Indian Price-45,000*
For a while now ‘4K’ has been touted as the next big thing for displays. Manufac
turers have been showing off ‘4K’ TVs at tradeshows for a number of years and now the technology has made its way onto smaller displays. The Samsung U28D590D features a 28” panel with UHD (Ultra High Definition) resolution of 3840 x 2160 – which is what most manufacturers are actually referring to when they use the buzzword ‘4K’. The monitor certainly looks sleek on the outside and boasts some fairly decent specifications, but what is it actually like in practice? We put this screen through its paces in our gantlet of ‘real world’ tests to find out.
This monitor uses the aforementioned 28” ‘4K’ UHD panel, which is manufactured by Taiwanese manufacturer InnoLux (formerly Chimei Innolux and Chimei Optoelectronics or CMO). This uses Twisted Nematic technology to yield rapid pixel response times (which look good on paper) at the expense of somewhat restricted viewing angles. Another figure which looks nice on paper is the 10-bit colour performance, with the monitor supporting up to 1.07 billion colours. This is obtained using 10-bits per subpixel without the use of FRC (Frame Rate Control) dithering. This is a positive change from the 6-bit + FRC common on TN panels and many of the more affordable IPS-type panels. It must be stressed that, as with many of these specifications, you rarely get a full indication of what to expect in practice. Even so we’ve highlighted these nice figures for you in blue below with our subsequent testing filling in the gaps.
Screen size: 28 inches
Panel type: InnoLux M280DGJ-L30 TN (Twisted Nematic) LCD Panel
Native resolution: 3840 x 2160
Typical maximum brightness: 300 cd/m² (370 cd/m² specified by Sasmung)
Colour support: 1.07 billion (10-bits per subpixel without dithering)
Response time (G2G): 1ms
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Weight: 5.65kg
Contrast ratio: 1,000:1 (Plus ‘MEGA’ Dynamic Contrast)
Viewing angle: 170º horizontal, 160º vertical
Power consumption: 32W typical
Backlight: WLED (White Light Emitting Diode)
From the front the monitor has a contemporary appearance. The glossy black plastic bezels are of a moderate thickness (18mm or 0.71 inches) at all edges. There is a power LED at the bottom right, which glows a moderately bright medium blue. His can be configured to turn off when the monitor is in operation, if you prefer. The stand has a T-shaped design with a thin metallic angled front plate and matte silver plastic elsewhere. The right of the stand’s front plate is labelled ‘UHD’, which is of course a major highlight of the screen. The screen surface is relatively light matte, somewhat comparable to the surface used by Samsung on their AD-PLS panels. This provides a clearer and potentially more vibrant image than a stronger anti-glare surface. You can see some outlines of objects and the cameraman in the first image, which was taken in a bright room flooded with natural summer daylight. When the monitor is displaying content and lighting in the room is controlled there is no issue with glare, as shown in the second image.
T-shaped stand design
Good glare reduction
The side of the screen uses a chrome-effect silver plastic surround. The screen itself is reasonably thin at around 20mm (0.79 inches) at thinnest point, bulking out a bit centrally. The interesting stand shape can also be seen from this angle. The stand attaches at the bottom of the monitor and affords only slight tilt adjustment to the screen. The stability of the monitor is fairly standard for such a design – a bit of wobble if you knock the screen but nothing that should cause problems during general use.
Shiny at the side
The rear has a faux brushed metal (matte black plastic) finish. The ports are located centrally; 2 HDMI 1.4 ports, DP 1.2 input, 3.5mm headphone jack and a DC power input (external ‘power brick’). Beneath that you will find a cable-tidy clip and Kensington lock socket.
