NEC EA244UHD Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 7, 2014 2:30 PM ESTDPI: Too High?
The real question with a 24” UltraHD display is how well can you see/use it at native resolution? To me, it’s simply not usable at 3840x2160 resolution without DPI scaling. If you want to try and use it at this resolution you can, but I imagine you will stop after a short period of time. Scaled to 150% (or 2560x1440, which OS X Yosemite also supports as an option) it is easy to read and use everything. With applications that support DPI scaling correctly, like Lightroom, you can also have elements that are scaled while images utilize all the pixels that UHD offers.
Talking to NEC, they also realize that most people will be scaling images on the display. One issue, beyond OS support, is that applications that use custom UI elements take more work to improve for HiDPI and UltraHD displays. Those applications that only use standard OS elements (normal menus, no icons or images like Photoshop or Paint.NET) can migrate to supporting HiDPI far more easily.
There are many areas where UHD displays, even a smaller 24” one, are very valuable for their larger screen area. Content creation, including images and videos, can utilize the extra space. Financial users, who always want as much data on hand as they can have, are another large market. NEC includes DICOM support so the UHD display works for examining x-rays in as much detail as possible.
As I mentioned before, SpectraView II now works with the EA-series displays starting with the EA244UHD. Compared to the PA-series there are a few limitations to what SpectraView can do. It will calibrate the grayscale and color using the internal LUTs, but your only color gamut target is native. Since the EA244UHD has a large gamut that covers AdobeRGB, this causes issues. SpectraView II will create an ICC profile that lets ICC-aware applications see colors perfectly, but non-ICC applications will have a blown-out gamut. Since the EA244UHD also has an sRGB emulation mode, you can still use non-ICC applications and get an accurate gamut, but you must do so without calibration.
SpectraView II also now supports the BT.1886 gamma curve that is becoming more common in home theater use. One feature I was hoping to see, but NEC says will not be there, is support for 4:2:0 chroma subsampling over HDMI. Since HDMI 2.0 chipsets are just now becoming available, fitting a 60Hz UltraHD signal into the HDMI 1.4 bandwidth requires use of this chroma subsampling. For video content this is perfectly fine, Blu-ray and DVD content has always used it, and some vendors have used it with HDMI 1.4 chipsets. The NEC does not so the highest refresh rate you can achieve with an UltraHD signal over HDMI is 30Hz.
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DanNeely - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
The former as in "I couldn't type yesterday"piroroadkill - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Total disagree. I'd rather have a 40" 3840×2160 monitor and run it at 100%.I don't want increased DPI, I wanted increased size and res :D
AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
piroroadkill, yup, same here. 44" gives 100 PPI. Someone just needs to make one, and curve it while they're at it (and stop curving the damn TVs).althaz - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Agreed. What I want is a 30" 4k monitor (ideally 16:10) that can handle 4k @ 60Hz. Everything else just needs to be "good enough". Ideally I'd prefer a VA monitor for the better contrast (FAR prefer good contrast over slightly better off-angle viewing), or better yet an OLED (probably still years away), but 30" 4k with good enough everything else at the right price would get me over the line for a pair of them right now.piroroadkill - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
An 8:5 (1.6:1) AR monitor of this resolution? Not a chance. You'd have to go back to 2001.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_mo...
Shadowself - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Probably true, 16:10 seems to be, unfortunately, a thing of the past. However, an ~ 30" 4096x2560 monitor would be truly wonderful!Tristor - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
I completely disagree. The benefit of 4K to me is the much increased PPI which makes it possible to utilize actual high resolution textures without the need for anti-aliasing in CGI work and having a denser amount of screen real estate for code work. I already run 3x1080P 23" displays, so 24" is about my max size for displays, and being able to quadruple my resolution (and PPI) in the same footprint is amazing and just what I'm looking for.My only holdout is waiting to see the dust settle on all the 24" IPS UHD options so I can pick what will end up being a good choice for the long-term, then I'll be ordering 3 of them. NEC is one company I've definitely been watching, as has Dell. I'm looking forward to seeing what Eizo actually releases. They showed off a new 24" UHD Color Edge at NAB that looks fantastic, including being a native 10-bit UHD panel.
For gaming, maybe it'd be fine to just have one larger UHD monitor, but I could easily see myself using my same setup for gaming with the monitors just rotated into portrait mode with nVidia Surround to make the most of it. There's just no advantage I can see to a larger physically sized display unless you don't have proper vision correction.
MrSpadge - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Then simply don't buy it - there are larger models available, of course. The modles around 24" are for people who's desk is not large enough for 30"+.CSMR - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
No need for such a high resolution resolution. 2160p is extreme and goes beyond what is needed for sharpness, adding cost and gpu requirements.The usual 1200p of 24" monitors, or even 1080p, are too low, but 1440p or 1600p would have been perfect.
Why is the PC market quadrupling pixel counts so that we are left with either lowish dpis or extremely high dpis and nothing in the middle?
fokka - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
there have been 1600p/30" and 1440p/27" displays for ages now, i think an upgrade to 4k/uhd is nothing too crazy in 2014. 2160p on 24" is a bit much as we see, yes, but we have 1080p on our 5" phones, 1800p and above on 15" laptops, i think it's good that the market is moving again.where you are right though is that they should offer more 1200p-1600p displays in the 20-24" region, that would be very nice and reasonable indeed.