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Viewing Angles, Uniformity, Response And Lag
To learn how we measure screen uniformity, please click here.
The other VA monitors we’ve photographed haven’t looked quite as good off-axis as this one. Obviously the Samsung-sourced panel part is a little better in that regard. You can see some brightness reduction to the sides and vertically, as well as a slight red shift. But there is no loss of detail and the overall result is on par with most IPS screens. We also think the curvature helps here.
Screen Uniformity: Luminance
Our sample of the Envy 34c shows superb uniformity in both the black and white field tests. There is no visible light bleed and there are no hotspots in evidence. When black levels are this low, any flaws are magnified so we’re glad to see such a solid result.
Here’s the white field measurement.
The white field test comes in slightly higher due to 8cd/m2 of extra output at the screen center. You can’t see the variation with the naked eye and all other zones are within 4cd/m2 of the average brightness value.
Screen Uniformity: Color
We were able to see faint red areas in two places on our sample. They were only visible in a white field pattern, not in any content we viewed. We also couldn’t see them in any photos we took so we’d call this flaw extremely minor.
Pixel Response And Input Lag
Please click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.
The top two screens here run at 144 and 75Hz respectively so it’s logical they’d draw a little faster. At 60Hz the rest of the pack is in the same 20-25ms range as an IPS or TN monitor. HP’s overdrive function helps a little with motion blur and doesn’t add ghosting to moving images so we recommend leaving it on all the time.
Here are the lag results.
If you have very fast reaction times, the Envy 34c may not be the ideal gaming screen for you. Casual gamers like us won’t have a problem but there are faster displays out there. Obviously upping the refresh rate makes the greatest impact on lag. At 60Hz there’s only so fast you can go.