Only a few ports
The OSD (On Screen Display) is controlled by a ‘JOG button’ (small joystick) shown at the bottom left of the image. It can be controlled by the fingers of the right hand when the monitor is places in its usual forward-facing orientation. This system proved responsive and intuitive. Twiddling the joystick in any direction provides a quick menu that allows you to adjust brightness, contrast and sharpness with a further twiddle of the joystick up or down. A side to side twiddle allows you to adjust the volume for the 3.5mm headphone jack. If you press the joystick in on this menu or before entering this quick menu you gain access to the feature menu. This allows you to select one of four main options, each one corresponding to a to a different joystick direction; ‘Source’, ‘Menu’, ‘PIP/PBP’ and ‘Power Off’. Once an option is highlighted a further click of the joystick inwards selects it. Indeed the monitor can’t be powered off with a single button press, but that’s a minor inconvenience given the well thought out system as a whole. The following video will give you a better idea of how the system works and the menu options available.
The monitor runs at its full native resolution and refresh rate (3840 x 2160 @ 60Hz) over DisplayPort 1.2. This is treated by Nvidia GPUs as a ‘PC’ resolution with the correct ‘Full Range RGB (0-255)’ colour signal and is also treated appropriately by AMD GPUs. Connecting a PC via one of the two HDMI 1.4a inputs limits the refresh rate to 30Hz at the native resolution and has the resolution listed in the Nvidia Control Panel as ‘4k x 2k, 3840 x 2160 (native)’ in the ‘Ultra HD, HD, SD’ list. Fortunately, as such TVs have similar colour signal requirements as modern monitors, Nvidia feed it the correct ‘Full Range RGB (0-255)’ colour signal. So regardless of the connection used there is no need to worry about colour signal issues at native resolution (or indeed PC-specific resolutions such as 2560 x 1440).
If you wish to run the monitor at a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which it will do at 60Hz regardless of the connection used, then you will encounter some issues with the colour signal. Using HDMI the image will look quite respectable when running at 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz as the ‘HDMI Black Level’ option is available in the monitor OSD. There is some noise in places (a bit like dithering of sorts) so it is best to set this to ‘Normal’ and enforce the correct ‘Full Range RGB (0-255)’ colour signal. The ‘HDMI Black Level’ option is, as the name suggests, not available when using DisplayPort and you will notice a severe hit in contrast and washed out look until the signal is corrected. AMD users may have some slightly different issues to contend with when running this resolution over HDMI. This article provides further information on all of these issues and how to correct them.
The U28D590D has a number of ‘MagicBright’ presets available; ‘Custom’, ‘Standard’, ‘Cinema’ and ‘Dynamic Contrast’. 3 ‘Gamma’ settings are also available, and there are two alternative presets (of sorts) that can be activated instead of one of the ‘MagicBright’ presets. Firstly there is the ‘Game Mode’, which blocks access to a number of monitor settings including the ability to select a ‘MagicBright’ preset. Secondly, as this monitor uses a TN panel, Samsung gives access to ‘MagicAngle’ modes as an alternative to ‘MagicBright’. These settings greatly alter the gamma behaviour and colour representation of the monitor, designed to improve the viewing experience in different ‘viewing situations’; ‘Lean Back Mode 1’, ‘Lean Back Mode 2’, ‘Standing Mode’, ‘Side Mode’, ‘Group View’ and ‘Custom’. There are a couple of minor firmware bugs to note when using one of these ‘MagicAngle’ settings. When you select a ‘MagicAngle’ mode and then alter settings such as colour channels, the usual behaviour is for the ‘MagicAngle’ setting to switch to ‘Custom’, but it doesn’t. You can also select a ‘Gamma’ mode, despite the fact these should be greyed out – and indeed selecting a ‘Gamma’ mode with ‘MagicAngle’ active has no effect on the image whatsoever.
The table below gives key readings such as gamma and white point using a range of settings on the Samsung. There are certain settings which can be accessed in some modes but not others, so these are listed. We also give general impressions on the image when using a given setting. The settings featured in this table were selected because we feel they are the most appealing or interesting for their effect on the image. The remaining settings have quite a negative impact on the image and we didn’t want to waste precious reviewing time explaining why they are best avoided.
