Today we're taking a look at the 27-inch member of Asus’ ProArt family, the PA279Q. This is a flagship piece of hardware, and it has a feature set and price tag to match. You'll find this monitor in the company's Visual Professional line-up, topped by the Ultra HD PQ321Q, which we're in the process of reviewing.

Looking at the logos on the outside of the box, it’s obvious that Asus tried to cram every possible feature and enhancement into this display. QHD resolution from an AH-IPS panel is where our journey begins. At 2560x1440, the PA279Q has the dot size to pretty much eliminate any visible pixelation, even if you sit very close to it. With more screens hitting the market at this resolution, we’re starting to get spoiled. QHD displays are claiming permanent spots on our desks.
This is also a wide-gamut panel. Asus claims 99 percent of Adobe RGB 1998. It’s also pre-calibrated and includes a data sheet, individual to each monitor, showing the results of grayscale, color, gamma, and screen uniformity tests. All errors are below two Delta E, and the gamma is a perfect 2.2 as-shipped. And here’s the best part: the PA279Q includes an sRGB mode so you can have accurate color for your game and movie content. This is the first wide-gamut display we’ve seen that can correctly render both Adobe RGB 1998 and sRGB.
There is more here than just high performance. Six USB 3.0 ports are included, plus an appropriate cable for the single upstream connection. And you get a nine-in-one memory card reader too. Of course, there is audio support courtesy of three-watt stereo speakers, as well as a headphone jack.
All of this luxury doesn’t come cheap. But it’s not the most expensive flagship monitor we’ve seen either. That honor still belongs to Samsung's S27B970D, which sells for nearly $1200. At $850, Asus undercuts that screen by quite a bit, offers more features and, in our testing, equal or better image quality.
| Brand | Asus |
|---|---|
| Model | PA279Q |
| Street Price | $850 |
| Panel Type | AH-IPS |
| Backlight | GB-r-LED |
| Screen Size | 27" |
| Max Resolution | 2560x1440 |
| Max Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Response Time (GTG) | 6 ms |
| Brightness (cd/m2) | 350 |
| Speakers | 2 x 3 W |
| VGA | - |
| DVI | 1 |
| DisplayPort | 1 in, 1 out (v1.2 w/MST) |
| HDMI | 1 |
| Headphone | 1 |
| USB | v3.0, 1 up, 6 down |
| Dimensions w/base WxHxD | 25.2 x 22 x 9.5 in 641 x 560 x 240 mm |
| Panel Thickness | 2.75 in, 70 mm |
| Warranty | Three years |
You may notice in the specs a type of backlight we haven’t covered here before: GB-r-LED. The vast majority of LED screens use white LEDs (W-LED) on the top and bottom edges of the panel. A white LED emits blue light through a yellow phosphor, which neutralizes its color temp to around 6500 Kelvin. This is very easy and cheap to implement, and that's why it’s so common. At the other end of the spectrum, we have RGB-LED which is literally red, green, and blue LEDs arrayed directly behind the LCD panel. This is very expensive and difficult to manufacture, and therefore quite rare.
The compromise is found in GB-r-LED technology. Here, the backlight consists of green and blue diodes coated with a red phosphor. The net effect is that the spectral peaks of the three primary colors are pretty much even. With W-LED, the spectral peak is much higher for blue. So, software (and the panel's color filters) must intervene to achieve the correct color balance. A GB-r-LED panel is more accurate natively, making software and the color filter layer less critical. And you get the added benefit of the wider Adobe RGB gamut. It is a bit more expensive to manufacture than W-LED, but less so than RGB-LED.
Before we get to the benchmarks, there is a lot to look at, both in the box and on the panel itself. Asus' asking price is above other QHD screens, but we quickly discovered the value factor is high as well.
- Asus PA279Q, The Cadillac Of Monitors?
- Packaging, Physical Layout, And Accessories
- OSD Setup And Calibration Of The PA279Q
- Measurement And Calibration Methodology: How We Test
- Results: Brightness And Contrast
- Results: Grayscale Tracking And Gamma Response
- Results: Color Gamut And Performance
- Results: Viewing Angle And Uniformity
- Results: Pixel Response And Input Lag
- Asus' PA279Q May Very Well Have It All
And are not happy with Dell and HP...
You should be smiling now!
Also at some places you can even get this around $800..
Liking the new Eizo model w/ 240 Hz mode too.
Not this year but sometime next year I'd love to upgrade my system. I built my current workstation when the phenom 1 chip came out and other than a CPU upgrade after the phenom 2 came out and graphics card revision (old one died) I've not needed to do anything else to it. Starting to get a bit long in the tooth though.
120 cd/m2 would be ideal for a darkened room but we calibrate to 200 to better replicate an average viewing environment. Most graphics pros would opt for a darker space but the average user will have more ambient light to compete with. Since we're reviewing all types of displays, we need to place them on equal footing.
-Christian-
If you want "pixel perfect" from Achieva, it'll cost you the same. Quite a gamble, big savings vs. a few dead pixels.
It's technically the same panel, but it's a rejected panel by Apple and sold to 3rd parties like Achieva. That means dead pixels and irregular lighting and color are normal. That also means fewer input options (to save money), hardly any screen controls and settings (to save money), no height or tilt adjustment (to save money), cheaper components internally (to save money), and of course, a very weak warranty.
Tie all this in with poor build quality (some of those displays have been reported as having dirt behind the panel!), and IMO it's just not worth the savings/risk. And considering manufacturers of these "affordable" QHD monitors use cheaper internal components, I'd be most concerned about how long the thing will last even if I got a perfect panel. That would always be in the back of my mind every time I touched the power button.
So while you may be saving 50%, you are paying elsewhere by short changing yourself. I know what 5 dead pixels are like on a QHD monitor, because I had them on my ASUS PB278Q 27". They were concentrated within a 4-inch square in the middle of the screen and impossible to not notice. That monitor is known to have a pretty high dead pixel rate. I promptly returned it to Fry's and stepped up to the more professional factory Adobe RGB calibrated LG 27EA83.
In addition to 10tacle's reason, you also lose the USB ports on that model.
Guess that kinda depends. I don't know why many people would spend $800+ on a 27" display only to hook it up to a cable box or PS3. That much money will get you a very nice, rather large, TV.
As do I. Sadly, the price premium for 16:10 over 16:9 is pretty ridiculous. A quick search on Newegg shows the only 2560x1600 monitor with USB 3.0 is a $1500 30" Lenovo.
I only wish this thing was 120Hz
Liking the new Eizo model w/ 240 Hz mode too.
60 Hz is really about all that's needed to fool the human eye.
TVs went to 120 Hz because of a problem peculiar to displaying movies. Most movies were shot at 24 fps. 60/24 = 2.5 which isn't an even integer. If you try to display them on a 60 Hz screen, you end up having to show one movie frame for 2/60 sec, the next frame for 3/60 sec, then repeat. The result of this uneven timing is something called judder, where smooth motion (especially panning shots) appear to stutter.
With a 120 Hz refresh, you can show each movie frame for 5/120 sec, and a smooth panning shots remain smooth. 240 Hz is just the same thing except for 3D video - 120 Hz for the left eye, 120 Hz for the right eye.
So unless you're planning to watch a lot of 24 fps movies, 60 Hz is just fine. And unless you're planning to watch 3D movies shot at 24 fps, 240 Hz is overkill. If you're watching video shot at 30 or 60 fps, it'll look the same at 60 Hz, 120 Hz, or 240 Hz.