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[Dual Review] ASUS PB287Q and usability of 4K of mid 2015

No disclaimer on here! So lets jump right in!

 

4K is a thing now. More TV’s and monitors are starting to become cheaper by the day everyday. And with that happening, I decided to pick one up. But first let me tell you what I had before this screen. 

 

Before I purchased a 4K panel, I had a crummy 1080p monitor from ASUS. The thing was a TN panel with 8, yes I said 8 ms of GTG response time, and it was only about $100. So I figured this was a massive upgrade. Prior to this screen, I have never seen a 4K display. Ever. it was hard to find any 4K monitors in any of the stores I went. 

 

Anyways, I decided to pick up the Asus PB287Q. And I know from the start people are going to yell at me saying “But Brandon! Its a TN panel! And TN Panels are the worst!!!1!!!1” Yes, this panel is TN. However, With its 1000:1 Contrast ratio, and support for 10 Bit color by using framerate control dithering, It’s one of the best TN panels I have ever seen. But that is not a big problem for me. I never do any color work, and If I did, I would buy a Pro Art series monitor from Asus. I could have gotten the IPS version of this monitor, but for $800 at almost double the price as this one, I decided to not do it. 

 

Let me say that again. I got this monitor for $450. Yep. $450. I was trying to find a good budget screen, and when I saw this monitor on sale, I purchased it instantly. 

 

Lets start with the good stuff. This specific panel is a 28 inch 4K panel. And at 28 inches, its a really good mix between size and pixel density. It has a 157 PPI which is just a mind boggling number for me. And a max resolution of 3840x2160. It has 1 Display Port, 2 HDMI that are 1.4, so you should never touch them ever, and an audio in as well as headphone out which is pretty cool, though I sit next to my PC so I usually just use the Front panel stuff, but you know its there if you need it. But all of this you could have gotten off a spreadsheet, so lets talk about usability.

 

The Unboxing experience. It came in a bigger box than I expected for a monitor. It has all the cables you need. The day it came I grabbed that thing. I was VERY exited to see this thing in action. So I slammed it on my desk, Tuned it on, and spent about an hour trying to calibrate it for my needs. Speaking of the menu, It has all the features you need, with all the stuff that matters. The only thing I would have liked in here would be gamma control since that is missing. Other than that, Great menu. loved it. I’ll Tell you my settings now, and its as close as “Accurate” you can expect from this monitor: 

 

Splendid : Scenery

Brightness : 100

Contrast : 83

Saturation : 40

Colour temp : User Mode : R = 100 G = 97 B = 97

Skin tone : Natural

Sharpness : 60

Trace Free : 60

Vivid Pixel : Off

ACSR : Off

 

However, If you want the best Plug and play option, Go with RGB or Standard to avoid all the customization I did. The reason its in scenery is because it unlocks all of the options like Contrast, saturation, ect. And I like my monitor suited for my needs. BTW the saturation on this monitor is VERY overpowering. 40 is still a LOT. Also Make sure that under display port is set to 1.2 because its set on 1.1 and that doesn’t support 4K at 60hz

 

Asus, the button thing that you have is the worst thing ever. Anything like front or side buttons would have helped out. But rear mounting the buttons on the back is absolutely the worst. I hate it. While in the menu, I kept on accidentally turning the display off because I wasn't Aligned with the buttons. 

 

In conclusion, the PB287Q was an obvious buy for me at $450. it was worlds better than the samsung offering just because of the stand, and has all the customizations that you would expect. This was a bit of a short review from a product because its a monitor. I mean what can you expect. It has great Color reproduction, but not enough for professionals, and just great overall looks. Highly recommended. 

 

Overall score: 

 

9/10 : Cat’s Recommendation

 

 

Oh you thought I was done? No, There is a LOT more. 

 

4K review:

 

Because I have a 4K monitor now, Its time to discuss the downsides of actually having this many pixels. Yes, before buying that screen, I fully expected to have all of my editing tools spread out all over the place because of the amount of pixels 4K actually has. But I was wrong. At 28 Inches, anything lower than 150% text size, It feels like I am taking an Eye exam. It is not good at all. If I go below 150% I have to actually get out of my chair and look closer to the screen. However. At 150%, it looks absolutely beautiful. 150% is the perfect balance for UHD users everywhere. 

 

But doing so, I only have about 1/2 the added workspace. Between a 1080p Monitor and a 4K monitor, the only thing I have ever noticed is sharpness on an image. speaking of sharpness, OH WOW. This thing is VERY sharp. If apple started producing these, It would be called a retina display, because the screen has enough PPI that your eyes cant distinguish pixels beyond a normal sitting range. Thats how sharp and good this screen is. 

 

Playback at 4K on youtube is absolutely beautiful/completely horrible. Every single time I load a 4K video, the video is so compressed, that I would rather watch it on a 1080p screen with downscaled video being played back. J+K videos usually have that nice look to it, but as far as overall quality goes, Like this one, youtube does a horrible job at it. And yes, a huge HUGE problem here is the end user’s internet speed. If you don't have 50+ download, it will not work smoothly. 4K playback will suck. 

 

Unfortunately, I am a little disappointed with the way 4K works. All it does is improve text sharpness and such which is arguably good perks, but at 28 inches, its not big enough to go below 150% in text scaling. 

