NEC EA244UHD Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 7, 2014 2:30 PM ESTDPI: Too High?
The real question with a 24” UltraHD display is how well can you see/use it at native resolution? To me, it’s simply not usable at 3840x2160 resolution without DPI scaling. If you want to try and use it at this resolution you can, but I imagine you will stop after a short period of time. Scaled to 150% (or 2560x1440, which OS X Yosemite also supports as an option) it is easy to read and use everything. With applications that support DPI scaling correctly, like Lightroom, you can also have elements that are scaled while images utilize all the pixels that UHD offers.
Talking to NEC, they also realize that most people will be scaling images on the display. One issue, beyond OS support, is that applications that use custom UI elements take more work to improve for HiDPI and UltraHD displays. Those applications that only use standard OS elements (normal menus, no icons or images like Photoshop or Paint.NET) can migrate to supporting HiDPI far more easily.
There are many areas where UHD displays, even a smaller 24” one, are very valuable for their larger screen area. Content creation, including images and videos, can utilize the extra space. Financial users, who always want as much data on hand as they can have, are another large market. NEC includes DICOM support so the UHD display works for examining x-rays in as much detail as possible.
As I mentioned before, SpectraView II now works with the EA-series displays starting with the EA244UHD. Compared to the PA-series there are a few limitations to what SpectraView can do. It will calibrate the grayscale and color using the internal LUTs, but your only color gamut target is native. Since the EA244UHD has a large gamut that covers AdobeRGB, this causes issues. SpectraView II will create an ICC profile that lets ICC-aware applications see colors perfectly, but non-ICC applications will have a blown-out gamut. Since the EA244UHD also has an sRGB emulation mode, you can still use non-ICC applications and get an accurate gamut, but you must do so without calibration.
SpectraView II also now supports the BT.1886 gamma curve that is becoming more common in home theater use. One feature I was hoping to see, but NEC says will not be there, is support for 4:2:0 chroma subsampling over HDMI. Since HDMI 2.0 chipsets are just now becoming available, fitting a 60Hz UltraHD signal into the HDMI 1.4 bandwidth requires use of this chroma subsampling. For video content this is perfectly fine, Blu-ray and DVD content has always used it, and some vendors have used it with HDMI 1.4 chipsets. The NEC does not so the highest refresh rate you can achieve with an UltraHD signal over HDMI is 30Hz.
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DanNeely - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Win 8.1 does support different DPIs for different monitors. AIUI Metro/WPF apps have the ability to handle it built into their UI library; apps using anything else can either set a flag saying they support per monitor DPI or are locked to render in the DPI of the first monitor they open on and are scaled when moved to one with a different DPI.jay401 - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
That sure is an ugly stand for such an expensive monitor.Sabresiberian - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
The DPI isn't too high; the applications are simply behind the times. Software engineers should have had this figured out by now and acted so that UHD @ 24" wasn't a problem. And, scaling is only going of become more of an issue if they don't in the next few years.althaz - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Agreed. Developers (of which I am one), have the tools at their disposal to make applications scale well. For the most part however, they don't and I'm really not sure why.MikhailT - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
From what I can see, it has to do with the custom UI frameworks. If you stick with the MS's UI widgets as much as you can, you shouldn't have a problem scaling it. However, if you're using a custom coded one, you're going to have a bad time.In Delphi for an example, some components would render just fine by setting a manifest on it but some components require you to give it custom scaling calculations to make it work. So, you can see different reactions from different components that were coded differently at different eras. For them, they just don't have the time and/or resources to figure it out as the market for folks with HiDPI screens are still a niche.
Penti - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Plenty of Windows components still doesn't scale at all except bitmap. If the OS it self can't do it well why should anybody follow?Pinkynator - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
This is the first time I've ever seen calibrations to 80 and 200 cd/m2. Usually it's 120...Clorex - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
We already have monitors that do 4k single-stream over DP 1.2; so why are there still MST monitors being released?SanX - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
I really do not understand people who want 24" 4K monitors and not 30-40". They have different DNA. I do not understand producers either.MrSpadge - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
That's probably why are not one of the display producers, then. Not everyone has the desk space to put 30 - 40" monitors far enough away so that the viewing experience is pleasant.