hoping ghosting would not be an issue. It seems much the same as with the Samsung 2233. Maybe I can tweak it to be better..

Anyway, not wanting to give up hope so easily I fire up Hard Reset, fiddle with it a bit (seems to crash with a second monitor in portrait orientation), adjust the gamma right down as the monitor is now super-bright in 3D, and start playing. Instantly I'm forgetting about ghosting and just loving the big screen. It's probably there if I look for it, but maybe this is all about getting the brightness levels just right.

No doubt there will be more technical impressions as others get their displays from the evil box shifters up and running today. I'm going to flick through the manual and learn how to use the setups in the French review and the 3D Vision blog to see if I can get better results.

Oh yes - the new glasses - fab.

OK have used the setups from Bloody on the 3D Vision blog, and am currently running the PS3 via HDMI. Never seen the PS3 in 3D before. Took me a while to realise I had to enable it via the display settings.

Super Stardust looked really nice, with no ghosting that I can see.
Uncharted 3 again looks great, with no ghosting, though you can see the resolution has dropped a bit as the cut scenes (also in 3D) seem sharper.

Xbox 360 now. Batman Arkham City allegedly supports 3D so after enabling that in the options.. wow it actually works. The depth isn't as marked as for 3D Vision stuff - more like Crysis2 - but then I think it uses similar tech? Interestingly I'm not enjoying playing the game in 3D - it feels more sluggish, and the constant tooltips for the grapple and the need to sweep the camera around a lot make it feel strange. Hopefully the 3DVision version will be slicker, more hires, and the depth stuff will feel better.

Gears 3 : this has a side by side mode - the monitor lacks any ability to pick that up so this is a non-starter.

With the consoles working well via HDMI I switch back to 3d Vision and launch the nVidia test app. Lo and behold, with the setup from the 3DVision blog (game mode, user colour setup R:82, G:77, B:75, brightness:30, trace free at 80%, desktop at 1920x1080 120Hz - in 3D mode reduce contrast to 55) the nVidia test is working so much better. I can still see slight ghosting inside the spinning logo, but the edges look good.

Feeling happier about the £500+ now.

 

[fireisdangerous]

great to hear your thoughts, thanks.

Need to save up so cash to get one of these

 

[Arcane]

Saw this earlier from Hardware Canucks, not sure if a repost.

 

[brit~XR]

I wait on clippa's thoughts. He seems to know his stuff

 

[B1gbeard]

I wait on clippa's thoughts. He seems to know his stuff

Interested as well in what he has to say although he seems a bit hard to please.

 

[shuffle]

yeah i like reading the monitor thread, always good to read what PCM2 has to say. Clippa's thoughts on the new Asus should be interesting too! Looks the ideal gaming monitor, but at that price tag its hard to justify. I wonder if Asus has a smaller model of this version in the pipeline

 

[clippa]

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm absolutely over the moon with it so far. I say so far as I haven't really had too much of a chance to test it just yet.
Browsed the web a bit, played blops, haunted: hell's reach, the binding of isaac, bf3 and mw3 and they all looked great.

Can't feel any input lag, so much so that I didn't even bother testing for it. very fast. Response time is great too.
Brightness uniformity is excellent, this is backlit rather than being sidelit like the samsung 950, so it's less of a lottery in that respect.

Gamma was quite high/colours washed out straight out of the box, has been the case with every 120hz panel I've tried.
Corrected it via monitor calibration wizard, just went as low as I could without sacrificing the lower blacks, colours now very deep and it all looks great.
Flicked through a few photographs and noticed detail I didn't see on my previous monitor.
All blacks and whites showing and there was no banding at default, though I did get slight banding after correcting the gamma but that's to be expected, can't have everything)

Like I say, haven't had a chance to have a proper fanny about with it just yet, still trying settings though I think I've settled on something now, need to watch some telly and try my xbox out but so far it's very good.

What I wanted was a bigger version of my w2363d, a monitor that was bigger but as good for gaming and that's what I've gotten, with a better picture so I'm totally chuffed

Stand is solid, no wobbling about and the buttons are clear and the osd is good, probably not gonna make you rush out and buy it but after the w2363d with it's unsubstantial flimsy stand and wobbling and blank stab in the dark buttons, it's a welcome relief The whole thing is very well made.

Will update you all tomorrow if I have anything to add or if I get round to trying out the 3d. I'm no fan but I tried the samsung solution and the previous nvidia 3d, not for very long, I must admit but I can at least give a quick and dirty honest comparison.

 

[RazerM]

but at that price tag its hard to justify.

