6 ms·

4K for $649: Asus' PB287Q monitor reviewed

88 points by ismavis 12y ago

The_Sponge 12y ago
I'm bothered by the usage of "whore of babylon". I feel like that sort of language doesn't belong in a review like this.
- davidblueit 12y ago
  the actual usage is "whore o' Babylon". is it really something to get your panties in a bunch? get over yourself
  - RobAley 12y ago
    Choosing to brand someone who is comfortable with publicly displaying their sexuality as a whore (however they choose to spell the sentence) shows either a low intellect, a meanness of spirit or simply someone who rushes to draw conclusions without thinking. It's pertinent to the topic, in any of the above cases, as they all make you wonder if you can thus trust the rest of his review/opinion.
    - Xcelerate 12y ago
      > shows either a low intellect, a meanness of spirit or simply someone who rushes to draw conclusions without thinking. I disagree. And so do a lot of other people. Look up the word in the dictionary. It's an accurate definition. I'm more bothered by the fact that as soon as I read that sentence in the review, I knew someone who loves to be offended by everything would have already commented about it on HN.
      - pdpi 12y ago
        "whore of babylon" has a specific connotation that doesn't really seem to apply to Miley Cyrus. Either the author thinks Cyrus is the herald of the antichrist, or he's trying to use a biblical expression to make his naming and shaming seem clever.
        BugBrother 12y ago
        Oh, please... the author is doing funny turn of phrases in every second paragraph. But sure, it is "racist" to joke about female celebrities? (That said, I have no clue what Hanna Montana was. But Miley Cyrus is hardly extreme, even for mainstream music. [Edit: And if copying black music culture should be condemned, I don't know how much will remain? :-) Not only in the US. I guess the jokes are about the contrast with Montana? Sure women often gets the short stick in criticism, but don't throw the baby out with the water. Enough discussion, please. ] )
      - RobAley 12y ago
        > It's an accurate definition. Let's google "whore definition" : > noun, derogatory, a prostitute. She's not a prostitute (you can google that definition too), so it's not an accurate definition. And, as you're keen on definitions, it's defined as derogatory, so that really does indicate at least meanness of spirit in the writer, yourself, and "a lot of other people". > I knew someone who loves to be offended by everything... Personally, I'm not offended by "everything", and when I am offended, I don't enjoy it. His statement simply was offensive. > as soon as I read that sentence in the review... You clearly show a level of awareness of what is potentially offensive. Perhaps you could try using a little empathy towards others when you come across something that triggers that awareness, and you might find yourself enlightened.
- nemof 12y ago
  you're right to be, casual sexism in a tech review is not ok (not that it would be anywhere), and seems extremely unprofessional.
  - Xcelerate 12y ago
    It's not sexism. There's nothing gender-specific about it. EDIT: As an aside, I've been refreshing the page frequently and the dynamics of which comments are rapidly going gray and back to black are very interesting. Not to mention the order of comments on this page. Clearly there's some strong opinions here. I feel like an analysis of post voting frequency and vote type could be performed and would be very insightful.
    - sonbeetours 12y ago
      heloooo
    - hythloday 12y ago
      If calling a woman a "whore" (which is a gendered slur in itself[0]) is not sexism, what, to your mind, is? [0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=whore https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=whore count the women depicted, count the men depicted.
      - Xcelerate 12y ago
        What, to my mind, is? Cheerio chap! How about you misread my post? Try some reading comprehension.
        pessimizer 12y ago
        Try defending your assertion that the word 'whore' is not gendered instead of giving up after a single comment.
    - nemof 12y ago
      if calling miley cyrus a whore of babylon isn't sexist within your mindspace, your mindspace is weird.
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  >I'm bothered by the usage of "whore of babylon". I feel like that sort of language doesn't belong in a review like this. If you're complaining about obscenity, you should know that that was a reference to the Bible, of all things.
  - Eric_WVGG 12y ago
    I was all set to agree with you and criticize OP for being overly sensitive; but yeah, the writer was less making a biblical reference than calling a young woman a slut. Uncalled for.