Our test system used the DisplayPort cable included with the monitor, running on an Nvidia Geforce GTX 780. Windows 8.1 was used and because the monitor is ‘plug and play’, like most modern screens, no additional drivers or profiles were installed. The image is very similar when using a modern AMD GPU over DisplayPort, so these observations are also applicable to AMD users. We confirmed this by hooking the monitor up to an AMD Radeon 270X which provided similar key readings.
The image looks fairly rich out of the box but overly bright with a bit of a cool green tint. There is a bit of a washed out look in placed, accentuated towards the bottom of the screen. This is nothing like the unbalanced and faded look that some TN panels in particular produce, but further improvement can be made by a bit of tweaking in the OSD. Amongst the settings you can play with is the ‘Game Mode’ featured that made its way onto Samsung’s 2014 models. In practice this gave the image an artificial, oversaturated and overly sharp look which wasn’t really to our taste at all. There is a useful colour temperature preset called ‘Warm 2’ which is essentially the same as a ‘Low Blue Light’ setting or the ‘Reading’/’Paper’ modes found on the models of other manufacturers. For those who prefer something a little more blue but still quite relaxing on the eyes there is the less warm ‘Warm 1’ mode as well.
The most useful setting to adjust, aside from brightness, is the ‘Gamma’ mode, which can be set to one of 3 different values. As you can see from the table above and the graph below, the default gamma setting of ‘Mode1’ does the best job at pleasing the colorimeter.
Gamma 'Factory Defaults'
Compare this with the rather unconventional gamma behaviour of ‘Game Mode’, for example, and things look rather good on the face of it.
Gamma 'Game Mode'
And indeed compared to the graph from our test settings, which show a bit of a bow in the curve, ‘Mode1’ would appear the best option.
Gamma 'Test Settings'
But these graphs and gamma readings don’t tell the full story. One critical point to note is that a given shade is not perceived by the user, from their normal viewing position, in the same way as it’s seen by a colorimeter on a TN panel monitor. The colorimeter views a small section in the middle of the screen from pretty much point blank at a perpendicular angle. The eyes view the monitor from a distance (around 70cm for the purposes of our testing) and look up, down or across at some sections of the screen. Due to the viewing angle restrictions of TN technology this alters the perceived gamma and colours on the monitor in a way that a colorimeter’s readings simply don’t reflect. In particular perceived gamma is reduced considerably towards the bottom of the screen, and for some shades towards the edges as well. Further up the screen it is increased compared to the central point.
And although colour values are influenced by gamma, it is of course not the only factor influencing colour representation. Indeed when we compared the monitor in its fully calibrated state (using a colorimeter-created ICC profile specific to that monitor and system) to the OSD-tweak only state, ‘Mode1’ always provided more of a washed out look overall when the ICC profile wasn’t applied. Many shades were hankering for extra depth, despite the gamma curve (below) appearing quite similar.
Gamma 'ICC Gamma = Mode 1'
Comparing this calibrated state or indeed the calibrated state using ‘Mode3’, to our ‘Test Settings’ (‘Mode3’ plus other OSD tweaks) revealed much less of a stark contrast in the image. The shade depth appeared much more appropriate overall and it didn’t have the same washed out quality towards the bottom of the screen in particular. The gamma behaviour as reported by the colorimeter was much the same as the profiled or unprofiled ‘Mode1’ state but quite different to the perceptually similar ‘Mode3’ state.
Gamma 'ICC Gamma = Mode 3'
In short; we preferred running the monitor in ‘Gamma = Mode3’ despite what the colorimeter’s central readings may suggest. It’s always important not to become too fixated on the individual graphs or numbers and instead consider the end result (image).
