A Look At QD Vision's Color IQ And The Philips 276E6 Monitor: Quantum Dots for Wider Color Gamuts
by Brandon Chester on April 28, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Monitors
- Philips
- Quantum Dot
- QD Vision
At this year's CES Josh and I sat down with representatives of QD Vision to discuss their quantum dot display technology, along with where they see the television and monitor market moving in the next few years. QD Vision offers a quantum dot solution for displays, which is branded as Color IQ. The interesting proposition that QD Vision brings to the table with their technology is that it's not just usable in high end displays, but also in less expensive ones where it can be used to bring features that were traditionally limited to high end displays down to a lower price point.
After our meeting with QD Vision, we were informed that Philips would be launching a new line of monitors that use QD Vision's Color IQ technology. Given that these are some of the first computer monitors to come to market with quantum dot technology, I was quite interested in taking a look at it. The monitor in question is the Philips 276E6 monitor, which has a 27" panel and claims to cover 99% of the Adobe RGB color gamut. The full specifications of the Philips 276E6 can be found in the chart below.
| Philips 276E6 | |
| Video Inputs | VGA, DVI-D, HDMI |
| Panel Type | IPS-ADS |
| Pixel Pitch | 0.311 mm |
| Colors | 16.7 million (8-bit) |
| Gamut | 99% Adobe RGB |
| Brightness | 300 cd/m2 |
| Contrast Ratio | 1000:1 |
| Response Time | 5ms GtG |
| Viewable Size | 27-inch |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz |
| Viewing Angle | 178°/178° |
| Backlight | W-LED + QD |
| Screen Treatment | Anti-Glare |
| Tilt | -5° to +20° |
| Dimensions | 640 x 471 x 235 mm |
| Weight | 5.33 kg |
| Accessories | VGA Cable Power adapter |
Before moving forward, there are obviously a few points to address about the Philips 276E6. The first is the resolution and pixel density. At 27", a 1920x1080 resolution is definitely on the lowest end of the spectrum. It's very important to keep in mind that the 276E6 retails for only $300, which really isn't enough to get you a 27" 2560x1440 sRGB monitor unless you can order from Korea and dodge import fees. With that in mind, you're certainly not going to find a 2560x1440 Adobe RGB monitor for $300, and with the purpose of monitors like the 276E6 being to drive down the price of wide gamut displays, this concession makes sense. However, it is true that the pixel density of a 27" 1080p monitor is quite low, and having used a 2560x1440 27" monitor for several years now it did take some adjustment to get used to.
One other point to consider regarding the 276E6 is that, as a wide gamut monitor, it's positioning itself as a product for photographers and other professionals who would like to be able to work in a wider color space. For those applications the relatively low resolution poses less of a problem than applications that involve looking at a great deal of text. The Philips 276E6 is also just the first of many displays that will come to market with this technology, and even for users who are interested in a smaller or higher resolution panel the 276E6 will provide insight into the level of quality that can be expected from this new generation of inexpensive wide gamut displays.
As for the design of the Philips 276E6, I think it's quite unique, but I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of it. The chassis is definitely on the flimsy side, and the fact that it's made of white glossy plastic doesn't help the visual impression that it's not the sturdiest monitor. The panel has an AG coating, but it's not as heavy as the coatings I've seen on monitors that are really heavily targeted at office use.
The back of the monitor is the same plastic as the front, although the chassis isn't a single component, so there is a gap between the two parts that runs around the edge. The back has a wave-like pattern, which I think looks sort of odd, but it's not really a problem since it's on the back of the monitor where it probably won't ever be seen. All the ports are back-facing rather than down-facing, and they include a port for the power adapter, a VGA port, a DVI-D port, and an HDMI port. There's also a jack for HDMI audio out.
As for the stand, it looks like a fairly study metal stand. However, that's only really true for half of it. The base of the stand is metal, and is removable, but the shaft is made of plastic and is permanently attached to the display. The stand has a degree of tilt, although tilting it too far worries me because the stand can be quite wobbly and I worry that any sudden shift or an impact on the desk may topple it.
One other thing I wanted to comment on is the OSD and the buttons for accessing it. To be quite frank, the buttons are horrible. The response is inconsistent, and you often end up hitting the wrong button by mistake and closing the menu. I wish manufacturers would just use physical buttons, as they're much easier to use and I really doubt that the impact on the bill of materials is significant.
For $300 you're not going to get an aluminum enclosure for your monitor, and in fact you don't really get that even for $1000 unless you buy Apple's Thunderbolt Display. However, I think darker matte plastic would have probably been a better option, and it should have been possible at this price point. Getting a stand with height adjustments and rotation is going to require buying a more expensive monitor, and the tilt range is as much as you'll need for a monitor of this size. Ultimately a monitor is going to be more about function than form, and that's what we'll get to next.
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Brandon Chester - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
Ryan was up very late doing some editing and must have made it when he expanded on my admittedly sparce placeholder title (Monitor Review). My apologies.Infy2 - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
The message of this article is for average Windows user to stay away from wide gamut monitors.Murloc - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
average user thinks oversaturation looks coolwatersb - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
Excellent. Thanks for this in-depth discussion. I know very little about color and color management.Yesterday, I was in an Apple Store and I compared wide-gamut images side by side on the new, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, the 12-inch one, and the 5K iMac. I used iconFactory's blog post for reference images. Wow. http://blog.iconfactory.com/2016/04/looking-at-the...