- SeanKilleen 12y ago
  Thank you. I came here specifically to say just that. I'm trying to do more to say something in cases like these and call it when I see it. That usage was jarring and yes, completely out of place / uncalled for. Glad others feel same. Of all the analogies in the world, that was the choice?
- rjknight 12y ago
  So, I think this phrase may benefit from some context. Specifically, the cultural backdrop to the statement is that we[1] have a recent tradition of using the transition from "pure, sweet good-girl teen" to "raunchy, sexualised young woman" as a kind of marketing event for female pop stars who began their careers as teenage TV stars. Part of their marketing value derives directly from the public and "shocking" nature of the transition. It's essentially exploiting the Madonna-whore complex[2] for marketing purposes. There are ambiguities, of course. Perhaps the "shock" value of female sexuality is a good thing and is helping us all to get out of outmoded views about female purity. Perhaps the presentation of female sexuality as being about raunch and nudity is catering to male fantasies and is thus bad. Perhaps the problem lies with the excessively "pure" image that teenage female entertainers need to maintain in order to be deemed "family-friendly". Personally, I interpreted the comment in the article as being one about the exaggerated nature of the image change that stars like Miley Cyrus go through once they hit the age of consent. She's neither the whore of Babylon nor Hannah Montana, but it suited advertisers to portray her as both at different times. Is this a suitable topic for a joke or a metaphor? I didn't interpret it negatively, so for me it was fine. I can appreciate why other people would disagree, but I thought adding some context might be useful[3]. [1] Actually this is mostly an American thing, so I'm not entirely entitled to use "we" here [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex [3] Who am I kidding? I'm just giving my 2c on an internet forum like everyone else who has nothing better to do right now
  - nemof 12y ago
    your explanation is reasonable as far as it goes. Yes, the two states are being used to contrast the shocking change in nature of the product. However, this doesn't speak as to whether it's ok. 1) commodifying women is not ok. 2) comparing women as an object/product to a piece of tech is again problematic. 3) half your potential audience for your review is women. Do they want to read about other women being talked about like this? 4) using language like this makes it easier to accept it's reasonable and inoffensive. It's not inoffensive. just saying oh well this is advertising and marketing is not enough. Questioning it's validity is worthwhile. Questioning whether we want to see this kind of exclusionary and sexist language in professional copy is worthwhile.
- phkahler 12y ago
  Actually, it doesn't belong anywhere. In the book "Women's Infidelity" the author makes a compelling argument that a lot of relationship issues today stem from the double standard society uses to shame womens sexuality. Promiscuous men are revered, while women are shamed. There's a LOT more to it and it's really interesting reading. Society is a changin' and this language needs to go, not just on tech sites.
hackerboos 12y ago
$649 in US $699 in Canada $1000 in UK <- What on earth is going on here - even with 20% VAT?
- szatkus 12y ago
  700 Euro at Redcoon.
- albinoloverats 12y ago
  But still, at £600 it's much less expensive than most other available 4K displays (that I've seen)
  - hackerboos 12y ago
    There's a Samsung 4k pre-order for £500 on Amazon, Overclockers etc.
    - cbartlett 12y ago
      You wouldn't happen to have a link or know the model number would you?
      - hackerboos 12y ago
        U28D590 - You can get it on eBay from Korea for £450 including VAT and customs duty. Although probably better to buy in country for warranty reasons.
      - hackerboos 12y ago
        There's also a Dell UHD for 450 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IOUBOB2/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IOUBOB2/
- chanux 12y ago
  I can't find it right now but I read about a study that concluded British people would chose x£ over x$. That's probably being exploited here.
MartinMond 12y ago
Can someone explain how this is 4k? Apple's Thunderbolt Display has a resolution of 2560x1440 [1] and ASUS' PB287Q also has 2560x1440 according to Amazon [2]. What am I missing? UPDATE: I transposed digits and looked at the PB278Q not the PB287Q. [1] https://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html https://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html [2] http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-27-Inch-LED-lit-Professional-Graphics/dp/B009C3M7H0 http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-27-Inch-LED-lit-Professional-Gr...
