Results: Color Gamut And Performance
Color gamut is measured using a saturation sweep that samples the six main colors (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow) at five saturation levels (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%). This provides a more realistic view of color accuracy than sampling only the 100 percent saturations. Since there are no color management controls on the E1659FWU, we're only showing the post-calibration graphs (although we’re sure they'd look pretty much the same out-of-box).
AOC’s color gamut is quite under-saturated in the red, magenta, and blue region. And because of the too-cool grayscale tracking, the secondary colors are clocked well away from their targets. The luminance values for blue and magenta are set higher to compensate, but the overall result is still fairly inaccurate. We recorded Delta E values as high as 20.26.
The last GeChic portable we reviewed, the On-Lap 2502M, rendered a similarly under-saturated color gamut. The green, cyan, and yellow side of the triangle is OK but its blue, magenta, and red section is noticeably light in color. That saturation tracks fine from the center outwards, but any color in the lower-right part of the gamut triangle looks washed out. When you look at the luminance chart, you can see those under-saturated colors are pumped up with higher brightness values.
The On-Lap 1502I manages to stay close to its desktop counterparts in color accuracy, but the E1659FWU lags behind. AOC's one saving grace is that its color errors decrease at higher brightness and saturation levels. Most business-oriented content looks alright, but photos and videos appear washed out, lacking depth and pop.
Gamut Volume: Adobe RGB 1998
There are basically two categories of displays in use today: those that conform to the sRGB/Rec 709 standard like HDTVs, and wide-gamut panels that show as much as 100 percent of the Adobe RGB 1998 spec. We use Gamutvision to calculate the gamut volume, based on an ICC profile created from actual measurements. The chart shows the percentage of both sRGB and Adobe RGB 1998 gamuts.
These portable monitors are not meant to be used for critical photo or video editing. Their color gamuts fall well short of both the Adobe RGB and sRGB standards. While we would not expect to see a wide-gamut product in this category, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t support the sRGB specs.