As discussed above some fairly significant changes were made to brightness and the colour channels to create our ‘Test Settings’. These settings can be used on other units as a baseline to adjust from, or at least for a subjective comparison to be drawn, but note that individual units can and do differ.
turers have been showing off ‘4K’ TVs at tradeshows for a number of years and now the technology has made its way onto smaller displays. The Samsung U28D590D features a 28” panel with UHD (Ultra High Definition) resolution of 3840 x 2160 – which is what most manufacturers are actually referring to when they use the buzzword ‘4K’. The monitor certainly looks sleek on the outside and boasts some fairly decent specifications, but what is it actually like in practice? We put this screen through its paces in our gantlet of ‘real world’ tests to find out.
This monitor uses the aforementioned 28” ‘4K’ UHD panel, which is manufactured by Taiwanese manufacturer InnoLux (formerly Chimei Innolux and Chimei Optoelectronics or CMO). This uses Twisted Nematic technology to yield rapid pixel response times (which look good on paper) at the expense of somewhat restricted viewing angles. Another figure which looks nice on paper is the 10-bit colour performance, with the monitor supporting up to 1.07 billion colours. This is obtained using 10-bits per subpixel without the use of FRC (Frame Rate Control) dithering. This is a positive change from the 6-bit + FRC common on TN panels and many of the more affordable IPS-type panels. It must be stressed that, as with many of these specifications, you rarely get a full indication of what to expect in practice. Even so we’ve highlighted these nice figures for you in blue below with our subsequent testing filling in the gaps.
Screen size: 28 inches
Panel type: InnoLux M280DGJ-L30 TN (Twisted Nematic) LCD Panel
Native resolution: 3840 x 2160
Typical maximum brightness: 300 cd/m² (370 cd/m² specified by Sasmung)
Colour support: 1.07 billion (10-bits per subpixel without dithering)
Response time (G2G): 1ms
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Weight: 5.65kg
Contrast ratio: 1,000:1 (Plus ‘MEGA’ Dynamic Contrast)
Viewing angle: 170º horizontal, 160º vertical
Power consumption: 32W typical
Backlight: WLED (White Light Emitting Diode)
From the front the monitor has a contemporary appearance. The glossy black plastic bezels are of a moderate thickness (18mm or 0.71 inches) at all edges. There is a power LED at the bottom right, which glows a moderately bright medium blue. His can be configured to turn off when the monitor is in operation, if you prefer. The stand has a T-shaped design with a thin metallic angled front plate and matte silver plastic elsewhere. The right of the stand’s front plate is labelled ‘UHD’, which is of course a major highlight of the screen. The screen surface is relatively light matte, somewhat comparable to the surface used by Samsung on their AD-PLS panels. This provides a clearer and potentially more vibrant image than a stronger anti-glare surface. You can see some outlines of objects and the cameraman in the first image, which was taken in a bright room flooded with natural summer daylight. When the monitor is displaying content and lighting in the room is controlled there is no issue with glare, as shown in the second image.
T-shaped stand design
Good glare reduction
The side of the screen uses a chrome-effect silver plastic surround. The screen itself is reasonably thin at around 20mm (0.79 inches) at thinnest point, bulking out a bit centrally. The interesting stand shape can also be seen from this angle. The stand attaches at the bottom of the monitor and affords only slight tilt adjustment to the screen. The stability of the monitor is fairly standard for such a design – a bit of wobble if you knock the screen but nothing that should cause problems during general use.
Shiny at the side
The rear has a faux brushed metal (matte black plastic) finish. The ports are located centrally; 2 HDMI 1.4 ports, DP 1.2 input, 3.5mm headphone jack and a DC power input (external ‘power brick’). Beneath that you will find a cable-tidy clip and Kensington lock socket.
