Dell S2719DM

Interlace pattern artifacts

On some monitors faint interlace patterns can be seen during certain transitions, particularly noticeable where light shades (muzzle flashes, explosions etc.) briefly pop up on the screen. These are sometimes referred to as ‘inversions artifacts’. Alternatively, static interlace patterns can be seen with some shades appearing as faint horizontal bands of a slightly lighter and slightly darker version of the intended shade. On this model we observed static interlace pattern artifacts. These were very faint at 60Hz but quite a bit more noticeable at higher refresh rates, for example 75Hz. Some users wouldn’t notice these, even at higher refresh rates, but some users would and could find them bothersome. They’re generally less noticeable when gaming than when on the desktop as it’s static content that brings them out most clearly.

Responsiveness

Input lag

We used a small program called SMTT 2.0 alongside a sensitive camera to compare the latency of the S2719DM with a range of monitors of known input lag. We took over 30 repeat readings to maximise accuracy. Using this method, we measured 9.68ms (just over 1/2 a frame @ 60Hz) of input lag. There was no significant difference at 75Hz nor if ‘Preset Mode’ was changed. This value is influenced both by the element you see (pixel responsiveness) and that which you feel (signal delay). It indicates a reasonably low signal delay that shouldn’t bother most users. Note that we do not have a way to accurately measure input lag with FreeSync active in a variable refresh rate environment nor with HDR active in an HDR environment. If we turned ‘Smart HDR’ on, though, input lag dropped slightly to 4.55ms with SDR content (such as SMTT 2.0) displayed. Bear in mind that you can’t run the monitor much above 60Hz with ‘Smart HDR’ enabled without severe frame skipping, however. Most users would find 75Hz with ‘Smart HDR’ disabled ‘feels’ better despite marginally higher input lag.

Perceived blur (pursuit photography)

In our responsiveness article, we explore the key concepts relevant to monitor responsiveness. One of the key concepts explored is ‘perceived blur’, which is contributed to not just by the pixel responsiveness of the monitor but also the movement of your eyes as you view motion on the screen. This second factor is generally dominant on modern monitors. A technique called ‘pursuit photography’ is also explored, which uses a moving rather than stationary camera to capture motion on a monitor in a way that more accurately reflects what the eye sees. With both elements of perceived blur (pixel responsiveness and eye/camera movement) reflected.

The images below are pursuit photographs taken using the UFO Motion Test for ghosting, with the test running at 960 pixels per second. This is a practical speed for capturing such photographs and highlights both elements of perceived blur nicely. The UFOs move across the screen from left to right at a frame rate matching the refresh rate of the display, which is 60Hz (60fps) in this case. All background shade levels (dark, medium and light) were used and both ‘Response Time’ settings on the monitor were tested. The final image shows a 60Hz reference monitor, a Dell S2417DG, which gives an idea of how things should look where pixel responsiveness isn’t really a limiting factor. Note that you may be able to see a mottled effect on the background for some of these images. That is a small amount of image retention (burn-in) which we observed whilst running this test for extended periods of time. We didn’t observe this in any other testing, including gaming and image editing, and it disappeared on its own within 20 minutes of using the monitor normally.

The first column shows ‘Response Time’ set to ‘Normal’ on our AMD GPU. The UFO appears soft and unfocused, just as in the reference image. This reflects a moderate level of perceived blur attributable to eye movement and linked to the 60Hz refresh rate. There is also a little bit of trailing behind the object, although nothing severe, caused by slightly slower than optimal pixel responsiveness. In the case of the dark background the trailing appears darker than either the object or background shade – this is overshoot (inverse ghosting) caused by strong pixel overdrive. The second column shows the ‘Fast’ setting on the same AMD GPU. This appears identical to the ‘Normal’ setting – it appears that, if connected to an AMD FreeSync GPU, the monitor will ignore this setting and use its default ‘Normal’ setting. That’s not really a bad thing – the final column shows the monitor connected to an Nvidia GPU where the ‘Fast’ setting works as intended. It’s an ugly mess of obvious overshoot.

This monitor can also be set to run at 75Hz, in fact it’s listed as a resolution and was the default used on our system for both our Nvidia and AMD GPUs. On our AMD GPU this works just fine. On our Nvidia GPU there was obvious frame skipping. We had to set a custom resolution of 74Hz or below, which worked just fine without frame skipping. The easiest way to do this is through Nvidia Control panel, as covered in the first part of the video we just linked to. The image below provides pursuit photographs from the monitor running at 75Hz on our AMD GPU.

