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> Today, you can still buy a 30-inch 2560x1600 display for over $1,000. Or you can get a 39-inch 3840x2160 display for $500. This choice is not even fair. Yes,

> Today, you can still buy a 30-inch 2560x1600 display for over $1,000. Or you can get a 39-inch 3840x2160 display for $500. This choice is not even fair. Yes, you can buy a wonderful, physically adjustable, mountable, color calibrated, blissful contrast, delightful brightness control monitor with a great matte finish like the Dell 3014... or you can buy an absolutely awful 30hz, locked in place, blue tinted, horrible uniformity, terrible brightness, awful contrast, with horrible black levels and really -- just horrific to work on 4K "tv". I speak from first hand experience, it is absolutely one of the worst panels I have ever had the misfortune to stare at vim on. The colors are so awful that literally, some of my favorite themes (seoul256) where ENTIRELY unusable, just a greymush of nothingness. With bright spots and dark spots to make reading code even harder. So, I tried a black background theme... only to be horrified with the black level. I agree with the author there is no comparison, obviously almost anything beats the Seiki. Hell, most review sites won't even recommend it as a TV, let alone a monitor.

samstave 13y ago
>to stare at vim on Well, there's your problem right there...
- yukkurishite 13y ago
  >>>/g/
- emirozer 13y ago
  ahahah wp sir wp
robbiet480 13y ago
I agree the colors are a mess..... until you spend an hour or so calibrating. I did over the last two days since I bought one, and it has the same look, color wise, as my rMBP now (I own the 39" Seiki)
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  I tried calibrated it with both X-Rite and Spyder (both physical calibration devices) -- neither could get it anywhere near "average". It just swings all over the place. Also, calibration can't fix horrible blacks, uneven brightness and the finish. What equipment did you use? Can you post your pre/post scores? I have NEVER met anyone who has been able to actually calibrate it into even "average" ranges. I realize that X-Rite and Spyder are "consumer grade" calibration devices, but they are all I have access to.
  - robbiet480 13y ago
    I didn't even use a device, I just eyeballed it. For my uses of Sublime Text, Chrome and Textual, colors are great. No qualms. And now I'm pretty sure I'm out of my league.
  - artmageddon 13y ago
    >I tried calibrated it with both X-Rite and Spyder (both physical calibration devices) -- neither could get it anywhere near "average". It just swings all over the place. Also, calibration can't fix horrible blacks, uneven brightness and the finish. If you don't mind me asking, which version of Spyder did you try? Edit/Disclaimer: (I work for the company that produces it)
    - MetaCosm 13y ago
      4PRO.
  - barrkel 13y ago
    The fact that you have access to two physical calibration devices makes me discount your opinion massively, FWIW. It means you're not really in the market for a programming monitor, but for design or some other thing where color is important. I don't care for calibration at all, really. What I do care about is that all my monitors, when I have multiple monitors, have similar performance across the gamut. To the point that I lived with what in retrospect was an extremely out of whack 2407WFP for 6 years to match a cheap Acer until the Acer died. I only noticed how bad it was when the U2813HM that replaced the Acer was sitting alongside. Resetting to factory defaults pretty much fixed that.
Torn 13y ago
Thanks for pointing this out -- the article seemed to completely overlooked the panel quality and configurability. I'm personally really looking forward to a proper UHD/4K over 30" that does 144hz with GSync, which I can use as my main desktop monitor. It'll finally be a reason to upgrade from my old Dell Ultrasharp. The Asus PQ321Q is almost there, it's just limited to 60hz.
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  This Asus ProArt series is also incredible.
- bryanlarsen 13y ago
  You will be waiting a very long time. UHD@144Hz requires 40Gbit/sec of bandwidth. DisplayPort 1.3 (which is not generally available yet), only supplies 25Gbit. HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 are 14 & 17, respectively. http://emsai.net/projects/widescreen/bandwidth/ http://emsai.net/projects/widescreen/bandwidth/
- largote 13y ago
  There's absolutely no difference from 60Hz to anything above it.
  - fdkz 13y ago