This is becoming a real thing for popular consumer devices. Interesting times!
theduckofdeath - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
The only thing I'm getting from this review is, I have a strong feeling that markets with stronger marketing regulations will soon nerf the Quantum Dot term the same way "LED" displays were a few years ago. The marketing implies that QD is as advanced as OLED while the displays clearly still use edge lighting with all of its issues.saratoga4 - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
The marketing on hype on QD is particularly ridiculous given that they're essentially a cost-reduction measure designed to save a few dollars on multi-color LEDs or OLED while (hopefully) being good enough.Murloc - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
80$ is not a few.A new thing or a cost reduction are the same thing in this case: consumers will have something they didn't have before.
saratoga4 - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
Going from 1 type of LED to 2 types of LED in an array doesn't anywhere near $80. The savings is much larger compared to OLED, but OLED has other advantages beyond gamut that QDs can't match anyway.name99 - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
I think you're missing the larger picture.Of course any technology can be cost-cut to the point where it is a joke, and Phillips seem to have done that here. OK, Phillips being stupid, nothing new there. But that's not interesting.
The more interesting aspect is that we are moving towards richer monitor technology. It started with retina (sorry HiDPI !) displays, now we're going to wider gamut. At some point wider gamut is going to move to something like 16 bits per pixel rather than 8 (or occasionally 10 or 12), along with maybe even 4 phosphors. And at some point the standard device frame rate is going to up to 120fps.
OK, so with this hardware background, it's now interesting to contemplate the SW background.
In one corner we have MS. Apparently still incapable of handling color correction after all these years, and incapable of handling the UI. Ad that to their HiDPI support. They seem unlikely to adapt well to this new world...
In the second corner we have Android. Not clear to me how much better off they are. They have handled DPI a lot better, which is a good start. As far as I know there is still no color correction built into Android; but the larger issue is one of how easily their architecture would allow for inserting color correction. Can they do it in such a way that all (or at least most) apps just do the right thing? And would it rely on the phone OEMs to create drivers and lookup tables that most of them would screw up?
In the third corner we have Apple which seems perfectly positioned for all this (meaning that they will likely drive it). They've been happy to push hiDPI (including on OSX as fast as Intel's built-in GPU's allows it ---which wasn't very fast, suggesting that maybe they'd be better off with another vendor for OSX SoCs, but that's a different issue), and they're now pushing color accuracy both on the camera side (TrueTone flash, high dynamic range sensors) and the screen side (new iPad Pro screen, presumably to spread throughout the product line as manufacturing volumes and power budgets allow).
I fully expect them to stay on this path for a while, never actually stating technical phrases like "full Adobe RGB Gamut" but constantly subtly pointing out in their keynotes and advertising "Our colors look good, and look correct, across ALL our devices --- photos on your iPhone look exactly the same on your iMac. Good luck getting that consistency with photo from your Android phone on your Windows screen."
From this point of view, then, the relevance and interest of QD technology is whether it allows larger gamut to move to iPhone this year or at least soon.
jlabelle - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
- Apparently still incapable of handling color correction after all these years, and incapable of handling the UI. Ad that to their HiDPI support. They seem unlikely to adapt well to this new world... -such statement is not correct and the article describes it pretty clearly. Beyond the way to set it up (which, yes, is somehow confusing), the real issue is simply that many programs are not color managed.
This is not only limited to Windows and OS X is suffering of the same issue so it has nothing to do with Windows per see but the programs you are using.
The issue behind is that some default program on Windows are not color managed. It seems it is the issue with Store app (like it is for iOS apps that make iPad useless for photo editing for instance). So some important apps like Photo and Edge do not take care of that. That is a big issue.
But many programs does.
That is why there are 3 different cases :
1/ Use a screen very accurate within sRGB gamut out of the box - only use sRGB images --> no issue anymore but obviously you will never display any image beyond sRGB
2/ Use a screen with sRGB gamut (or a wide gamut screen that you switch to sRGB mode) with calibrated with an ICC profile set as default (as described) - use only sRGB images --> here, you will have perfect color accuracy for all applications color managed. In case of applications not color managed (Edge, Photo, Chrome...), you will have the color inaccuracy of the screen default (because ICC profile not applied) BUT you will not have images under or over saturated. Therefore, the impact will still be minimal for the user.
3/ use a wide gamut screen : then, you have no other choice that carefully use color managed application --> for every application color managed, display will be fine and you will take advantage of the wider gamut. For all others, the images will appear oversaturated.
It is such an issue that I used to have a wide color gamut DELL U2711 screen.
1/ first, you only have a good accuracy in color managed applications but in others, everything is oversatured.
2/ Second, while shooting FF DSLR in aRGB, I may have seen less than 10 pictures out of 70 000 where you could see in an direct A-B comparison a tiny difference between the sRGB version and aRGB. In real world, it is VERY unlikely to go beyond sRGB.
3/ Third, even if you keep for you aRGB versions of your pictures (to take advantage of your screen), you have to have a sRGB copy because when you share it outside, other people will face the issue on non color managed application that your pictures will be completely washed out. And even many online print shop only take sRGB.
At the end of the day, it is so much a hassle for virtually almost 0 visual benefit (speaking of photo of real color in the nature) that I now have a Dell U2313UH which is a sRGB gamut screen.
Bottom line : wide gamut screen currently is a chore and NOT recommended. And not only Windows, nowhere because even if your browser is displaying correctly the image (Safari, Firefox with a certain flag activated), what is the point then to have a wide color gamut screen to see sRGB pictures ?