The UFO body is slightly narrower and the details within it marginally sharper, reflecting a decrease in perceived blur – less eye movement from the extra 15Hz and 15fps. There is some trailing behind the object, with the nature of this trailing slightly changed from 60Hz for the dark background (top row). The overshoot is no longer visible, instead there is a bit of conventional trailing that’s bolder than for the other background shades. The ‘Fast’ setting is again identical on our AMD GPU. We didn’t include any images from our Nvidia GPU, because as covered in the previous paragraph it couldn’t be set to 75Hz without issues. We can confirm that it appeared very similar to this when set to 74Hz – except that the ‘Fast’ introduced the same sort of strong overshoot observed at 60Hz.

Responsiveness in games and movies

On Battlefield 1 (BF1) there was a moderate degree of perceived blur, caused predominantly by eye movement and linked to the 75Hz refresh rate. In this respect, the extra 15Hz (provided the frame rate kept up) provided an advantage compared to 60Hz. The other advantage of this is in the ‘connected feel’, with interactions with the game world feeling slightly more fluid in comparison. There were no obvious weaknesses in pixel responsiveness that added any obvious trailing, only minor weaknesses as highlighted with Test UFO earlier. The weakest pixel responses we observed occurred where dark objects were cast against slightly lighter backgrounds – for example a dark metal gun emplacement against a twilight sky. There was no ‘smeary’ trailing as you’d typically see from a VA panel for some transitions, just a slight trail that was fairly faint and short-lived. Not something most users would notice or be bothered by. There was no eye-catching overshoot either, just a little bit of inverse ghosting affecting a few transitions. Where medium shades were presented against a lighter background, for example, there was a little bit of trailing that was brighter than the background. We didn’t find this distracting or particularly obvious when playing the game.

Dirt Rally provided a similar experience, with the 75Hz refresh rate (at 75fps) providing a nice little boost in terms of ‘connected feel’ and slightly decreasing perceived blur. There were no issues with pixel responsiveness that really stood out. Nothing that distracted from our expert (ahem) skills on the track. There was a little extra trailing for some transitions, for example when moving past dark trees or mountains silhouetting the night sky. But this trailing was much fainter and more short-lived than any of the ‘smeary’ trailing presented by some slower monitors. There was no obvious overshoot, just some traces of it in places. We also observed responsiveness on our Blu-ray test titles. These run at ~24fps, which is the main restriction in terms of fluidity there. There were no additional restrictions related to pixel responsiveness – no observable trailing or overshoot from weaknesses there.

FreeSync – the technology and activating it

AMD FreeSync is a variable refresh rate technology, an AMD-specific alternative to Nvidia G-SYNC. The monitor dynamically adjusts its refresh rate so that it matches the frame rate being outputted by the GPU, where possible. Both our responsiveness article and the G-SYNC article linked to explore the importance of these two elements being synchronised. At a basic level, a mismatch between the frame rate and refresh rate can cause stuttering (VSync on) or tearing and juddering (VSync off). FreeSync also boasts reduced latency compared to running with VSync enabled, in the variable frame rate environment in which it operates.

FreeSync requires a compatible AMD GPU such as the Club3D Radeon R9 290 royalAce used in our test system. There is a list of GPUs which support the technology here, with the expectation that future AMD GPUs will support the feature too. The monitor itself must support ‘VESA Adaptive-Sync’ for at least one of its display connectors, as this is the protocol that FreeSync uses. The S2719DM supports FreeSync via HDMI on compatible GPUs and systems. Note that you can’t use FreeSync when the monitor is running with ‘Smart HDR’ enabled. If fully installed, AMD drivers feature Radeon Settings, which makes activation of the technology very simple and something that usually occurs automatically. To double-check the GPU driver is setup correctly to use FreeSync, open ‘AMD Radeon Settings’ and click on ‘Display’. You should then ensure that the first slider, ‘AMD FreeSync’, is set to ‘On’. If you hover over this, it will also report the variable refresh rate display supported by the display. Note that the image below is for a different monitor and is just used as an example here.