- bsimpson 12y ago
  I believe you're looking at the 278Q. The 287Q (note the digit changes) has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 according to the article.
  - twic 12y ago
    So it's 3.84K then. Almost 4K. A bit like how a carrier one sold me a phone with EDGE as 3G. I mean, 2.75G is pretty much 3G, right?
    - izacus 12y ago
      Um, anything that's marked as "4K" has 3840x2160 resolution. Pretty much any "<something>p" and similar marking is misleading in terms of marketing anyway.
    - devcpp 12y ago
      Don't blame it on bad intentions. It just happens to be four 1920x1080 screens for scaling purposes. Much like bytes and kibibytes. I'm okay with this.
    - fredsted 12y ago
      No. It's 4K. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution
  - MartinMond 12y ago
    Ah yes. Thanks!
bsimpson 12y ago
My Chromebook Pixel has spoiled me. A 28" 4K monitor isn't sharp enough. Dell has a 24" that yields 180 ppi. I'd be interested to see that in person, but it probably still isn't sharp enough comparatively.
- kayoone 12y ago
  You typically sit closer to a Laptop screen than to a Desktop screen, so this should be pretty close to retina level DPI depending on the viewing distance http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdengleski.png http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdeng...
Kayou 12y ago
I may be a nitpicker, but for me 4k is 4096x2160, or am I wrong? This screen is UHD, or 2160p but not 4k.
- cs02rm0 12y ago
  You're not wrong, but I think the argument has been lost with the marketers long ago.
- unhammer 12y ago
  Double disappointment (it also looks fairly ugly, as do all monitors I've seen apart from Apple's ones, which don't work with non-Apple computers :-/)
- byuu 12y ago
  For me, it's 7822x4096. Or even 7112x4000 if you must. This really should be called 2160p, but you know, marketing. Also really loving my 976GiB "terabyte" hard drive, and my "ten meg" 1.25MiB/s broadband.
  - josephlord 12y ago
    The thing is the consumer displays are just reaching the resolutions that the cinema world has been working with for years and they always referred to the horizontal pixel count. CRTs of course never had meaningful horizontal pixel counts but had very meaningful line numbers so that was what was used in the TV industry. The broadband situation is sort of similar and has always historically been measured in bits. With hard drives I don't know if there is a reason they can't put 1000GiB on their "terabyte" hard drives which might be reasonable.
    - byuu 12y ago
      Interesting info on the cinema resolutions, wasn't aware of that, thanks. As for hard drives, it's unfortunately not even 1000GiB. It's 1,000,000,000,000 bytes; or 931.32GiB. Of course usually it's actually a bit higher based on the design, and they 'round down'. My OS is reporting my WD Reds as 976GiB, so I'm 'only' missing around 48GiB. And on that note, I understand the whole 'humans like base 10', but computers like base 2. And now half of my apps use base-10, half use base-2. And I pretty much have to use base-2 for all older stuff, like ROM sizes from old game cartridges. And I doubt people actually cared about 1000-vs-1024 when they said their file was "three megs", but now instead of consistency we have a mess.
kayoone 12y ago
Here's a chart which shows the ideal viewing distance for various resolutions, based on the smallest detail the human eye can discern at 20/20 vision. http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdengleski.png http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdeng... This monitor is pretty close to retina level DPI based on the typical viewing distance, but i guess a 24inch 4K would be even better.
- baq 12y ago
  do you have something like this but log scale? the most interesting part of the graph is the most unreadable.
- reitzensteinm 12y ago
  Note also that 20/20 vision isn't actually that high, especially if you're young, so the chart isn't necessarily definitive. "a subject diagnosed as having 20/20 vision will often actually have higher visual acuity because, once this standard is attained, the subject is considered to have normal (in the sense of undisturbed) vision and smaller optotypes are not tested." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity
- Retric 12y ago
  Your information is wildly inaccurate. Take a 30' black screen vs one with a single white pixel and someone can tell the difference from across a football field if it's dark enough. Do the same thing with one white pixel vs 2 next to each other and you can't tell the difference. The important point is screens showing normal video have aliasing effects so under some situations with unedited video you get differences such as flickering at fairly long distances. Edit: Basicly if you have 480p and 720p video having a 720p monitor is worse than a 720x4 monitor at fairly long distances. Toss in compression artifacts and you want a screen at least 4x the resolution as your showing in that chart.