The Sammie 950Ds sold like hotcakes and they're £600 (£569.99 atm on offer) and compared to that the ASUS has:-

3D Vision support (tips the balance heavily for Nvidia users)
"Next Gen" 3D Vision technology (New glasses, Lightboost Technology etc.)
Fully adjustable stand (for some users thats a very important feature)
Non-glossy screen (again, a matter of preference)

And look at the prices some people pay for the Dell U2711 and not all of those people are graphics designers, some of them just buy the screen for gaming at a higher res (which seems a bit of a moot point seeing as most games seem to be designed for 1080p atm) or "prettier" colours.

Another reason the new ASUS 27" appeals to me is the fact that they had an outstanding product with the VG23HE and any mistakes they made with that monitor they will (hopefully) have learned from. And of course im guessing they will have learned from other manufacturers mistakes.

End of ramble.

 

[PCM2]

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm absolutely over the moon with it so far.

Fantastic to hear and a great post. I would expect things to look quite bad under defaults as the standard gamma is reported as 1.8 which causes such issues. The Samsung SA750D was around 1.9 and SA950D a worrying and barmy 1.7. The S27A850D on the other hand - 2.4, making everything rich and saturated but too much so in some cases. But glad you were able to sort it out. What kind of banding did you observe and where? If it's on greyscales etc. on specific tests don't worry about it, shouldn't be a real issue elsewhere. And very good to hear about the input lag which seems to confirm the 'next to zero' of the 3DV blog review.

 

[RazerM]

All done.
Dropped the cash on it today, arriving tomorrow from *nacs*.
Now we need an owners Club xD

 

[F4810]

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm absolutely over the moon with it so far. I say so far as I haven't really had too much of a chance to test it just yet.
Browsed the web a bit, played blops, haunted: hell's reach, the binding of isaac, bf3 and mw3 and they all looked great.

Can't feel any input lag, so much so that I didn't even bother testing for it. very fast. Response time is great too.
Brightness uniformity is excellent, this is backlit rather than being sidelit like the samsung 950, so it's less of a lottery in that respect.

Gamma was quite high/colours washed out straight out of the box, has been the case with every 120hz panel I've tried.
Corrected it via monitor calibration wizard, just went as low as I could without sacrificing the lower blacks, colours now very deep and it all looks great.
Flicked through a few photographs and noticed detail I didn't see on my previous monitor.
All blacks and whites showing and there was no banding at default, though I did get slight banding after correcting the gamma but that's to be expected, can't have everything)

Like I say, haven't had a chance to have a proper fanny about with it just yet, still trying settings though I think I've settled on something now, need to watch some telly and try my xbox out but so far it's very good.

What I wanted was a bigger version of my w2363d, a monitor that was bigger but as good for gaming and that's what I've gotten, with a better picture so I'm totally chuffed

Stand is solid, no wobbling about and the buttons are clear and the osd is good, probably not gonna make you rush out and buy it but after the w2363d with it's unsubstantial flimsy stand and wobbling and blank stab in the dark buttons, it's a welcome relief The whole thing is very well made.

Will update you all tomorrow if I have anything to add or if I get round to trying out the 3d. I'm no fan but I tried the samsung solution and the previous nvidia 3d, not for very long, I must admit but I can at least give a quick and dirty honest comparison.

Set mine up last night but did not have a chance to test it properly. Only had 5 mins on BF3 and it seemed good but is way to bright. In the past I have not adjusted monitors and just used them out of the box. Whats the best way to set it up for gaming I saw you used monitor calibration wizard.. where is this and where can I read up on how to set it up. My brother also has a hardware calibrator with his Eizos so I can use that if required.

One negative for anyone using this for web surfing, word, excel etc - If you sit close to the screen the text does look 'blocky'. I guess the DPI must be quite high.

 

[Trox]

One negative for anyone using this for web surfing, word, excel etc - If you sit close to the screen the text does look 'blocky'. I guess the DPI must be quite high.

This is quite concerning, although ill have to see it for myself.

 

[PCM2]

@ F4810

It's a feature of Windows 7 called the 'Color Calibration' tool - easiest way to access it is by typing that into control panel. What this does is create an ICC profile similar to what your brother's colorimeter would do. There is no correct way to do this and the wizard is step by step and will guide you through the process - you just want to adjust so things look right to you. It should be noted that this method adjusts the GPU's look-up tables and doesn't do anything to the monitor itself. It is always best to adjust the monitor using the OSD first and get things looking as good as possible. Adjusting things via the GPUs LUT as you would with the Win 7 color calibration tool can affect the mid-tone colour range adversely and upsets the contrast - small adjustments are OK but nothing major or you'll affect the colour range and black levels and will introduce banding and static dithering in place of shades of colour that should be natively produced by the monitor. Furthermore many games (Steam games for example) will ignore these profiles and others will misread them so colours become misrepresented.