The Dell supports a variable refresh rate range of 48 – 75Hz. That means that if the game is running between 48fps and 75fps, the monitor will adjust its refresh rate to match. When the frame rate rises above 75fps, the monitor will stay at 75Hz and the GPU will respect your selection of ‘VSync on’ or ‘VSync off’ in the graphics driver. With ‘VSync on’ the frame rate will not be allowed to rise above 75fps, at which point VSync activates and imposes the usual associated latency penalty. With ‘VSync off’ the frame rate is free to climb as high as the GPU will output (potentially >75fps). LFC (Low Frame Rate Compensation) is not supported by this monitor, as that requires the upper limit (ceiling) to be at least 2x the lower limit (floor) of FreeSync operation. FreeSync is therefore deactivated if the frame rate falls below 48fps, with the monitor then respecting your choice of VSync and presenting you with either stuttering (VSync on) or juddering and tearing (VSync off).

VSync is configured in the ‘Gaming’ section of ‘Radeon Settings’, where it is referred to as ‘Wait for Vertical Refresh’. You can either configure this globally under ‘Global Settings’ or for each game individually. The default is ‘Off, unless application specifies’ which means that VSync will only be active if you enable it within the game itself, if there is such an option. Such an option does usually exist – it may be called ‘sync every frame’ or something along those lines rather than simply ‘VSync’. Most users will probably wish to enable VSync when using FreeSync to ensure that they don’t get any tearing. You’d therefore select either the third or fourth option in the list, shown in the image below. The fourth and final option is ‘Enhanced Sync’. This is an alternative to VSync which allows the frame rate to rise above the refresh rate (no VSync latency penalty) whilst potentially keeping the experience free from tearing or juddering. This requires that the frame rate comfortably exceeds the refresh rate, not just peaks slightly above it. We won’t be going into this in detail as it’s a GPU feature than a monitor feature.



There is no obvious indication that FreeSync is active on the monitor itself. If you navigate in the OSD to ‘Others’ – ‘Display Info’, you will see the refresh rate change according to the frame rate of the content. The monitor will only display the refresh rate it’s running at when you first entered the ‘Display Info’ screen, though, it doesn’t update in real time. This still gives an indication that FreeSync is active if you’re running the game between 48fps and 74fps and you see a refresh rate matching that listed. Finally, it’s worth remembering FreeSync only removes stuttering or juddering related to mismatches between frame rate and refresh rate. It can’t compensate for other interruptions to smooth game play, for example network latency or insufficient system memory.

FreeSync – the experience

We tested FreeSync on the monitor using various game titles, but the experience was much the same regardless. We will therefore simply be focusing on a single title; Battlefield 1 (BF1). This offers sufficient flexibility in its graphics options to allow a full range of frame rates (and hence monitor refresh rates) to be tested. Using the ‘Ultra’ preset, our Radeon 290 was able to pump out frame rates that either match or come close to matching 75fps. Without FreeSync enabled, even slight dips of as little as a single FPS below that results in obvious tearing (VSync off) or stuttering (VSync on). It’s worth bearing in mind that these imperfections are obvious to us, but individual sensitivity varies and not everybody will find the tearing or stuttering as jarring as others. In our opinion it’s quite easy to notice at these sort of frame rates (which are not super-high, in the grand scheme of things) – especially once you see how things look with such elements removed. With FreeSync active, in other words.

These slight drops were difficult to sense when FreeSync was active, keeping things much smoother than without. There were times when the frame rate dropped further, however. Sometimes the frame rate dropped far below 70fps and closer to 60fps. Again, FreeSync kept tearing and stuttering at bay which was very nice to see. But it can’t account for the drop in frame rate and its effect on perceived blur (which increases) or ‘connected feel’ (which gets worse). In certain scenarios in the game, or more commonly if the ‘Resolution Scale’ slider was increased to up the rendering resolution, the frame rate dipped further. As things approached the 48fps floor of operation for FreeSync, things remained free from tearing or stuttering caused by frame rate and refresh rate mismatches. But the ‘connected feel’ and perceived blur were noticeably worse than they were at significantly higher frame rates. Where the frame rate dipped below 48fps, FreeSync deactivated as the monitor was at its floor of operation for the technology (48Hz). The monitor ran at a static 75Hz and obvious tearing and stuttering returned. Regardless of these low frame rates not being ideal due to the relatively poor ‘connected feel’ and relatively high levels of perceived blur, the transition between FreeSync being on and off was something we found very noticeable.