Only a few ports
The OSD (On Screen Display) is controlled by a ‘JOG button’ (small joystick) shown at the bottom left of the image. It can be controlled by the fingers of the right hand when the monitor is places in its usual forward-facing orientation. This system proved responsive and intuitive. Twiddling the joystick in any direction provides a quick menu that allows you to adjust brightness, contrast and sharpness with a further twiddle of the joystick up or down. A side to side twiddle allows you to adjust the volume for the 3.5mm headphone jack. If you press the joystick in on this menu or before entering this quick menu you gain access to the feature menu. This allows you to select one of four main options, each one corresponding to a to a different joystick direction; ‘Source’, ‘Menu’, ‘PIP/PBP’ and ‘Power Off’. Once an option is highlighted a further click of the joystick inwards selects it. Indeed the monitor can’t be powered off with a single button press, but that’s a minor inconvenience given the well thought out system as a whole. The following video will give you a better idea of how the system works and the menu options available.
The monitor runs at its full native resolution and refresh rate (3840 x 2160 @ 60Hz) over DisplayPort 1.2. This is treated by Nvidia GPUs as a ‘PC’ resolution with the correct ‘Full Range RGB (0-255)’ colour signal and is also treated appropriately by AMD GPUs. Connecting a PC via one of the two HDMI 1.4a inputs limits the refresh rate to 30Hz at the native resolution and has the resolution listed in the Nvidia Control Panel as ‘4k x 2k, 3840 x 2160 (native)’ in the ‘Ultra HD, HD, SD’ list. Fortunately, as such TVs have similar colour signal requirements as modern monitors, Nvidia feed it the correct ‘Full Range RGB (0-255)’ colour signal. So regardless of the connection used there is no need to worry about colour signal issues at native resolution (or indeed PC-specific resolutions such as 2560 x 1440).
If you wish to run the monitor at a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which it will do at 60Hz regardless of the connection used, then you will encounter some issues with the colour signal. Using HDMI the image will look quite respectable when running at 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz as the ‘HDMI Black Level’ option is available in the monitor OSD. There is some noise in places (a bit like dithering of sorts) so it is best to set this to ‘Normal’ and enforce the correct ‘Full Range RGB (0-255)’ colour signal. The ‘HDMI Black Level’ option is, as the name suggests, not available when using DisplayPort and you will notice a severe hit in contrast and washed out look until the signal is corrected. AMD users may have some slightly different issues to contend with when running this resolution over HDMI. This article provides further information on all of these issues and how to correct them.
The U28D590D has a number of ‘MagicBright’ presets available; ‘Custom’, ‘Standard’, ‘Cinema’ and ‘Dynamic Contrast’. 3 ‘Gamma’ settings are also available, and there are two alternative presets (of sorts) that can be activated instead of one of the ‘MagicBright’ presets. Firstly there is the ‘Game Mode’, which blocks access to a number of monitor settings including the ability to select a ‘MagicBright’ preset. Secondly, as this monitor uses a TN panel, Samsung gives access to ‘MagicAngle’ modes as an alternative to ‘MagicBright’. These settings greatly alter the gamma behaviour and colour representation of the monitor, designed to improve the viewing experience in different ‘viewing situations’; ‘Lean Back Mode 1’, ‘Lean Back Mode 2’, ‘Standing Mode’, ‘Side Mode’, ‘Group View’ and ‘Custom’. There are a couple of minor firmware bugs to note when using one of these ‘MagicAngle’ settings. When you select a ‘MagicAngle’ mode and then alter settings such as colour channels, the usual behaviour is for the ‘MagicAngle’ setting to switch to ‘Custom’, but it doesn’t. You can also select a ‘Gamma’ mode, despite the fact these should be greyed out – and indeed selecting a ‘Gamma’ mode with ‘MagicAngle’ active has no effect on the image whatsoever.
The table below gives key readings such as gamma and white point using a range of settings on the Samsung. There are certain settings which can be accessed in some modes but not others, so these are listed. We also give general impressions on the image when using a given setting. The settings featured in this table were selected because we feel they are the most appealing or interesting for their effect on the image. The remaining settings have quite a negative impact on the image and we didn’t want to waste precious reviewing time explaining why they are best avoided.