  - kayoone 12y ago
    The chart is just about how many DPI you need based on a specific distance to reach the point where the average human eye would stop seeing benefits vs even higher DPI. Your points are more about refresh rates, video compression and lightning. For example, in gaming antialising and other "smoothing" techniques are wildy used to improve image quality, but when playing in 4K resolution on a 24inch screen you wouldn't need those anymore because your eye can't see a difference.
zokier 12y ago
> Web browsers can be a problem. You may want to choose Internet Explorer rather than Chrome, since Microsoft has clearly done more work to support high-PPI configs. However, note that IE ditches the ClearType sub-pixel antialiasing scheme and snap-to-grid GDI font rendering in favor of simple greyscale antialiasing. As a result, the effective text resolution with IE at high PPIs isn't a huge leap from other browsers with ClearType on conventional displays. [emphasis mine] Umm.. I know Firefox is not fashionable these days but ignoring it completely seems bit odd, especially if both Chrome and IE produce suboptimal results. Also can't you these days force compatibility bitmap-scaling for applications like Fraps that apparently do not work correctly with HiDPI? Sure it is one extra step that ideally shouldn't be necessary, but it is not like you need to live with broken UIs.
- sergiosgc 12y ago
  Firefox does not handle high DPI screens. It renders fonts at a fixed 96dpi and your only option is to crank up the devPixelsPerPx pref, which is akin to page zoom. The bug has been reported multiple times. It always ends up being closed as wontfix, which is just burying the head in the sand. My laptop is 210dpi, and I guess we'll just go up from here. One instance of the bug:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512522 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512522
  - __david__ 12y ago
    Firefox handles the high DPI (227) display on my Macbook just fine…
    - orbifold 12y ago
      Presumably because it uses native libraries that have support for high DPI displays.
  - zokier 12y ago
    > your only option is to crank up the devPixelsPerPx pref, which is akin to page zoom Since Firefox 22 you shouldn't need to adjust it manually. See eg this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844604 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844604 (Status: RESOLVED FIXED). I'm not sure why you seem to think that "akin page zoom" is not the proper result, what else you expected? Quoting Anandtech: > Chrome is scaled 150% as Windows asked, but it is hazy and blurry. Disabling DPI scaling for the application and then scaling to 150% inside Chrome produces crisp, clear text. Firefox also didn’t scale automatically, but it has a setting to adjust to make it follow the Windows DPI scaling rules. Once set, Firefox looks very nice and crisp. For most people, that setting should already be set to follow DPI scaling. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ultrahd-4k-monitor-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ultrahd-4k-mo... Note that the review predates the release of Firefox 22. edit: This is the tracking bug for Firefox HiDPI support on Windows: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=820679&hide_resolved=0 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=82067... . Hardly burying their heads in sand.
rayiner 12y ago
The Miley comment is totally unprofessional and unnecessary.
nailer 12y ago
So how long till we get 4K touch displays? These displays are fantastic, but I'd worry about touch models being released in a couple of years. If you use Windows, or OS X gets good touch support, you might regret the purchase.
- bsimpson 12y ago
  I'm still holding out for the ThinkVision 28: http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/ThinkVision%20Spec%20Sheets.pdf http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/ThinkVision%20Spec%20She...
cpks 12y ago
I'd buy one if I knew it would work. Heck, I'd buy two or four for a multimonitor setup. The process of figuring out whether a given laptop or graphics card will drive 4k over a particular standard is daunting. Knowing if it will work with Ubuntu, in particular, is beyond me. I wish there was a standard -- perhaps over USB -- where ordinary people who don't play games and just want a machine to work on (emacs, xterms, web browsers, word processors, rather than gaming) could make many monitors and large monitors work plug-and-play.