Another issue to be aware of where the frame rate drops, particularly below 60fps, is that overshoot becomes more noticeable. There were instances of fairly distinct dark trailing behind bright objects that were cast against a medium-dark background. The moon in the night sky, for example. There was also some fairly bright overshoot trailing. None of this was particularly obnoxious and was far from the worst overshoot we’ve seen, but it was certainly more noticeable than it was with the monitor running at 75Hz. It’s also not something you notice when the frame rate alone drops and the monitor stays at 75Hz (i.e. where FreeSync is deactivated). Due to our sensitivity to low frame rates in general, we’d stay away from the sort of frame rates that cause such issues anyway. But if you’re a sucker for setting graphics options as high as they go, play more graphically demanding games or have a less powerful GPU then you need to be aware of these shortcomings. And they are by no means unique to this monitor.

HDR (High Dynamic Range)

When it comes to monitors, HDR (High Dynamic Range) describes the capability to simultaneously display very bright light shades and very dark deep shades. In addition, it describes accurate rendition of shades between these extremes. To achieve this, the ideal monitor will have a per-pixel lighting solution, allowing one pixel to be very bright whilst one next to it could be very dark. This would allow the monitor to correctly display the intricate mixtures of light and dark that are common in many game and movie scenes. Failing this, the monitor will have many ‘dimming zones’ on the backlight; referred to as FALD (Full Array Local Dimming). The ideal monitor would also be able to display the brightest shades with strong luminance. Furthermore, it would natively support at least 10-bit colour output per subpixel, allowing it to accurately map shades to its colour gamut. The gamut itself would also be noticeably wider than the common ‘sRGB’ reference used for most SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) content; Rec. 2020 is the long-term goal and DCI-P3 the short-term goal for HDR-capable displays.

We’ve tested a few HDR displays now, ranging from models which merely respond to HDR content without really matching any of the desirable criteria we’ve just mentioned (e.g. the Dell U2518D). Others, which are far more expensive, tick a lot of the boxes and provide quite a convincing and enjoyable HDR experience (e.g. the ASUS PA32UC). The Dell S2719DM sits some way between these in terms of its HDR capabilities, although is closer to the U2518D due to missing ticks in a lot of boxes. The colour gamut, for example, extends a bit beyond sRGB but falls far short of the DCI-P3 near-term target favoured for HDR content. The top image shows the colour gamut of the S2719DM (red triangle) compared to the sRGB reference space (green triangle). The bottom image shows the native colour gamut of the ASUS PA32UC (red triangle) compared to the sRGB (green triangle) and Adobe RGB (purple triangle) reference spaces. This model has been used as a comparison here because it offers excellent DCI-P3 coverage. You can see that the Dell’s colour gamut falls quite a way short of the sort of gamut offered by the ASUS –85% DCI-P3 is specified for the Dell, so that isn’t a surprise.

Colour gamut Dell S2719DM

Colour gamut ASUS PA32UC, 'DCI-P3' setting

The monitor also lacks any higher than 8-bits per subpixel colour output. Given its relatively restricted gamut, this isn’t as much of an issue as it could be, in isolation. But it is another capability that it lacks. When it’s running in HDR, a 12-bit colour signal is used as this is the sort of thing the content itself demands. But this is mapped (compressed) to an 8-bit output stream on the monitor. We tested the monitor with various HDR movie and game titles, including Battlefield 1 (BF1) and Hitman which we know provide decent HDR performance on some screens. On BF1 in particular, you usually noticed a pronounced difference in the appearance of various shades on the game on a monitor with HDR active and a generous colour gamut to match. The environments actually appear more muted in places, fitting with the gritty aesthetic that the developers are going for. There are some standout ‘vibrant’ elements such as fire and some very deep lush greens – in other words, the vibrancy is usually far more selective. On this model, though, there isn’t such a wide colour gamut to work with and things looks quite similar under HDR and SDR in terms of saturation. At first we thought things looked oversaturated in places, but it’s more to do with the fact the brightness was generally much higher with HDR active vs. our ‘Test Settings’ that we were used to.

What we found more noticeable with HDR active, though, was an increase in sharpness under the ‘Movie HDR’ and ‘Game HDR’ settings. This was a bit excessive in our opinion and couldn’t be counteracted using the sharpness setting in the OSD. We’re used to HDR increasing sharpness on most monitors, but we feel it is a bit overdone here. Not so extreme we wanted to scream, but we’d prefer some flexibility to lower that for all HDR settings. The ‘Desktop’ and ‘Reference’ settings don’t have this effect, although the ‘Desktop’ setting focuses on a much lower brightness and doesn’t really bring much to the ‘HDR experience’ anyway. Speaking of brightness, this is one area where the monitor does score some ‘HDR points’. As we’ve already discussed in the contrast and brightness section, HDR massively increases the peak luminance of the display. The ‘Movie HDR’ and ‘Game HDR’ seemed to make particularly good use of this, but we found things uncomfortably bright at times particularly if viewing in anything less than a bright room. This wasn’t just where bright elements were being displayed, but for mixed images as well. As with all of the ‘Smart HDR’ settings, you have no manual control over brightness. We also pointed out earlier that the backlight is comprises 4 individually controlled clusters of LEDs at the bottom of the screen. These provide 4 dimming zones across the screen, with the backlight brightness independently controlled for each zone. This is illustrated in the image below. This is not meant to be a supremely accurate depiction of the dimming zones but is purely to help roughly demonstrate the zones.