    Yes, there is. I have side-by-side 60Hz and 120Hz monitors, and window dragging for example on the 120Hz one is much much smoother (I had to buy a gaming mouse, because most normal mice won't update at more than 100Hz I think). And movies don't have this jerky motion where 60Hz doesn't quite exactly divide with 24 fps that movies use.
    - lesserknowndan 13y ago
      Well, in my day, when you moved a window all the computer showed was a grey square - no fps issues there. Sorry, had to say it.
kudu 13y ago
Alternatively, you could buy a nice 27" 2560x1440 Qnix QX2710 (http://www.2560x1440monitor.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=17&product_id=43 http://www.2560x1440monitor.com/index.php?route=product/prod...), which has an excellent Samsung PLS panel and can often be overclocked to 120Hz.
- pyre 13y ago
  I like the "Up to 5 dead pixels" on the product image. Makes it sound like a feature, "5 Dead Pixels in every monitor, guaranteed!"
  - seabrookmx 13y ago
    You can find retailers that sell "Pixel Perfect" models with none, but you pay a decent premium for it.
    - MetaCosm 13y ago
      Well -- or just find a "no questions asked" retailer.
leoc 13y ago
Sad to say, for many programmers and other people who aren't AV types, the step up in resolution—plus the saving of over $500—is likely worth the dodgy colour and brightness. Many won't even really notice the badness. That said, some of the $600-ish mystery-meat 2560×1600 displays apparently have good display quality and so may be a stronger alternative to the Seiki.
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  At $500, there are FAR better monitors. Bad contrast, bad brightness, bad everything. If you buy your programmers this, buy them a years supply of pills to deal with the headaches it will induce. Again, this isn't like a "bad for picky art professionals" type of bad. Just awful, I wouldn't even sell it to anyone I knew personally because I knew it would come back to bite me.
  - shiven 13y ago
    At $500, there are FAR better monitors. You keep repeating this as if it is some magic mantra. You have not defined any what "better" really means in manner that can be quantified and compared without introducing subjective opinions of a user. Also, care to link to these "better" monitors, including sellers that sell these for the $500 price, as well as non-subjective reviews?
    - f00_ 13y ago
      Better monitors very easily be objectively conceived. Latency, refresh rate, contrast ratio, brightness, input options, are all easily measured. "Better" monitors are easily found through a simple search, and how do you exactly determine a review to be "non-subjective"? http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/ http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/ http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/tvs/ http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/tvs/ http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/a-great-27-inch-lcd-monitor/ http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/a-great-27-inch-lcd-monitor...
      - randallsquared 13y ago
ams6110 13y ago
At work I have dual 30" Dell monitors, which I use with a tiling window manager (I use awesome [1]). To see the far right/left sides I almost have to roll the chair left or right so I tend to keep editor windows and browser windows where I'm actually reading text in my central field of vision, and keep other windows on the outer margins. Also they do consume nearly all my desk space, so sometimes I think a single larger monitor might be better. 1: http://awesome.naquadah.org/ http://awesome.naquadah.org/
- bradleyland 13y ago
  I switched my dual monitor orientation to a primary 27" (iMac) running 2560x1440, with my secondary 24" running 1200x1920 in portrait orientation. It is, at first, disorientating to have the two monitors eschew but once you get used to it, the reduction in straight from looking far left or right out weighs the strange look. The added benefit is that you get 1920 pixels of vertical resolution for those times that you want to display long blocks of text without scrolling. Admittedly, I use that far less than I use it tiled with windows arranged over-under.
  - dmourati 13y ago
    Eschew or askew?
    - bradleyland 13y ago
      Askew. Typed that on my iPad, so there are a couple of typos. Corrected 'eschew' and 'straight': "It is, at first, disorientating to have the two monitors askew but once you get used to it, the reduction in strain from looking far left or right out weighs the strange look.
- cdr 13y ago
  Not that I've tried it, but dual 30" seems like it'd be a bit much for me. Or the OP's dream 50". There's only so much you can focus on at a time, and only so far you can turn your head to change focus, though I guess depending on what you do you might want more areas of focus. 3 window columns seems to be where I'm most comfortable, but I've never tried a display bigger than 1x30". I do keep a 'dashboard' on a smaller side monitor that I can turn to look at as necessary though.