- zokier 12y ago
  > I wish there was a standard -- perhaps over USB -- where ordinary people who don't play games and just want a machine to work on (emacs, xterms, web browsers, word processors, rather than gaming) could make many monitors and large monitors work plug-and-play. You mean like DisplayPort? If your system supports DisplayPort (1.2 or later), you should have no issues getting image on screen. EDID/DisplayID can be used to autoconfigure DPI/PPI scaling, so ideally the experience should indeed be just plug-and-play.
- fulafel 12y ago
  USB display adapters do exist, people have been using USB 2 adapters with 1080 displays, and USB 3 with 4K will have more bandwidth per pixel available.
bainsfather 12y ago
Good to see the price of big high resolution screens coming down, after so many stagnant years. > The one thing that may freeze you from pulling the trigger right now on the PB287Q is, oddly enough for the monitor market, the promise of better things coming soon. Any guesses about how the market will progress in the next year or two? I have an old 30" 2560x1600, bought for £1200 6 years ago - good enough for my uses (coding). Would like to get a second similar screen, when they are cheap. At the moment I see e.g. 27" 2560x1440 for £420 [1] - would buy it today, except maybe I can get something cheaper and better soon ... [1] http://www.cclonline.com/product/95902/U2713HM/Monitors/Dell-UltraSharp-U2713HM-27-Widescreen-LED-Monitor/MON1192/ http://www.cclonline.com/product/95902/U2713HM/Monitors/Dell...
firefoxNX11 12y ago
Good to see prices of 4K coming down. Are 4k displays better at rendering text for those who read and work with code a lot?
akilism 12y ago
why not a seiki 39" 4k for $399? http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra-120Hz/dp/B00DOPGO2G/ http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra-120Hz/dp/...
- what_ever 12y ago
  Err, 30Hz refresh rate at 4k as the review mentioned?
vdm 12y ago
vs Samsung U28D590D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YzTJheuFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YzTJheuFs (4:48)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
headShrinker 12y ago
> The sRGB option does produce colors that appear to be closer to our post-calibration settings than the default "standard" mode, for what it's worth. Hmmmm... I need something that can do a little better than "closer to". Guess $650 and color accuracy is too much to ask at 4k.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  Dell's UP2414Q was on sale for $765 a couple of times this month. It's a smaller screen, but has really great color. Details from Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-up2414q-monitor-review,3781-7.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-up2414q-monitor-rev...

88 points by ismavis 12y ago

I'm bothered by the usage of "whore of babylon". I feel like that sort of language doesn't belong in a review like this.

davidblueit 12y ago
the actual usage is "whore o' Babylon". is it really something to get your panties in a bunch? get over yourself
- RobAley 12y ago
  Choosing to brand someone who is comfortable with publicly displaying their sexuality as a whore (however they choose to spell the sentence) shows either a low intellect, a meanness of spirit or simply someone who rushes to draw conclusions without thinking. It's pertinent to the topic, in any of the above cases, as they all make you wonder if you can thus trust the rest of his review/opinion.
  - Xcelerate 12y ago
    > shows either a low intellect, a meanness of spirit or simply someone who rushes to draw conclusions without thinking. I disagree. And so do a lot of other people. Look up the word in the dictionary. It's an accurate definition. I'm more bothered by the fact that as soon as I read that sentence in the review, I knew someone who loves to be offended by everything would have already commented about it on HN.
    - pdpi 12y ago
      "whore of babylon" has a specific connotation that doesn't really seem to apply to Miley Cyrus. Either the author thinks Cyrus is the herald of the antichrist, or he's trying to use a biblical expression to make his naming and shaming seem clever.