This provides a bit of enhancement to contrast, depending on how it is measured (refer again to the contrast and brightness section). But it provides an experience that feels more like a Dynamic Contrast setting on steroids than a true HDR experience. The changes in brightness for the dimming zones is quite noticeable as the zones are quite large. We didn’t find this particularly bothersome, but some might and it depends on content – either way, it’s certainly more noticeable than where a much greater number of dimming zones is used. The monitor also has no ability to account for intricate mixtures of bright and dark. Even where the scene is favourable the shortcomings of this approach are apparent. In a scenario where the edges of the screen are very dark and the central content is much brighter (e.g. a candle in the middle of the screen surrounded by the darkness of an unlit building), the dark elements still look quite flooded. The black point is elevated beyond the level that gives a convincing dark atmosphere, even if you’re viewing the monitor in a well-lit room. The bright elements still stand out very nicely, though, and are in places exceptionally bright. This is particularly true when using the ‘Reference’ setting – although that is designed to be particularly extreme and ‘overbakes’ a lot of lighter shades so they appear oversaturated and brighter than they really should appear. The ‘Game HDR’ and ‘Movie HDR’ settings strike a better balance. Looking at the moon in a dark sky, for example, you see a certain brilliance to it that is simply lacking with HDR disabled. In that respect this monitor provided an advancement over the likes of the U2518D that purely simulate an HDR experience. Nonetheless, high peak brightness is really the only box that’s properly ticked here – so it does feel a bit like a one-trick pony when it comes to HDR.

A few final things to note. The HDR type supported by this and other current HDR monitors is ‘HDR10’ and some titles make better use of the technology than others. The two we’ve focused on for our observations above (BF1 and Hitman) are titles that we know can provide a convincing experience and really puts the ball in the court of the monitor itself to deliver on that. There will not be any titles that provide a ‘better’ experience than what we’ve described here for this monitor, in other words. That includes PC titles and titles played on HDR-capable games consoles such as the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. Also note that Windows 10 ‘Creator’s Update’ added a feature called ‘HDR and advanced colour’. Refer to the Dell U2518D HDR section for information about how to enable or disable this feature. For most games, as long as you have a ‘Smart HDR’ setting active on the monitor you only need to enable the in-game HDR setting. You will see ‘HDR+’ in the top right corner of the OSD if the feature has activated successfully. On some titles you need to toggle ‘HDR and advanced colour’ on in Windows – and also when watching HDR video content, which we were able to do on Google Chrome. Finally, note that due to bandwidth restrictions, the monitor will not run above 60Hz under HDR.

Interpolation and upscaling

Some users may wish to use lower resolutions than the native 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) of this model. They might do this because their system doesn’t run a particular game or application well at 2560 x 1440, or they’re using a games console that doesn’t support that resolution. The monitor uses an interpolation (scaling) process if set to a lower resolution than native, such as 1920 x 1080 (Full HD or ‘1080p’). For optimal performance as a PC user, you need to ensure the monitor is handling this process rather than the GPU. If you’re an AMD GPU user this should all be handled automatically when gaming, by default. Nvidia users should open the Nvidia Control Panel and navigate to ‘Display – Adjust desktop size and position’. They should ensure that ‘No Scaling’ is selected and ‘Perform scaling on:’ is set to ‘Display’ as shown below.

The interpolation process used by the monitor is very good. When running the monitor at 1920 x 1080 (Full HD), the image is presented with only slight softening compared to running on a native 27” Full HD display. Edges of object and textures in games look quite similar to how they do on the native Full HD display. This will come as welcome news to users who wish to use this monitor at lower resolutions such as this, for example games console users. As is usual, if you keep the monitor at 2560 x 1440 and are viewing lower resolution content (such as a movie), then it is the GPU or movie software that handles the scaling rather than the monitor. This gives a slight softening when compared to running the content on a native Full HD display, although this is not something most users should find bothersome.

