ViewSonic VP2780-4K 27-inch Ultra HD Monitor Review

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We've got ViewSonic's VP2780-4K in the lab today. Is this 27-inch, Ultra HD, IPS-based monitor worth your hard-earned money? Let's find out!

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Viewing Angles, Uniformity, Response And Lag

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, please click here.

Even though IPS technology has been around for awhile, it’s not universal in computer displays just yet. Fortunately, ViewSonic offers it in the VP2780-4K without driving the price up too high. You can see how much better off-axis image quality is in our photos. To the sides, there is very little light falloff; just a slight color shift to green. From the top down, there is some detail loss, but you can still see all of the brightness steps.

Screen Uniformity: Luminance

Many professional monitors include uniformity compensation in the form of an internal lookup table. The ViewSonic does not, and it obviously doesn’t need to. It beats the other screens even without the help. Our sample is one of the best panels we’ve measured to date, with absolutely no light bleed or hotspotting.

The PA272W’s high score is due to its uniformity compensation feature; which reduces contrast. The VP2780-4K achieves a solid third place with no such option. The IPS panel in use here is of extremely high quality.

Screen Uniformity: Color

Though a 2.71 variation in Delta E is invisible, we expected a little better numbers given the white and black field results. Still, there were no color shifts visible to the naked eye in our sample; only a smooth-toned white field pattern.

Pixel Response And Input Lag

Please click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

With Ultra HD gaming options in short supply, players wanting high pixel densities might be considering a monitor like the VP2780-4K. If so, they will be rewarded with a responsive panel that shows little in the way of motion blur or ghosting.

The lag result makes the case for gaming even stronger. We’re quite impressed to see only 63 milliseconds of total lag from any IPS panel, much less one aimed at professional users rather than gaming enthusiasts. The only way you’ll beat this result is to step down in resolution to a QHD screen, and then you’ll have very few IPS options available as most gaming monitors are still TN-based.

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Christian Eberle
Christian Eberle
Contributing Editor

Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He's a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors. Christian began his obsession with tech when he built his first PC in 1991, a 286 running DOS 3.0 at a blazing 12MHz. In 2006, he undertook training from the Imaging Science Foundation in video calibration and testing and thus started a passion for precise imaging that persists to this day. He is also a professional musician with a degree from the New England Conservatory as a classical bassoonist which he used to good effect as a performer with the West Point Army Band from 1987 to 2013. He enjoys watching movies and listening to high-end audio in his custom-built home theater and can be seen riding trails near his home on a race-ready ICE VTX recumbent trike. Christian enjoys the endless summer in Florida where he lives with his wife and Chihuahua and plays with orchestras around the state.

27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Daniel Ladishew
    I keep seeing prices quoted in your reviews that are lower than the links provided in the same article. This is very misleading and frankly confusing when trying to align your evaluation with the prospect of a purchase. Maybe it's time to review your system of automatic price linking and/or including how much a product costs in the text of your articles? While I don't expect it to match on the penny every time, several hundred dollar swings makes for a hard sell when you claim "a very reasonable $890 MSRP" for a product showing for over $1000.
    Reply
  • tomc100
    4K displays should start at 40" to really take advantage of the increased resolution. 27" doesn't make any sense.
    Reply
  • Walter Smith
    And yet be sure we will soon be seeing 4k resolution being common in our 5" or 6" screen smartphones. As an all purpose, everyday main monitor, at this price point, this screen bears some serious consideration.
    Reply
  • FritzEiv
    I keep seeing prices quoted in your reviews that are lower than the links provided in the same article. This is very misleading and frankly confusing when trying to align your evaluation with the prospect of a purchase. Maybe it's time to review your system of automatic price linking and/or including how much a product costs in the text of your articles? While I don't expect it to match on the penny every time, several hundred dollar swings makes for a hard sell when you claim "a very reasonable $890 MSRP" for a product showing for over $1000.

    Thanks for the input. In many articles we do call out the fact that the prices in the article are based on the writing time frame. I'll make a note about getting better and more consistent at that. The "buy buttons" we place into the articles, which are linked from e-tailers/merchants are typically dynamically linked using APIs. So the prices in those buttons are supposed to represent real time pricing, which, as you know, fluctuate madly depending on the category. The upside is that we'll always have the latest pricing. The downside is that it's different than what we put into our written text, and sometimes how we determine our "value" analysis, where applicable. Another downside is that sometimes the API implementations are a little wonky, a situation our development and commerce teams are continually trying to address.

    - Fritz Nelson, Editor-in-chief
    Reply
  • Eggz
    Good to see View Sonic based on the map with a quality product like this.
    Reply
  • zcat
    Do all of these 4k monitors do decent 1080p upscaling? That's my only real concern, since nobody's going to be gaming @ 4k native for quite a while, so the upscaling should look good and have negligible impact.
    Reply
  • Brian_R170
    I really like this monitor, but fear Viewsonic's reliability. In 2008-2009, my work group bought a few hundred value-priced 27-inch Viewsonic monitors and 23-inch Viewsonic TVs. The failure rate was unbelievably high, easily surpassing 50% in the first year for the 27-inch model. The 23-inch TVs fared better, but surpassed 50% failure within 3 years. Viewsonic replaced the ones that failed under warranty with refurbs, and they failed, too.

    I personally bought one of the same 27-inch models from Costco for home use after using one at work, it failed in less than 3 months. Thank goodness for Costco's warranty.

    Maybe just really bad quality control on a couple of low-end models, but it scares me when the author writes "The obvious question has to be: what’s missing?", because in my past experience, what was missing was quality control.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    16167997 said:
    4K displays should start at 40" to really take advantage of the increased resolution. 27" doesn't make any sense.
    Tell that to people who choose to do most of their reading on 1200-1600p 7-10" tablets due to the more pleasant, crisper, more paper-like fonts. I wouldn't mind having a 24-27" UHD display for reading. I am still a big fan of dead-tree format for reading because crisper fonts and higher contrast reduce eyestrain.
    Reply
  • tom10167
    except nobody sits 8" away from a 27" monitor.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    Looks like a solid option. I miss my low latency Viewsonics from old, but Samsung gave fierce competition. I wonder what Samsung will bring to the table now.

    And please make prices go down already. I want one of these puppies at a reasonable 300-ish price, haha.

    Cheers!
    Reply