bhauer 13y ago
Thank you for the reality-check. I really do appreciate it and hope anyone reading my words reads yours as counterpoint. I had tried to be fair-handed with my judgment of the Seiki but I admit that my desire for large form-factor displays coupled with Seiki delivering one that I can actually afford clouds my judgment some. I want high-quality large displays and the incumbent manufacturers have left me in the cold for a decade. Not that it matters, but one area where I spoil myself is in monitors. I spend what I can afford (and then some, admittedly) on monitors in lieu of other luxuries. I own five 30" monitors, three of which are Dell U3011s. I love those monitors. As you point out, they ship from the factory with great color, a matte screen, and of course inputs that don't disappoint. But on the flip-side, the 30" "professional" LCD monitor as exemplified by the Dell U3011 and U3014 has not decreased in price substantially since I picked up my first Dell 3007WFP, what was it, eight years ago? Maybe it's telling that I have not yet replaced one of my home Dell monitors with a Seiki. But when my wife's Dell 30" died, we decided to give the Seiki a try. As I've said, the Seiki has several downsides. The 30Hz lag is foremost. It's noticeable and frustrating. But the screen size and delight of having so many pixels in a single display is so compelling. Also, after applying the Seiki firmware update, the backlight can be adjusted, allowing for better calibration. It's not a perfect monitor. It's not even a great monitor. It's a good monitor and it does the thing I value most: give me pixels with which to see and interact with information quickly. As a programmer on a budget, it's my favorite monitor currently available. I really hope that competition heats up and better monitors are on the horizon. I will bite at opportunities to get large, high-DPI, high-quality, high-speed displays. But for now, I personally would not buy the Dell 30" unless they severely cut the price. I'm keeping my eye on that because I am hopeful the new competition could start moving the higher-end prices downward, and that will make me happy. (Incidentally, the U3014 is presently $1,600 at Newegg [1]. I could barely stomach the ~$1,000 price of 30-inch monitors eight years ago. In 2014, I can't bring myself to spend $1,600 for 2560x1600.) [1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA25V0U16961 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA25V0U169...
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  First of all, you can get the U3014 for around $1100, less on sale. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00C2RPW8O/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00C2RPW8O/ref=dp_olp... ... additionally, it is a "professional" monitor (X-Rite tie in, factory calibrated, etc) and will likely maintain a premium price as corporations are the target customers. Secondly, the Seiki is not a "good" monitor. It isn't even a "good" TV. The only thing Seiki has is pixel density and cheapness, it is awful in every other measurable way, without a doubt one of the worst panels I have ever purchased. I can't fathom how you can justify calling it "good". Excluding resolution -- can you even name a single thing you like about it, that you think is a cut above? You can get a number of wonderful 27" inch (2560x1440+) in that same price point. With good inputs, colors, refresh rates, adjustability, brightness, yada, yada. They go as cheap as $350 now, but you can get GREAT ones (really great, not just pixel density) for around $500. Questions: (1) How many hours do you spend really working on the Seiki... not your wife, not on the phone, not at home on your wonderful Dell monitors, not walking around, not just in the office, how many legitimate hours to you spend USING the Seiki? (2) Why do choose for your developers, why not given them a budget of X to buy whatever they want?
kylec 13y ago
I had a 3014 at work and I stopped using it because it was terrible with Mac OS X. It had this thing where it would blue tint a box around any sustained motion on the screen, like a video being played. It also came out of the box blue tinted and with the sharpness cranked up. So while the Seido might not be great, the 3014 is no panacea either.
- dgbsco 13y ago
  There's some hacking that has to go on at the OS level with OSX to have any monitor > 27 inches. The trouble lies in that the operating system wants to natively believe that you're actually using a TV, not a monitor. To get it working you need to fool the OS into thinking that it's a monitor again: http://embdev.net/topic/284710#3027030 http://embdev.net/topic/284710#3027030