Our test system used the DisplayPort cable included with the monitor, running on an Nvidia Geforce GTX 780. Windows 8.1 was used and because the monitor is ‘plug and play’, like most modern screens, no additional drivers or profiles were installed. The image is very similar when using a modern AMD GPU over DisplayPort, so these observations are also applicable to AMD users. We confirmed this by hooking the monitor up to an AMD Radeon 270X which provided similar key readings.
The image looks fairly rich out of the box but overly bright with a bit of a cool green tint. There is a bit of a washed out look in placed, accentuated towards the bottom of the screen. This is nothing like the unbalanced and faded look that some TN panels in particular produce, but further improvement can be made by a bit of tweaking in the OSD. Amongst the settings you can play with is the ‘Game Mode’ featured that made its way onto Samsung’s 2014 models. In practice this gave the image an artificial, oversaturated and overly sharp look which wasn’t really to our taste at all. There is a useful colour temperature preset called ‘Warm 2’ which is essentially the same as a ‘Low Blue Light’ setting or the ‘Reading’/’Paper’ modes found on the models of other manufacturers. For those who prefer something a little more blue but still quite relaxing on the eyes there is the less warm ‘Warm 1’ mode as well.
The most useful setting to adjust, aside from brightness, is the ‘Gamma’ mode, which can be set to one of 3 different values. As you can see from the table above and the graph below, the default gamma setting of ‘Mode1’ does the best job at pleasing the colorimeter.
Gamma 'Factory Defaults'
Compare this with the rather unconventional gamma behaviour of ‘Game Mode’, for example, and things look rather good on the face of it.
Gamma 'Game Mode'
And indeed compared to the graph from our test settings, which show a bit of a bow in the curve, ‘Mode1’ would appear the best option.
Gamma 'Test Settings'
But these graphs and gamma readings don’t tell the full story. One critical point to note is that a given shade is not perceived by the user, from their normal viewing position, in the same way as it’s seen by a colorimeter on a TN panel monitor. The colorimeter views a small section in the middle of the screen from pretty much point blank at a perpendicular angle. The eyes view the monitor from a distance (around 70cm for the purposes of our testing) and look up, down or across at some sections of the screen. Due to the viewing angle restrictions of TN technology this alters the perceived gamma and colours on the monitor in a way that a colorimeter’s readings simply don’t reflect. In particular perceived gamma is reduced considerably towards the bottom of the screen, and for some shades towards the edges as well. Further up the screen it is increased compared to the central point.
And although colour values are influenced by gamma, it is of course not the only factor influencing colour representation. Indeed when we compared the monitor in its fully calibrated state (using a colorimeter-created ICC profile specific to that monitor and system) to the OSD-tweak only state, ‘Mode1’ always provided more of a washed out look overall when the ICC profile wasn’t applied. Many shades were hankering for extra depth, despite the gamma curve (below) appearing quite similar.
Gamma 'ICC Gamma = Mode 1'
Comparing this calibrated state or indeed the calibrated state using ‘Mode3’, to our ‘Test Settings’ (‘Mode3’ plus other OSD tweaks) revealed much less of a stark contrast in the image. The shade depth appeared much more appropriate overall and it didn’t have the same washed out quality towards the bottom of the screen in particular. The gamma behaviour as reported by the colorimeter was much the same as the profiled or unprofiled ‘Mode1’ state but quite different to the perceptually similar ‘Mode3’ state.
Gamma 'ICC Gamma = Mode 3'
In short; we preferred running the monitor in ‘Gamma = Mode3’ despite what the colorimeter’s central readings may suggest. It’s always important not to become too fixated on the individual graphs or numbers and instead consider the end result (image).
As discussed above some fairly significant changes were made to brightness and the colour channels to create our ‘Test Settings’. These settings can be used on other units as a baseline to adjust from, or at least for a subjective comparison to be drawn, but note that individual units can and do differ.
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