Conclusion

We’ve now tested numerous of ‘HDR’ monitors and know from both experience and our understanding of the underlying technology that the experience can vary massively from monitor to monitor. Some models merely ‘support’ it with a sort of emulation mode but lack the hardware and specifications necessary to bring anything approaching a ‘real’ HDR experience. The Dell S2719DM certainly missed out on a lot of these boxes and was unable to bring convincing black depth to the table whilst bright content is being displayed. Having said that, the brightness that this pumped out (in both HDR and non-HDR) was quite something. Some users really like bright elements in games or films to stand out with a lifelike brilliance – and that, at least, this monitor does deliver. HDR and peak luminance aside, the contrast was largely as expected for an IPS-type panel. Static contrast ratios were decent, but there was moderate ‘IPS glow’ which ate away at dark detail peripherally. Out unit also suffered from poor uniformity both in terms of brightness and colour temperature. As noted in the relevant section, this varies between individual units. But we can’t help feeling that some compromises have to be made to make a monitor quite this thin.

And really, it’s the design of the monitor that’s one of its most endearing features. The slim bezels all around, powder-coated metal on the stand and exceptionally slim screen will appeal to some uses. The lack of ergonomic flexibility and lack of VESA holes (the monitor is too thin for that) will disappoint or annoy others. Elsewhere the monitor put in quite a respectable performance really. The image was vivid and varied, with accurate gamma tracking and a slightly low but correctable white point. If 6500K is your target, at least, which it commonly is for most users. The ‘ComfortView’ Low Blue Light setting also proved effective and it was easy to switch between this and alternative settings by assigning appropriate shortcut keys. One element of the monitor that surprised us, in a slightly negative way, is the screen surface. Pretty much all IPS-type models with this resolution feature a ‘light’ or ‘very light’ matte anti-glare screen surface. This model features a medium matte anti-glare surface – marginally better at handling glare, but a bit of a grainier look to the image and slightly lower vibrancy potential. The colour gamut was slightly narrower than most models of this panel type and resolution as well and certainly fell short of the DCI-P3 target for HDR in the near-term. Nonetheless, 100% sRGB coverage was offered and the image looked pretty vivid and far from ‘washed out’.

The responsiveness of the monitor was good overall, within the confines of the refresh rates supported. We had to create a custom resolution of 74Hz for our Nvidia GPU to avoid frame skipping, as the 75Hz resolution listed did not work without this. It worked correctly on our AMD GPU, though, and for all intents and purposes 74Hz is very much equivalent. The monitor had only minor weaknesses in pixel responsiveness, with perceived blur due to eye movement being by far the dominant factor. Input lag was also quite low and FreeSync worked as it should to eliminate tearing and stuttering from frame rate and refresh rate mismatches, on supported graphics hardware. Overall, we feel this monitor could appeal to users who want something stylish on their desks and are happy with some (but limited) HDR support. It will also appeal to those whom enjoy the superior ‘connected feel’ and reduced perceived blur that potentially comes with a nudge up from 60Hz to ~75Hz. Most models of this resolution simply skip frames at such refresh rate. If a user is more concerned about the best core image performance for their money, they may dislike the ‘style over substance’ approach taken here.


The bottom line; a stylish and remarkably slender screen with good performance in some areas, but a bit of ‘style over substance’ in others

Positives	Negatives
Rich, varied and well-balanced colours following minor adjustment with good sRGB coverage	Colour gamut falls a bit short of most WQHD IPS-type models and far short of the DCI-P3 near-term target for HDR
Good static contrast and excellent peak brightness, particularly for HDR content. Luminance adjustment range is also very good and easily accessible Low Blue Light (LBL) settings are present	Although bright elements are impressive under HDR, dark elements are not. Typical ‘IPS glow’ for this model and poor uniformity on our unit. The screen surface was not as ‘light’ and a bit grainier than is typical for IPS-type WQHD models
Good pixel responsiveness overall, support for ~75Hz, fairly low input lag and a decent FreeSync implementation – it worked as we’d expect	A custom resolution of 74Hz maximum to prevent frame-skipping was required on our Nvidia GPU. FreeSync floor of operation not as low as some users would like and no LFC support
The resolution and screen size provided good ‘real-estate’ and a pleasing pixel density. Very slim bezels and screen with some touches of metal on the stand	Many boxes left unticked for a convincing HDR performance, very limited ergonomic flexibility and no VESA mounting provision (no room for the screws)

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