Results: Viewing Angle And Uniformity
New monitors based on TN panels are becoming increasingly rare. Only their faster response times make them useful for gaming. For all other purposes, IPS and PLS are the better choice, and they're the dominant technologies in LCD flat panel manufacturing as a result. Besides improved contrast and color accuracy, superior off-axis viewing performance is a hallmark feature.
The P2714T looks similar to other IPS screens we’ve photographed. Light falloff is minimal to the sides and a little more pronounced in the vertical plane. While there is almost no color shift from bottom to top, a slight blue tint appears when you reach a 45-degree position to either the left or right. Detail in the dark end of the brightness is retained pretty well. You can still see a difference between the zero and 10 percent bars.
Screen Uniformity: Luminance
To measure screen uniformity, zero- and 100-percent full-field patterns are used, and nine points are sampled. In a change from previous reviews, we’re now comparing the results to other monitors we’ve measured. First, we establish a baseline measurement at the center of each screen. Then the surrounding eight points are measured and their values expressed as a percentage of the baseline, either above or below. This number gets averaged. It is important to remember that we only test the review sample each vendor submits. Other examples of the same monitor can measure differently in this metric.
First up is black field uniformity.
Given some of the past results we’ve recorded, this number is a little surprising. While 14 percent isn’t poor performance by any means, there are plenty of monitors that fare better. On our review sample, we could see slight hotspots on the left side and center of the screen.
Here’s the white field measurement.
In the white field measurement, we see that the center of the screen is ever so slightly brighter than the surrounding area. You can barely tell though, and again, we're splitting hairs.
Screen Uniformity: Color
To measure color uniformity, we display an 80-percent white field and measure the Delta E error of the same nine points on the screen. Then we subtract the lowest value from the highest to arrive at the result. A smaller number means a display is more uniform. Any value below three means that variation is invisible to the naked eye.
The P2714T’s color is the weakest in our uniformity measurements, and we can see slight variations in a vertical band pattern. One band is slightly blue, while another is slightly green. The all-important center area of the screen is the most accurate. It’s possible (if not probable) that the panel's touch layer plays an influential role in these benchmarks.