 

A good example of something that you can actually get out of this is work on Premiere Pro. Mostly 1080p Videos, so it was nice to have the full 1080p video in one corner of the screen, and have the rest of the screen set for editing. Purely rocks that side of the spectrum, but the tools were so big that it usually took more than just a forth of the screen. But overall, very nice. 

 

For the average user, I would say wait until you can find a 4K monitor for about $250 or less. it is definitely not worth the upgrade right now. 

 

Rating :

 

6/10 : Would cat again in 4K.

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-snip

Great review. I actually use 200%, but 150-175% looks great as well. I agree with the button issue, it's very hard trying to navigate with them. How does your 980 fare in playing games in 4K?

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Great review. I actually use 200%, but 150-175% looks great as well. I agree with the button issue, it's very hard trying to navigate with them. How does your 980 fare in playing games in 4K?

Mostly does it fine, I actually left the gaming side of things out of the review since I actually don't game as often as I would like to. But like GTAV for example, I got 4K 60FPS in high to mid settings with no MSAA but FXAA turned on. So.. pretty average? Besides GTA I don't really play that many demanding games. so I would say 9/10ths of my steam library is totally playable at max settings on 4K. although some games like terraria does not have a 4K option. Other than that, it works nicely. 

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Very nice review. I just ordered a 290X and will hopfully be getting a 4k monitor after I get another one.

Thanks, and yeah that card should be fine :)
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Great review. I actually use 200%, but 150-175% looks great as well. I agree with the button issue, it's very hard trying to navigate with them. How does your 980 fare in playing games in 4K?

Also, I tried 200%, but applications just absolutely does not like being scaled that high. So... I don't know.
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Good review, I order a Samsung U28D590D for 400 bucks, I thought it was a good deal and it basically uses the same TN panel as the one in the Asus PB287Q that you have so I hope that coming from an IPS as well, I won't be too bothered by the color inaccuracy. I'll post a member review when it arrives, hopefully tomorrow or on Thursday and we ca compare our experiences with 4K in mid 2015. :)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 - 3900x @ 4.4GHz with a Custom Loop | MBO: ASUS Crosshair VI Extreme | RAM: 4x4GB Apacer 2666MHz overclocked to 3933MHz with OCZ Reaper HPC Heatsinks | GPU: PowerColor Red Devil 6900XT | SSDs: Intel 660P 512GB SSD and Intel 660P 1TB SSD | HDD: 2x WD Black 6TB and Seagate Backup Plus 8TB External Drive | PSU: Corsair RM1000i | Case: Cooler Master C700P Black Edition | Build Log: here

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Good review, I order a Samsung U28D590D for 400 bucks, I thought it was a good deal and it basically uses the same TN panel as the one in the Asus PB287Q that you have so I hope that coming from an IPS as well, I won't be too bothered by the color inaccuracy. I'll post a member review when it arrives, hopefully tomorrow or on Thursday and we ca compare our experiences with 4K in mid 2015. :)

Please message me when available and I'll read full! I wanted to see a review on it as well! :)
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4K review:

 

 

This is why I still think 1440p is the best resolution right now

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Great review. I actually use 200%, but 150-175% looks great as well. I agree with the button issue, it's very hard trying to navigate with them. How does your 980 fare in playing games in 4K?

Heh, my 480 was able to do some fairly basic 4K games. :P

 

But nice review @BrandonTheCat.

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Heh, my 480 was able to do some fairly basic 4K games. :P

 

But nice review @BrandonTheCat.

Thanks, and yeah a lot of games dont require a huge card even for today.

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This is why I still think 1440p is the best resolution right now

I didnt actually get time to post this, so excuse the late reply (ノ_・。)

 

Windows 10 seemed to have fixed most things wrong with the 4K resolution issue. For the most part. 3rd party applications still have huge issues and still don't like it. But for now, Microsoft is trying to help. So that's good!

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I didnt actually get time to post this, so excuse the late reply (ノ_・。)

 

Windows 10 seemed to have fixed most things wrong with the 4K resolution issue. For the most part. 3rd party applications still have huge issues and still don't like it. But for now, Microsoft is trying to help. So that's good!

 

Oh really like DPI scaling in OSX?

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Oh really like DPI scaling in OSX?

No I think it still sadly works the same way. They need to learn that DPI scaling is the way to go. Anyways I think it's the same scaling system just not horribly stupidly bad. If that makes sense (it might not, I don't even understand, as long as it works!)

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I just received my Mini DP to DP cable, after almost a week of waiting... I will test the monitor for a while and after a couple of days I will post my review of it. All I can say for now is that the screen is good but the POS stand spoils everything... 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 - 3900x @ 4.4GHz with a Custom Loop | MBO: ASUS Crosshair VI Extreme | RAM: 4x4GB Apacer 2666MHz overclocked to 3933MHz with OCZ Reaper HPC Heatsinks | GPU: PowerColor Red Devil 6900XT | SSDs: Intel 660P 512GB SSD and Intel 660P 1TB SSD | HDD: 2x WD Black 6TB and Seagate Backup Plus 8TB External Drive | PSU: Corsair RM1000i | Case: Cooler Master C700P Black Edition | Build Log: here

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