  - count 13y ago
    Note that's only for DisplayPort. I use DualLink DVI to my large screens, and it works great without any hacks.
Kiro 13y ago
You're exaggerating. Why?
jotm 13y ago
Admittedly 30 Hz sucks and the colors are not up to par with an IPS panel, but overall the Seiki offer a great deal for the price. The brightness is great (only terrible if you like it really low), the 112 pixel density is higher than on 2x23 inch monitors, for example; The colors can be calibrated from within the OS so it's not as much of an issue; And as the black levels - if you found them horrible, it may be because you were using an nVidia card on Windows - the drivers are set to limited RGB range (because it thinks it's connected to a TV), giving you horrible black levels (and colors). I spent a month wondering why my brand new monitors look like crap when every review said they were the best bang for the buck :-D. Or maybe you just got a bad panel and/or the new revisions were improved...
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  30 Hz is awful. The brightness problem is blow out and bleed. It is "very bright" it is so bright that when doing any sort of calibration the whites bleed on everything. The contrast ratio is good due to the excessive brightness, which means the blacks still suck. Horrible highlights and horrible shadows. The calibration you can do in the OS is limited, as I said, I have two different sets of hardware equipment for calibration and I still couldn't make it less than horrible. The display is just ick (as expected at that price point) -- every color is signifigantly off out of the box, and trying to fix it even with physical calibration devices is a lost cause. You can't get it anywhere near "normal". I tried the TV against multiple forms of input -- from Windows to OS-X to Ubuntu to QNX(I used to build command center software, which ran on TVs on top of QNX, so I have my own stack that is tested against TVs). From nVidia, to ATI, to Intel. I also tried it as a simple TV (my fallback so I didn't have to sell it) -- it even looked like crap as a TV... even with external upscaling to 4k. I purchased mine (and used it for about a month before I was able to sell it on Craigslist) just about as soon as you could get one in the US. I doubt any radical changes have taken place since then, I have read of none outside of the price dropping. It is still generally reviewed as a poor TV and worse monitor. Dells 4k 28" should be available in just a few weeks -- wait for that, don't purchase this lemon.
  - jotm 13y ago
    Excessive backlight bleed - could be that you got a real lemon... Manufacturers do have frequent revisions on the panels - for example LG's e-IPS panels had 6 revisions (or more), each pretty different, initially with backlight bleed and ghosting problems, then AFRC and brightness changes (it varies a lot between revisions) and the bad reviews went to Dell, Asus, Acer and other display manufacturers...
Sssnake 13y ago
>with a great matte finish Isn't that an oxymoron? Why would you want an intentionally blurry screen?
- veidr 13y ago
  So you can see what is on the screen. I used to have best Dell 27" and the Apple Thunderbolt 27" display side by side (the ones I had used the exact same panel). The Apple was glossy and the Dell was matte. If you peer at the Dell, you can see the matte coating -- but everything was nevertheless much more readable for most of the day due to the glare from the glossy screen (it was an office with a lot of natural light). Only at twilight did the Apple provide superior visibility. So matte finishes are extremely helpful in some circumstances (depending on the lighting and type of room), and some matte finishes are a lot better than others.
  - derekp7 13y ago
    Aren't there low-reflectivity glossy screens now? For example, on my Nexus 4, I can barely see my reflection when the screen is dark, although a lamp or window in the right direction is visible (but not so much that it overpowers the backlight).
  - Sssnake 13y ago
    Seems like just fixing your lighting situation would be preferable to having a blurry display.
    - veidr 13y ago
      Well, I suppose I could have asked the company to re-partition their office without so many windows and get rid of their skylights to accommodate my glossy display. But I figured it would be easier to just use a display with a good matte coating. Then again, I am one of the people who used to always pay the extra $50 for the matte screen option on my MacBook Pros, back when Apple offered that option.
    - snowwindwaves 13y ago