 

[ed79]

One negative for anyone using this for web surfing, word, excel etc -If you sit close to the screen the text does look 'blocky'. I guess the DPI must be quite high.

Forgive me for stating the obvious but as a 27" screen is 14% bigger than a 24" then the text probably looks 14% "blockier"!

 

[ed79]

This is quite concerning, although ill have to see it for myself.

I wouldn't worry about it too much - obviously a bigger screen will have bigger looking pixels! Seems a bit strange to pay £200 extra for a 27" over a 24" then complain that things look bigger on it

 

[robgmun]

The monitor appears to be a no-go for me now as the review states it does not support the HDMI 1.4 side-by-side mode. (I believe this is needed for Sky 3D support). With so many standards every product only seems to be focussed on one role, I wonder if I will ever see a quality monitor that can handle both 3D (Nvidia) gaming and entertainment.

Same here, as far as i know a vast majorty of 3d sources outside of gaming is SBS and ps3 3d games are SBS as well! What are they playing at? Is there a current 3d monitor that supports SBS?

 

[F4810]

I wouldn't worry about it too much - obviously a bigger screen will have bigger looking pixels! Seems a bit strange to pay £200 extra for a 27" over a 24" then complain that things look bigger on it

haha - Not really a complaint but I wanted to point it out in case it bothers anyone. Text is easy to read etc but I guess its that slight 14% or whatever increase that moves this from something that is not visable to something that is. I tried to adjust the clear type to see if it improves but it does not make much of a difference.

27" is much better for gaming when you are old like me as the enemies are 14% bigger too.

 

[clippa]

I too was worried about 1080p on a 27" monitor but I can tell you that it's great, don't worry about that. We've got a pc hooked up to 32 inch TV downstairs and that's pushing it, text does look a bit blocky on that.

Monitor calibration wizard is this class piece of free software here
http://www.softpedia.com/dyn-postdownload.php?p=1891&t=3&i=1

Just click on run wizard, keep clicking next until you get to the brightness section and lower the brightness to whatever you like

This screen - http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

and the gamma chart here will help you get it right - http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#gammachart

Once you've got it right, save the profile, load it, and tick the check boxes "load at windows startup" and "persistant profile"
The program will run in the background and if anything tries to change the profile, it'll recognise it straight away and reload that profile.
Some games, of course, override desktop settings and have their own brightness/gamma controls so you just have to change those by eye in game.

Here are my settings if anyone wants to try them out

standard mode

brightness - 10
contrast - 65
color temp - warm
trace free - 80

monitor calibration wizard brightness "-1.6"

This monitor is BRIGHT. I'm considering turning the brightness down to 5.

 

[PCM2]

standard mode

brightness - 10
contrast - 65
color temp - warm
trace free - 80

monitor calibration wizard brightness "-1.6"

This monitor is BRIGHT. I'm considering turning the brightness down to 5.

Haha. You mean you don't like the 400cd/m2 retina BBQ? I would be interested to know what the minimum luminance is on these things. I will try to get ahold of one for review some time but as I said ASUS has really cruddy PR in the UK and this model isn't all that widely available so may be a bit tricky. Are there any gamma presets on the monitor or just general image presets?

 

[F4810]

I too was worried about 1080p on a 27" monitor but I can tell you that it's great, don't worry about that. We've got a pc hooked up to 32 inch TV downstairs and that's pushing it, text does look a bit blocky on that.

Monitor calibration wizard is this class piece of free software here
http://www.softpedia.com/dyn-postdownload.php?p=1891&t=3&i=1

Just click on run wizard, keep clicking next until you get to the brightness section and lower the brightness to whatever you like

This screen - http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

and the gamma chart here will help you get it right - http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#gammachart

Once you've got it right, save the profile, load it, and tick the check boxes "load at windows startup" and "persistant profile"
The program will run in the background and if anything tries to change the profile, it'll recognise it straight away and reload that profile.
Some games, of course, override desktop settings and have their own brightness/gamma controls so you just have to change those by eye in game.

Here are my settings if anyone wants to try them out

standard mode

brightness - 10
contrast - 65
color temp - warm
trace free - 80

monitor calibration wizard brightness "-1.6"

This monitor is BRIGHT. I'm considering turning the brightness down to 5.

Thanks, I will try that software tomorrow. I just used the Windows 7 tool and its now much better for me. I put it in game mode and I adjusted the gamma in the software but contrast and brightness on the screen.

I used B = 70, C = 70, CT = Custom - Lowering the brightness to 10 made the whites too grey for me. Also fixed the clear type again and the text is now better too.

What does trace free do?