Review on ViewSonic VG2860MHL 4K Ergonomic Monitor with DisplayPort, HDMI, HD, LCD - ‎3840X2160P Resolution, VG2860MHL-4K by Bryan Harper

I'm going to remove the elephant in the room right in front of me. If you use this monitor for graphics work, don't do this. It uses a TN panel, so colors and color shifts prevent accurate color reproduction. If you plan on using it for gaming, you might want to think twice. Only if you're using a DisplayPort 1.2a connection and a fairly powerful graphics card (and I'm guessing a GTX 970 equivalent would be minimal) can you even get 60fps at full resolution in-game. Because of the sheer number of pixels you're displaying, the actual frame rate will likely be lower than you'd like. Now that that elephant is gone, I will say that ViewSonic is open about its target audience on its website. for this monitor. The front cover of the product states that it is intended for "Science/Visualization, Finance/Simulation, Surveillance/Mapping". If you go to the Downloads tab and look at the datasheet, it says it applies to business, finance, and surveillance. So I hasten to put my overall rating first (because this review is so long), keeping that audience in mind. I rate this ViewSonic VG2860MHL-4K 4K Ultra HD 28-inch LED Monitor 3 stars out of 5 OK. Now some additional information. First the relevant specifications/components: According to the factory service menu, an M280DGJ-L30 C2 TN panel from the manufacturer Innolux is used as the LCD panel. Common problems with TN panels are color shifts at an angle and missing colors. ViewSonic goes beyond the usual behavior by using 10-bit color (true 8-bit + 2-bit FRC) instead of the usual use of 6- or 8-bit color for TN. In theory, this makes this monitor good with color (more on that later). There are color shifts when viewing the monitor at an angle, but not as much as I expected. However, they exist. Although the Revain and ViewSonic product pages often mention "future-proof" when it comes to connectivity, the monitor uses DisplayPort 1.2a instead of 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 instead of 2.0. Using DisplayPort 1.2a isn't really a problem as it still allows 60Hz at the monitor's native resolution (3840 x 2160). HDMI 1.4 is a different matter. While HDMI 2.0 allows 60 frames per second at native resolution, HDMI 1.4 allows a maximum of 30Hz. So not only is this monitor not future-proof, it's also a bit outdated (not many monitors use HDMI 2.0 yet). The two speakers are located on the back of the monitor. I tested them and they are pretty loud. But as expected, they sound something like transistor radio speakers (or rather cell phone speakers). I highly recommend using something else for the sound (e.g. Audioengine A2+ Premium Powered Desktop Speakers – Pair (Black)). However, the headphone jack produces GREAT sound (depending on your headphones, of course). - This is a 16:9 monitor instead of 16:10. Of course, most monitors these days use the 16:9 aspect ratio. But my old HP ZR2440w 24-inch, 1920 x 1200, 16:10, LED-backlit, IPS monitor only has about an inch less vertical space than this monitor (although there is a big difference horizontally). - As far as I can tell my old HP monitor packed pixels at around 100dpi. The pixels of this Viewsonic monitor are packed with a resolution of around 160 dpi. However, when looking at two screens side by side, I can't really tell the difference in image quality. I was VERY surprised by that. Mounting was easy: lay the monitor face down on you, rotate the mounting arm so it points towards the bottom of the monitor, hook in the base and tighten with a thumb screw. Plug in the obvious power cable and non-obvious data cable, turn it on, put the CD in and look for the user manual, registry and VS files (drivers and color profile materials - note the "Software" directory (this isn't on the CD - the files are in the VSFiles directory and you must set your monitor's properties in that directory to update these files). The biggest problem is that the cable packages are not labeled for what they are. You should know enough to understand what a cable is and look into it to figure out which one to use. The next big clue has to do with the information label hanging from the tab that blocks the monitor from raising/lowering. It's nothing but a jumble of images, so you can get creative trying to figure out what he's really saying. Similarly, the quick start paper consists of four pretty useless images that mean exactly what I wrote earlier in this paragraph. A printed copy of the user manual is not included in the package and it cannot be downloaded from the ViewSonic website. Website. So if you don't have an existing monitor, you won't be able to read the user guide until you set up the monitor. Likewise, if you don't have an optical drive (I don't have one on this computer), you won't be able to access it at all (though drivers are available on the ViewSonic website). Standard Windows drivers, the Nvidia Control Panel reported that "This display does not support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)". However, after installing the included drivers and rebooting, that changed and it was revealed to support HDCP. So make sure you install the drivers (although there is no difference in color between the default Windows color profile and the one that comes with the monitor). - I see absolutely no physical problems with the monitor: no scratches, no dead pixels, no sticking. Pixel. Perfect. The monitor controls for the OSD are located BELOW the bottom edge of the screen (ie they are not visible). Also, these are small buttons. Your labels are not colored. They're only embossed on the bottom front of the plastic (i.e. they're hard to see - while trying to manually calibrate the monitor I actually had to sit there with a flashlight aimed at the bezel). Testing: - Referring to testing this monitor, the main parts of my system are: 1) ASUS STRIX-GTX970-DC20C-4GD5 STRIX-GTX970-DC20C-4GD5 graphics cards with one DisplayPort 1.2 connector and one HDMI 2.0 connector and 2) before Mentioned by HP ZR2440w 24 inch 1920 x 1200 16:10 IPS LED Backlit Monitor. To get the full 60Hz on this monitor, I connected it to my graphics card using the included DisplayPort cable. I left my HP monitor connected via an HDMI cable. I'm using Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10122 (x64) - Windows found the monitor with no problems and I set it to the full native resolution of 3840 x 2160 at 60Hz - I went on delay to check the colors. sl. First, the display settings screen on this website says the resolution is 2560 x 1440, even though it's set to the native 3840 x 2160. I suspect this is an artifact of how the monitor handles high resolution over DisplayPort. Aside from the yellowish tint, the display is pretty good for its audience. Also, the color change at an angle is not that noticeable. Gamma too low (1.4 or 1.5 instead of 2.2). And in Lagom contrast mode, I lost a bottom blue bar or two. I tried to calibrate the colors using the windows calibration procedure. But I couldn't fix the gamma. My best manual color adjustment was via the monitor's OSD: In Color Adjust I switched from Native to User Color 80/80/100 (R/G/B) (none of the pre-set options in the OSD were better). ). But in general, even with this shot, the colors were kind of washed out. So I went back to the yellowish defaults (less blurry). The color difference is pretty obvious though