samstave 13y ago

>to stare at vim on Well, there's your problem right there...

yukkurishite 13y ago
>>>/g/
emirozer 13y ago
ahahah wp sir wp

robbiet480 13y ago

I agree the colors are a mess..... until you spend an hour or so calibrating. I did over the last two days since I bought one, and it has the same look, color wise, as my rMBP now (I own the 39" Seiki)

MetaCosm 13y ago
I tried calibrated it with both X-Rite and Spyder (both physical calibration devices) -- neither could get it anywhere near "average". It just swings all over the place. Also, calibration can't fix horrible blacks, uneven brightness and the finish. What equipment did you use? Can you post your pre/post scores? I have NEVER met anyone who has been able to actually calibrate it into even "average" ranges. I realize that X-Rite and Spyder are "consumer grade" calibration devices, but they are all I have access to.
- robbiet480 13y ago
  I didn't even use a device, I just eyeballed it. For my uses of Sublime Text, Chrome and Textual, colors are great. No qualms. And now I'm pretty sure I'm out of my league.
- artmageddon 13y ago
  >I tried calibrated it with both X-Rite and Spyder (both physical calibration devices) -- neither could get it anywhere near "average". It just swings all over the place. Also, calibration can't fix horrible blacks, uneven brightness and the finish. If you don't mind me asking, which version of Spyder did you try? Edit/Disclaimer: (I work for the company that produces it)
  - MetaCosm 13y ago
    4PRO.
- barrkel 13y ago
  The fact that you have access to two physical calibration devices makes me discount your opinion massively, FWIW. It means you're not really in the market for a programming monitor, but for design or some other thing where color is important. I don't care for calibration at all, really. What I do care about is that all my monitors, when I have multiple monitors, have similar performance across the gamut. To the point that I lived with what in retrospect was an extremely out of whack 2407WFP for 6 years to match a cheap Acer until the Acer died. I only noticed how bad it was when the U2813HM that replaced the Acer was sitting alongside. Resetting to factory defaults pretty much fixed that.

Torn 13y ago

Thanks for pointing this out -- the article seemed to completely overlooked the panel quality and configurability. I'm personally really looking forward to a proper UHD/4K over 30" that does 144hz with GSync, which I can use as my main desktop monitor. It'll finally be a reason to upgrade from my old Dell Ultrasharp. The Asus PQ321Q is almost there, it's just limited to 60hz.

MetaCosm 13y ago
This Asus ProArt series is also incredible.
bryanlarsen 13y ago
You will be waiting a very long time. UHD@144Hz requires 40Gbit/sec of bandwidth. DisplayPort 1.3 (which is not generally available yet), only supplies 25Gbit. HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 are 14 & 17, respectively. http://emsai.net/projects/widescreen/bandwidth/ http://emsai.net/projects/widescreen/bandwidth/
largote 13y ago
There's absolutely no difference from 60Hz to anything above it.
- fdkz 13y ago
  Yes, there is. I have side-by-side 60Hz and 120Hz monitors, and window dragging for example on the 120Hz one is much much smoother (I had to buy a gaming mouse, because most normal mice won't update at more than 100Hz I think). And movies don't have this jerky motion where 60Hz doesn't quite exactly divide with 24 fps that movies use.
  - lesserknowndan 13y ago
    Well, in my day, when you moved a window all the computer showed was a grey square - no fps issues there. Sorry, had to say it.

