Before calibrating both panels, we measure zero and 100 percent signals at both ends of the brightness control range. This shows us how contrast is affected at the extremes of a monitor's luminance capability. In DoubleSight’s case, we used the contrast control to manipulate the light output.

At over 300 cd/m2, both panels offer more than enough light output for any work environment. The HP was set to maximum brightness while the DoubleSight display had its contrast set to the highest possible value without clipping detail. While you could increase its output to around 375 cd/m2, the image would be so lacking in detail that it wouldn't be usable.
More and more panels today have LED backlights, but these two still use CCFL. Let’s see how that affects the black level.

The HP falls to the middle of the pack, while the DoubleSight fares somewhat worse. It might be said that LED backlighting provides a superior black level, but our results show this is not always true. Both the HP ZR2740w and the Auria EQ276W utilize LEDs.
With both monitors close in max brightness, the black level is what determines the final contrast ratio.

The ZR30w manages to crack the 1000:1 barrier, but the DS-309W is 34 percent lower at 670.9:1. This is a fair result, and it’s still ahead of the Auria. To our eyes, both panels display a decent image with good punch and detail. To put the contrast-winning Samsung on your desk, you’ll pay around the same price and give up 33 percent of your screen area.
To measure the minimum brightness levels, we turned down the HP’s one and only adjustment, brightness control. On the DoubleSight, we left the brightness alone and reduced the contrast to its lowest setting.

The minimum output level of both panels still provides a very usable image. If you like to work or game in a totally darkened room, these screens will allow for a good degree of comfort to the eye. Detail and color saturation are retained as well.
Some of our recently-tested monitors achieve absurdly low black levels when the brightness is reduced.

The ZR30w follows suit by measuring a very black 0.0458 cd/m2. DoubleSight's DS-309W, however, only drops 19 percent to 0.3652 cd/m2. The difference is barely visible to the eye. No matter where the contrast control is set on the DS-309W, the black level is about the same.
Along with low black levels come high contrast ratios. If you like to use your computer in the dark, this can often be the best way to achieve maximum image depth.

The HP’s contrast ratio doubles to 2164.5:1 at the minimum brightness setting. Because of its relatively high black level, the DoubleSight’s number drops to 167.3:1. Even though color and detail are still OK, the image looks washed out at these settings. For best results, we recommend keeping the DS-309W’s output setting above 100 cd/m2.
- 30 Inches And 2560x1600: Two Big-Screen Monitors
- Measurement And Calibration Methodology: How We Test
- Results: Stock Brightness And Contrast
- Results: Calibrated Brightness And Contrast
- Results: Gamma And ANSI Contrast Ratio
- Results: Grayscale Tracking
- Results: Color Gamut And Performance
- Results: Viewing Angle And Uniformity
- Results: Pixel Response And Input Lag
- 30-Inch QHD, Is Bigger Better?
Isn't the ASUS PQ321 already out along with a few other 4K monitors? granted price is a whole other story
You seriously can't see the pixels? I can see them on a 27" 2560x1440, which has smaller pixels. The .25mm range is adequate to me, but really I'd prefer something smaller than the .233mm on the 2560x1440.
When considering something like this for games, don't forget the cost of the video card(s) needed to drive it. A HD7750 may be "sufferable" even up to 1920x1080, but I'm not sure even a HD7770 or GTX650Ti could play newer games on better than "low" settings on one of these.
I have a ZR30W myself, and I would NEVER trade it unless what I'm upgrading to has more than a 2560x1600 resolution.
I've played on all sorts of monitors, and resolution trumps all other specs, unless you're dealing with 30fps or something...
I really wish I would have spent 1200$ on it long ago. Battlefield 3 and other highly graphical games are comparable to nothing else in the world.
The 60hz is not "old tech", it's more than sufficient to run games smoothly if vertical sync is on (even still when it's off). 60 fps is fine, television (pre hd) was 28hz. Anything above 60fps you really don't notice too much.
Oh, and for those looking for 4k tv's to use (I'm way ahead of ya) they only have 30hz refresh rates over the HDMI 1.2 port. We're going to have to wait for the tv's to add another port, wait for the upgrade to HDMI 2.0, or wait for some other solution.
We aren't going to see many 16:10 in the future. the 4K stuff is going to be 16:9 unless someone makes the move to stick with 16:10. However, the difference when it comes to 16:9 with a 2560x1440 and 16:10 2560x1600 is very minimal unless you really really need that extra height!
A properly implemented OSD would blend overlay pixels on-the-fly and add less than 100ns of lag to the process, which would be undetectable. The Viewsonic VP2770 has an OSD and is on par with the fastest LCDs in this roundup for total input-output lag. Having an OSD does not equate to lag.
The art of zero-lag OSDs is very old: countless computer CRTs from the mid-90s have it and TVs have had it for even longer. The OSD locks timing with the H/V sync and substitutes its signal over the relevant areas on-the-fly. With LCDs, this is even easier to do since everything is digital.
What is more likely happening is that "laggy" LCDs are doing extra image processing/enhancement or power-saving tricks such as dynamic brightness adjustments. For dynamic backlighting (power saving trick), the LCD needs to know what the brightest pixel is and then adjust the whole image so it remains the same while matching the brightnest pixel using the dimmest backlight possible. Tricks like those might explain why the slowest panels on this roundup are almost exactly two frames slower than the fastest: one frame delay to shift the frame in the memory buffer while applying filters and searching for the brightest pixel, another frame delay to shift the frame out to the panel with adjusted brightness.
Many LCDs do a lot more than simply dumping signal straight from the input to the display controller.
I wish threads that got bumped by spammers would stop bouncing back into my "new updates" list every time spam gets added and removed. I must have come back to this thread with the above post as most recent more than a dozen times by now.
I wish the forum would delete "new update" notifications when the newest post in a thread is older than the notification after spam got deleted.