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The CG437K ships in its Standard picture mode with gamma at 2.2, color temp warm and its full DCI-P3 color space engaged. It keeps its promise of color errors under 2 Delta E (dE). In fact, it's one of the most accurate monitors we’ve ever reviewed.
Grayscale and Gamma Tracking
We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.
Since calibration is not only unnecessary but not recommended, we’re showing you the default chart (Standard mode, General color space), followed by the sRGB result. Standard has almost no grayscale error with every brightness step under 1dE. Gamma is spot-on with no visible issues.
sRGB runs a bit warmer, but the error is only visible at over 90% brightness. This mode is perfectly usable, but it fixes output at 360 nits, which may be too much for some environments. Gamma is a tad lighter on the chart, but we couldn’t actually see a difference with the naked eye/
Comparisons
The Predator's average grayscale error of 0.37dE for its native color gamut (DCI-P3) is about as low as it gets. Most professional screens aren’t this good. Meanwhile, its 2.46dE score for sRGB is also acceptable. As you can see, all our high-end screens here sport solid out-of-box performance. Calibration helped the other monitors in the group, but we could not improve upon the CG437K’s default numbers.
Gamma is equally tight with a tiny 0.07 range of values and an average value of 2.19, representing a 0.45% deviation. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Color Gamut Accuracy
For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.
Acer included presets for all commonly used color gamuts, but we preferred using the General option, which delivers just over 87% coverage of DCI-P3. Interestingly, the DCI option has slightly smaller coverage with desaturated reds. So, the DCI measurement above represents General, and the sRGB is, well, sRGB. Both charts show on-target saturation and hue results with nothing to complain about. However, the green primary comes up a tad short for the DCI test. At the same time, sRGB is essentially perfect with all errors below the visible level.
Comparisons
The CG437K is firmly in professional display territory with its low color gamut error of 1.30dE for DCI and 1.37dE for sRGB, which are both invisble to the naked eye. These are out-of-box measurements with no calibration performed; all we changed was the brightness level (set to 200 nits). It truly doesn’t get much better than this. The Omen X 65 or the Acer Predator X27 fared better but both required calibration to reach their full potential.
Our review subject showed solid gamut volumes for both sRGB and DCI-P3. Only the green primary is a bit short of the mark. Red actually over-achieves a little, while blue is right on target. sRGB loses a tiny bit of saturation on the green/cyan/blue side of the triangle but still covers the gamut more than adequately. If you want to use the CG437K for color-critical work, we recommend a custom profile used with the General color space option.
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