kudu 13y ago

Alternatively, you could buy a nice 27" 2560x1440 Qnix QX2710 (http://www.2560x1440monitor.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=17&product_id=43 http://www.2560x1440monitor.com/index.php?route=product/prod...), which has an excellent Samsung PLS panel and can often be overclocked to 120Hz.

pyre 13y ago
I like the "Up to 5 dead pixels" on the product image. Makes it sound like a feature, "5 Dead Pixels in every monitor, guaranteed!"
- seabrookmx 13y ago
  You can find retailers that sell "Pixel Perfect" models with none, but you pay a decent premium for it.
  - MetaCosm 13y ago
    Well -- or just find a "no questions asked" retailer.

leoc 13y ago

Sad to say, for many programmers and other people who aren't AV types, the step up in resolution—plus the saving of over $500—is likely worth the dodgy colour and brightness. Many won't even really notice the badness. That said, some of the $600-ish mystery-meat 2560×1600 displays apparently have good display quality and so may be a stronger alternative to the Seiki.

MetaCosm 13y ago
At $500, there are FAR better monitors. Bad contrast, bad brightness, bad everything. If you buy your programmers this, buy them a years supply of pills to deal with the headaches it will induce. Again, this isn't like a "bad for picky art professionals" type of bad. Just awful, I wouldn't even sell it to anyone I knew personally because I knew it would come back to bite me.
- shiven 13y ago
  At $500, there are FAR better monitors. You keep repeating this as if it is some magic mantra. You have not defined any what "better" really means in manner that can be quantified and compared without introducing subjective opinions of a user. Also, care to link to these "better" monitors, including sellers that sell these for the $500 price, as well as non-subjective reviews?
  - f00_ 13y ago
    Better monitors very easily be objectively conceived. Latency, refresh rate, contrast ratio, brightness, input options, are all easily measured. "Better" monitors are easily found through a simple search, and how do you exactly determine a review to be "non-subjective"? http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/ http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/ http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/tvs/ http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/tvs/ http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/a-great-27-inch-lcd-monitor/ http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/a-great-27-inch-lcd-monitor...
    - randallsquared 13y ago

ams6110 13y ago

At work I have dual 30" Dell monitors, which I use with a tiling window manager (I use awesome [1]). To see the far right/left sides I almost have to roll the chair left or right so I tend to keep editor windows and browser windows where I'm actually reading text in my central field of vision, and keep other windows on the outer margins. Also they do consume nearly all my desk space, so sometimes I think a single larger monitor might be better. 1: http://awesome.naquadah.org/ http://awesome.naquadah.org/

bradleyland 13y ago
I switched my dual monitor orientation to a primary 27" (iMac) running 2560x1440, with my secondary 24" running 1200x1920 in portrait orientation. It is, at first, disorientating to have the two monitors eschew but once you get used to it, the reduction in straight from looking far left or right out weighs the strange look. The added benefit is that you get 1920 pixels of vertical resolution for those times that you want to display long blocks of text without scrolling. Admittedly, I use that far less than I use it tiled with windows arranged over-under.
- dmourati 13y ago
  Eschew or askew?
  - bradleyland 13y ago
    Askew. Typed that on my iPad, so there are a couple of typos. Corrected 'eschew' and 'straight': "It is, at first, disorientating to have the two monitors askew but once you get used to it, the reduction in strain from looking far left or right out weighs the strange look.
cdr 13y ago
Not that I've tried it, but dual 30" seems like it'd be a bit much for me. Or the OP's dream 50". There's only so much you can focus on at a time, and only so far you can turn your head to change focus, though I guess depending on what you do you might want more areas of focus. 3 window columns seems to be where I'm most comfortable, but I've never tried a display bigger than 1x30". I do keep a 'dashboard' on a smaller side monitor that I can turn to look at as necessary though.

