Results: Viewing Angle And Uniformity
For off-axis viewing, there’s no better tech right now than IPS. You can sit as much as 45 degrees from center and still see a decent image. The light falloff is minimal and the color shift associated with TN monitors is virtually non-existent. In addition, with monitors as bright as these, the effect can be further minimized at high output settings.
The ZR30w looks just like all of the other large IPS screens we’ve photographed for recent reviews. Color shift is minimal at all angles and light falloff is practically non-existent. The pattern appears different on the HP because we had to display it as a Windows desktop graphic rather than using the pattern generator. The end result is the same. You can still clearly see the differences in the brightest and darkest bars. This indicates good retention of highlight and shadow detail at off-axis viewing angles of up to 45 degrees.
Here’s the DoubleSight DS-309W:
The results here are about the same. If you look close, the darkest two bars are barely delineated from each other. However, they do not crush at a 45-degree viewing angle. That's still excellent off-axis performance. We suspect subtle differences in the two monitors’ anti-glare layers are the reason for the variation.
If you’re wondering why the white balance appears different in the two photos, it’s because we changed cameras midway through the review process. We didn’t discover the difference until after returning the monitors to their manufacturers. Rest assured the photos are directly comparable, since we kept the exposure values the same.
Screen Uniformity
While some monitors are better than others, no LCD panel has perfect screen uniformity, and even samples of the same model can have quite a bit of variation. So, since there’s no fair standard for applying a rating to different monitors, we’ll simply present the results of our measurements.
To measure screen uniformity, zero percent and 100 percent full-field patterns are used, and nine points are sampled. We’re now expressing the values as percentages relative to the center of the screen.
| HP ZR30w | ||
|---|---|---|
| Black Field Uniformity | ||
| 101.11% | 142.58% | 84.24% |
| 114.22% | 100.00% | 137.39% |
| 106.87% | 110.28% | 134.41% |
| White Field Uniformity | ||
| 81.87% | 89.08% | 86.77% |
| 92.14% | 100.00% | 94.24% |
| 87.44% | 96.64% | 91.40% |
The ZR30w shows a couple of hot spots in a black field pattern. The most visible are at the top-center and bottom-right. The white field pattern looks more uniform, but the center is slightly brighter than the rest of the screen.
The DoubleSight fares a bit better.
| Double Sight DS-309W | ||
|---|---|---|
| Black Field Uniformity | ||
| 77.91% | 88.04% | 84.46% |
| 82.04% | 100.00% | 84.88% |
| 82.95% | 90.24% | 93.20% |
| White Field Uniformity | ||
| 90.29% | 90.68% | 86.19% |
| 101.38% | 100.00% | 93.79% |
| 101.44% | 102.72% | 96.97% |
This is an excellent result. White field uniformity is especially good with only the tiniest differences from point to point. The DS-309W isn’t too far behind the best-in-class Samsung S27B970D in this metric.
