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The PD27’s greatness doesn’t stop with the contrast tests. Its grayscale, gamma and color are very accurate with no calibration needed. One setting needs to be changed from the default for best results though.
Grayscale & Gamma Tracking
We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.
Straight out of the box, the PD27 has good gamma and color gamut accuracy, but grayscale runs a bit warm. There are red errors present from 50-100% brightness. At this point, we’d say choose the User color temp and calibrate but all you need to do is the former. Further calibration is not necessary when the average error is just 0.99dE. Of course, a bit of tweaking takes that even lower but that’s in the realm of ego. You won’t see a difference between the two.
The PD27 has a perfectly usable sRGB mode that renders the gamut correctly. Grayscale runs a little towards red and gamma is a tad light at the 10% step. This and the red error are hard to see in actual content.
Comparisons
4.16 Delta E (dE) isn’t a great start for any monitor but the PD27 only needs a change in its color temp preset (Warm to User) to achieve greatness. One click each of the red and blue sliders takes the final error to just 0.66dE. It doesn’t get much better than that.
The range of gamma values is tight at 0.18. Don’t be swayed by the PD27’s last-place finish; its gamma is among the best. With a 1.36% deviation (actual value 2.17), we have no complaints. All detail is clearly visible throughout the brightness range and color tracks well as you’re about to see.
Color Gamut Accuracy
For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.
We measured the PD27 against the DCI-P3 spec and found it only lacked a bit of green. That primary is about 20% under-saturated though it tracks linearly which is a good thing for image fidelity. Red and blue are spot-on out of the box while yellow and magenta have slight hue errors. With an average error of 2.52dE, there is no cause for concern.
Switching to the User color temp reduces the error to 1.66dE and fixes the hue errors neatly. No further action is required but we took it anyway and saw no real change in the result. sRGB shows a slightly over-saturated red primary but is otherwise right on the money with a minor 1.50dE average error.
Comparisons
1.65dE is a super-low gamut error. That the PD27 can achieve this with nothing more than a change to the color temp preset is impressive. These are some of the best out-of-box numbers we’ve seen to date.
The PD27’s under-saturated green primary puts it a little behind the others in DCI-P3 gamut volume. Red and blue are fully covered though so the reduction doesn’t have a significant impact. In sRGB mode, the PD27 has a little bonus red, so color-critical users will want a profile to compensate. But even uncorrected, it has the most accurate sRGB gamut of the group.