bhauer 13y ago

Thank you for the reality-check. I really do appreciate it and hope anyone reading my words reads yours as counterpoint. I had tried to be fair-handed with my judgment of the Seiki but I admit that my desire for large form-factor displays coupled with Seiki delivering one that I can actually afford clouds my judgment some. I want high-quality large displays and the incumbent manufacturers have left me in the cold for a decade. Not that it matters, but one area where I spoil myself is in monitors. I spend what I can afford (and then some, admittedly) on monitors in lieu of other luxuries. I own five 30" monitors, three of which are Dell U3011s. I love those monitors. As you point out, they ship from the factory with great color, a matte screen, and of course inputs that don't disappoint. But on the flip-side, the 30" "professional" LCD monitor as exemplified by the Dell U3011 and U3014 has not decreased in price substantially since I picked up my first Dell 3007WFP, what was it, eight years ago? Maybe it's telling that I have not yet replaced one of my home Dell monitors with a Seiki. But when my wife's Dell 30" died, we decided to give the Seiki a try. As I've said, the Seiki has several downsides. The 30Hz lag is foremost. It's noticeable and frustrating. But the screen size and delight of having so many pixels in a single display is so compelling. Also, after applying the Seiki firmware update, the backlight can be adjusted, allowing for better calibration. It's not a perfect monitor. It's not even a great monitor. It's a good monitor and it does the thing I value most: give me pixels with which to see and interact with information quickly. As a programmer on a budget, it's my favorite monitor currently available. I really hope that competition heats up and better monitors are on the horizon. I will bite at opportunities to get large, high-DPI, high-quality, high-speed displays. But for now, I personally would not buy the Dell 30" unless they severely cut the price. I'm keeping my eye on that because I am hopeful the new competition could start moving the higher-end prices downward, and that will make me happy. (Incidentally, the U3014 is presently $1,600 at Newegg [1]. I could barely stomach the ~$1,000 price of 30-inch monitors eight years ago. In 2014, I can't bring myself to spend $1,600 for 2560x1600.) [1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA25V0U16961 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA25V0U169...

MetaCosm 13y ago
First of all, you can get the U3014 for around $1100, less on sale. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00C2RPW8O/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00C2RPW8O/ref=dp_olp... ... additionally, it is a "professional" monitor (X-Rite tie in, factory calibrated, etc) and will likely maintain a premium price as corporations are the target customers. Secondly, the Seiki is not a "good" monitor. It isn't even a "good" TV. The only thing Seiki has is pixel density and cheapness, it is awful in every other measurable way, without a doubt one of the worst panels I have ever purchased. I can't fathom how you can justify calling it "good". Excluding resolution -- can you even name a single thing you like about it, that you think is a cut above? You can get a number of wonderful 27" inch (2560x1440+) in that same price point. With good inputs, colors, refresh rates, adjustability, brightness, yada, yada. They go as cheap as $350 now, but you can get GREAT ones (really great, not just pixel density) for around $500. Questions: (1) How many hours do you spend really working on the Seiki... not your wife, not on the phone, not at home on your wonderful Dell monitors, not walking around, not just in the office, how many legitimate hours to you spend USING the Seiki? (2) Why do choose for your developers, why not given them a budget of X to buy whatever they want?

kylec 13y ago

I had a 3014 at work and I stopped using it because it was terrible with Mac OS X. It had this thing where it would blue tint a box around any sustained motion on the screen, like a video being played. It also came out of the box blue tinted and with the sharpness cranked up. So while the Seido might not be great, the 3014 is no panacea either.

dgbsco 13y ago
There's some hacking that has to go on at the OS level with OSX to have any monitor > 27 inches. The trouble lies in that the operating system wants to natively believe that you're actually using a TV, not a monitor. To get it working you need to fool the OS into thinking that it's a monitor again: http://embdev.net/topic/284710#3027030 http://embdev.net/topic/284710#3027030
- count 13y ago
  Note that's only for DisplayPort. I use DualLink DVI to my large screens, and it works great without any hacks.

