X-bit labs

Closer Look at 19” Monitors Features: Pixel Response Time and More! (page 5)

Category: Other

by Oleg Artamonov

[ 10/06/2003 | 07:18 AM ]

Iiyama AS4611UT

AS4611UT is a relatively inexpensive 18” model from one of the most renowned display makers – Iiyama. I say “relatively” because its price is a little below $900, which is quite high for 18” displays, but is pretty inexpensive compared to other models from Iiyama that may cost above $1000.

The design of the display is simple, homely, with no memorable features. There’s no DVI input, only D-Sub, and the cable is fixed, so you cannot disconnect it. The base allows adjusting the tiling of the screen.

The menu is one of the wickedest things I ever saw. Its structure resembles a single-line display in a CD player – a large font, scanty information and no submenus. For example, color temperature settings of 6500K, 7800K and user-defined are not taken to a separate “Color temperature” page, but are three different items in the main menu. The brightness and contrast controls, however, are accessed by quick buttons.

The default brightness and contrast depend on the selected color temperature: 46% and 43%, respectively, at 7800K and 46% and 35% at 6500K.

The real color temperature with 6500K setting turned to be 5850K when measuring on the white color and 6880K – on the 50% gray. When 7800K setting was enabled, the color temperature measurements produced 6520K and 7890 on white and gray, respectively. A screen brightness of 100nit was achieved by setting 40% brightness and 33% contrast.

The tests for the third reference point (maximum screen brightness) were performed using 100% contrast and 50% brightness as further increase of the brightness provoked a catastrophic growth of the level of black. It was over 60nit at 100% brightness. That is, black looked like light-gray and the contrast ratio was about 3:1.

At its default settings, the display is quite good at rendering colors. The level of blue is set a little too high, but this is a common problem of most displays.

When the screen brightness was set to 100nit, things grew less pleasant. The display doesn’t recognize dark tones, thus reducing the dynamic range by a quarter.

The total response time with 50% brightness and 100% contrast was 30ms as specified by the manufacturer. However, when the settings were reduced, the response time increased significantly – to 47ms at 100nit screen brightness.

Pixel rise time

Pixel fall time

The contrast ratio of this display was far from the specified 300:1 and was really no better than 150:1. The maximum screen brightness equaled 211nit, which is a little lower than the specs say.

So, notwithstanding its very high price, this display boasts nothing extraordinary and corresponds to cheapest models from other makers. The unassuming exterior, lack of the DVI input (moreover, this is the only model in this review to have a stationary cable), high response time, low screen brightness and contrast ratio, the infantile sickness of converting black into gray at a high brightness – all these things make me believe that it is the name of the manufacturer rather than technical characteristics that accounts for a bigger portion of the price.