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The PX279 Prime comes set to its User mode, Normal Color Temp and Gamma 2.2. These settings will result in a flat and lifeless image. Fortunately, calibration can easily fix things.
Grayscale and Gamma Tracking
We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.
You can see what we’re talking about in the first grayscale chart. The blue tint is easy to see across the brightness range. While this increases the perception of greater light output, the image looked very two-dimensional with drab color and no punch. Gamma contributes to this with values that are much too high from 20-90% brightness.
After we simply changed Color Temp to User and Gamma to Off (second chart), the PX279 Prime greatly improved. If the monitor came this way, it would easily make our Calibration Not Required list. Grayscale tracking here shows no visible errors, and gamma, though a tad light, runs straight with a small range of values.
Lowering the Blue slider by one click (third chart) improved grayscale tracking to its lowest possible error. The PX279 Prime is capable of excellent performance; you just have to dig for it.
Comparisons
An average grayscale error of 7.12 Delta E (dE) is well below average. Pixio left some performance under the table for the PX279 Prime and its stablemate, the PX277 Prime. Just changing the PX279’s color temp and gamma presets reduced the error to 1.20dE and tightened up gamma tracking enormously. The image had far more depth as a result.
Color Gamut Accuracy
For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.
The PX279 Prime is an sRGB monitor so we measured against that standard. By default (first chart) gamut errors are higher than average with visible hue issues in cyan and magenta. Saturation points are reasonably close to their targets but, there’s definite room for improvement.
In the second and third charts, you can see the results of our color temp and gamma adjustments. Red, blue and magenta are now more saturated and closer to their hue targets. Cyan is better as well. Color is generally a bit over-saturated, but if a monitor can’t be perfectly on-spec, we expect that most would prefer more color rather than less (we certainly do).
Comparisons
The two Pixio screens are at the bottom of our color accuracy test after calibration but only by a small margin. Since the PX279 Prime is a little over-saturated, we can forgive, as this makes up for the lack of an extended gamut.
A bit of bonus blue and green means the PX279 Prime covers almost 110% of the sRGB gamut. Pixio claims 109% coverage. You could accomplish color-critical work with a software profile. While the PX279 Prime won’t deliver the punch of a P3 monitor, it acquits itself well when compared to other sRGB panels.