Kiro 13y ago

You're exaggerating. Why?

jotm 13y ago

Admittedly 30 Hz sucks and the colors are not up to par with an IPS panel, but overall the Seiki offer a great deal for the price. The brightness is great (only terrible if you like it really low), the 112 pixel density is higher than on 2x23 inch monitors, for example; The colors can be calibrated from within the OS so it's not as much of an issue; And as the black levels - if you found them horrible, it may be because you were using an nVidia card on Windows - the drivers are set to limited RGB range (because it thinks it's connected to a TV), giving you horrible black levels (and colors). I spent a month wondering why my brand new monitors look like crap when every review said they were the best bang for the buck :-D. Or maybe you just got a bad panel and/or the new revisions were improved...

MetaCosm 13y ago
30 Hz is awful. The brightness problem is blow out and bleed. It is "very bright" it is so bright that when doing any sort of calibration the whites bleed on everything. The contrast ratio is good due to the excessive brightness, which means the blacks still suck. Horrible highlights and horrible shadows. The calibration you can do in the OS is limited, as I said, I have two different sets of hardware equipment for calibration and I still couldn't make it less than horrible. The display is just ick (as expected at that price point) -- every color is signifigantly off out of the box, and trying to fix it even with physical calibration devices is a lost cause. You can't get it anywhere near "normal". I tried the TV against multiple forms of input -- from Windows to OS-X to Ubuntu to QNX(I used to build command center software, which ran on TVs on top of QNX, so I have my own stack that is tested against TVs). From nVidia, to ATI, to Intel. I also tried it as a simple TV (my fallback so I didn't have to sell it) -- it even looked like crap as a TV... even with external upscaling to 4k. I purchased mine (and used it for about a month before I was able to sell it on Craigslist) just about as soon as you could get one in the US. I doubt any radical changes have taken place since then, I have read of none outside of the price dropping. It is still generally reviewed as a poor TV and worse monitor. Dells 4k 28" should be available in just a few weeks -- wait for that, don't purchase this lemon.
- jotm 13y ago
  Excessive backlight bleed - could be that you got a real lemon... Manufacturers do have frequent revisions on the panels - for example LG's e-IPS panels had 6 revisions (or more), each pretty different, initially with backlight bleed and ghosting problems, then AFRC and brightness changes (it varies a lot between revisions) and the bad reviews went to Dell, Asus, Acer and other display manufacturers...

Sssnake 13y ago

>with a great matte finish Isn't that an oxymoron? Why would you want an intentionally blurry screen?

veidr 13y ago
So you can see what is on the screen. I used to have best Dell 27" and the Apple Thunderbolt 27" display side by side (the ones I had used the exact same panel). The Apple was glossy and the Dell was matte. If you peer at the Dell, you can see the matte coating -- but everything was nevertheless much more readable for most of the day due to the glare from the glossy screen (it was an office with a lot of natural light). Only at twilight did the Apple provide superior visibility. So matte finishes are extremely helpful in some circumstances (depending on the lighting and type of room), and some matte finishes are a lot better than others.
- derekp7 13y ago
  Aren't there low-reflectivity glossy screens now? For example, on my Nexus 4, I can barely see my reflection when the screen is dark, although a lamp or window in the right direction is visible (but not so much that it overpowers the backlight).
- Sssnake 13y ago
  Seems like just fixing your lighting situation would be preferable to having a blurry display.
  - veidr 13y ago
    Well, I suppose I could have asked the company to re-partition their office without so many windows and get rid of their skylights to accommodate my glossy display. But I figured it would be easier to just use a display with a good matte coating. Then again, I am one of the people who used to always pay the extra $50 for the matte screen option on my MacBook Pros, back when Apple offered that option.
  - snowwindwaves 13y ago