Samsung U28D590D 28-Inch Ultra HD Monitor Review

Reviews
By Christian Eberle
published

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Packaging, Physical Layout And Accessories

The U28D590D comes in one of the thinnest cartons we’ve ever seen. The box is literally only 4.25 inches thick and filled with just enough foam blocks to hold the panel in place. Mail order purchasers will want to carefully check their shipments for damage. Bundled accessories include HDMI and DisplayPort cables, plus an external power supply with detachable cord. There’s also a quick setup guide and a CD with the full manual and drivers.

Product 360

Despite its low price point, the U28D590D sports pretty nice styling and decent build quality. The screen is no different than other 28-inch TN UHD displays with a medium anti-glare coating. The bezel is quite thin at only 12mm, and there are no buttons of any kind in view. All you can see besides the Samsung logo is a blue power LED, which comes on when the monitor is off. Yes, that sounds backwards, but you can change the light’s behavior in the menu so it’s on when the monitor is powered up.

The base is the definition of minimalism. It’s made of a nicely-finished plastic with stamped steel parts inside for rigidity. The monitor still wobbles a bit. Considering how thin it is, though, it’s pretty solid. The only adjustment available is tilt. The panel is at a good height for the typical desktop. However, if you need to change its position, you’re out of luck since there’s no VESA mount.

If you feel around back of the lower-right side, you’ll find the one and only control, this little joystick. It moves in four directions and functions as a button. Pressing it brings up a quick menu that presents a few basic functions or lets you into the main OSD. These kinds of controllers are appearing on more displays lately, and we’re beginning to like them. It’s much more intuitive than four or five buttons, and way better than touch-sensitive keys.

The U28D590D is incredibly slim from the side. The bulge on the panel’s lower half adds a little thickness, but it’s still a sleek package. The only missing interfaces are USB ports and a headphone jack. At least the latter connector can be found around back.

The back is finished in a finely-brushed texture that looks high-end. It’s super-clean too; all you see is the Samsung logo and a small input panel. There aren’t even any vents breaking up the surface. Despite that, the monitor runs cool to the touch.

You don’t get much more than what’s needed on the U28D590D’s input panel. There are two HDMI jacks and a single DisplayPort connector. To the right of those is a 3.5mm headphone output. The ports face out instead of down, but since you can’t wall-mount the panel, that doesn't matter.

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.

See more Monitors Reviews
24 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NeoWilson
    No height or swivel adjustment - Are they dumb or what?
    Reply
  • mgilbert
    Correction - I wound up with R=49, G=33, B=48. And this monitor is blindingly bright. I have brightness set at 40, contrast at 60, and sharpness at 52.
    Reply
  • Charly2nd
    "If you want a 32-inch jumbo screen to anchor your high-end rig, you’ll still pay between $1500 and $2000."
    This is not true anymore. Benq and Acer bith sell 32inch IPS panels for under U$D1000. Also, Dell' has a 27 inch 4K IPS panel that sells for 700 dollars, but can be found regularly for U$D 500 during promotions. So, there are cheaper IPS options out there (I purchased one for U$D 524 - hasn't arrived yet), almost for the same price of these TN panels.
    Reply
  • airborn824
    I have this monitor and i enjoy it, i got it for free. I Would buy the ASUS if it was my own money. Does anyone know if this is also getting Freesync support? I have 2x R9 290
    Reply
  • Charly2nd
    My correction aside, I like the thoroughness of Christian's reviews. I come often to this site because of hardware reviews like these! Thanks!
    Reply
  • Grognak
    Eh, TN on such a massive, 4K monitor is kinda counterintuituve. It's true that they're getting better when it comes to both viewing angles and colors, but that's still not quite IPS quality here. Also, the 98ms input lag is insane, most TVs don't go that high. I guess you can't be too demanding at that price.
    Reply
  • Ilander
    The Amazon link to the PB287Q links to the incorrect product, mistakenly leading me to believe that it was 399.99 USD. That's a huge difference in price which really sets a person's opinion on value...please fix.
    Reply
  • xj97
    I had this monitor at work and ended up pawning it off on someone else. The panel was pretty decent, but it did NOT play well with sleep states over displayport. The monitor wouldn't wake up... I'd have to pull the power plug to reset the darn thing.

    Other than that I loved it, but the sleep issue was just too annoying.
    Reply
  • ceberle
    15156989 said:
    I have this monitor, and am wondering why you tested it on HDMI, which only yields a 30 Hz refresh rate. Would using the DisplayPort input change any of the numbers significantly, especially considering that there is no option to change the black level when on DP? Would using DP affect input lag?

    Also, I found the green level much too high out of the box, and my old HueyPro calibrator agreed. I wound up with R=49 G=43 B=48. And, using a couple of gamma test images, I found gamma to be way off. I used the QuickGamma utility to correct it. With these corrections, I have excellent image quality.

    When I test monitors with the Accupel signal generator it is indeed over HDMI but since the input resolution is 1920x1080, the tests are run at 60Hz. I have made comparisons of HDMI and DisplayPort with regards to response and input lag and found no difference in speed. Resolution also makes no difference since the panel scales any incoming signal to its native resolution.

    -Christian-
    Reply
  • qlum
    Looking at these screens I think my upgrade to 4k for my primary monitor is going to wait a while longer. Especially since my 4 screen setup would require a vesa mount.
    Reply