      - BugBrother 12y ago
        Oh, please... the author is doing funny turn of phrases in every second paragraph. But sure, it is "racist" to joke about female celebrities? (That said, I have no clue what Hanna Montana was. But Miley Cyrus is hardly extreme, even for mainstream music. [Edit: And if copying black music culture should be condemned, I don't know how much will remain? :-) Not only in the US. I guess the jokes are about the contrast with Montana? Sure women often gets the short stick in criticism, but don't throw the baby out with the water. Enough discussion, please. ] )
    - RobAley 12y ago
      > It's an accurate definition. Let's google "whore definition" : > noun, derogatory, a prostitute. She's not a prostitute (you can google that definition too), so it's not an accurate definition. And, as you're keen on definitions, it's defined as derogatory, so that really does indicate at least meanness of spirit in the writer, yourself, and "a lot of other people". > I knew someone who loves to be offended by everything... Personally, I'm not offended by "everything", and when I am offended, I don't enjoy it. His statement simply was offensive. > as soon as I read that sentence in the review... You clearly show a level of awareness of what is potentially offensive. Perhaps you could try using a little empathy towards others when you come across something that triggers that awareness, and you might find yourself enlightened.
nemof 12y ago
you're right to be, casual sexism in a tech review is not ok (not that it would be anywhere), and seems extremely unprofessional.
- Xcelerate 12y ago
  It's not sexism. There's nothing gender-specific about it. EDIT: As an aside, I've been refreshing the page frequently and the dynamics of which comments are rapidly going gray and back to black are very interesting. Not to mention the order of comments on this page. Clearly there's some strong opinions here. I feel like an analysis of post voting frequency and vote type could be performed and would be very insightful.
  - sonbeetours 12y ago
    heloooo
  - hythloday 12y ago
    If calling a woman a "whore" (which is a gendered slur in itself[0]) is not sexism, what, to your mind, is? [0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=whore https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=whore count the women depicted, count the men depicted.
    - Xcelerate 12y ago
      What, to my mind, is? Cheerio chap! How about you misread my post? Try some reading comprehension.
      - pessimizer 12y ago
        Try defending your assertion that the word 'whore' is not gendered instead of giving up after a single comment.
  - nemof 12y ago
    if calling miley cyrus a whore of babylon isn't sexist within your mindspace, your mindspace is weird.
pervycreeper 12y ago
>I'm bothered by the usage of "whore of babylon". I feel like that sort of language doesn't belong in a review like this. If you're complaining about obscenity, you should know that that was a reference to the Bible, of all things.
- Eric_WVGG 12y ago
  I was all set to agree with you and criticize OP for being overly sensitive; but yeah, the writer was less making a biblical reference than calling a young woman a slut. Uncalled for.
SeanKilleen 12y ago
Thank you. I came here specifically to say just that. I'm trying to do more to say something in cases like these and call it when I see it. That usage was jarring and yes, completely out of place / uncalled for. Glad others feel same. Of all the analogies in the world, that was the choice?
rjknight 12y ago
So, I think this phrase may benefit from some context. Specifically, the cultural backdrop to the statement is that we[1] have a recent tradition of using the transition from "pure, sweet good-girl teen" to "raunchy, sexualised young woman" as a kind of marketing event for female pop stars who began their careers as teenage TV stars. Part of their marketing value derives directly from the public and "shocking" nature of the transition. It's essentially exploiting the Madonna-whore complex[2] for marketing purposes. There are ambiguities, of course. Perhaps the "shock" value of female sexuality is a good thing and is helping us all to get out of outmoded views about female purity. Perhaps the presentation of female sexuality as being about raunch and nudity is catering to male fantasies and is thus bad. Perhaps the problem lies with the excessively "pure" image that teenage female entertainers need to maintain in order to be deemed "family-friendly". Personally, I interpreted the comment in the article as being one about the exaggerated nature of the image change that stars like Miley Cyrus go through once they hit the age of consent. She's neither the whore of Babylon nor Hannah Montana, but it suited advertisers to portray her as both at different times. Is this a suitable topic for a joke or a metaphor? I didn't interpret it negatively, so for me it was fine. I can appreciate why other people would disagree, but I thought adding some context might be useful[3]. [1] Actually this is mostly an American thing, so I'm not entirely entitled to use "we" here [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex [3] Who am I kidding? I'm just giving my 2c on an internet forum like everyone else who has nothing better to do right now
- nemof 12y ago
  your explanation is reasonable as far as it goes. Yes, the two states are being used to contrast the shocking change in nature of the product. However, this doesn't speak as to whether it's ok. 1) commodifying women is not ok. 2) comparing women as an object/product to a piece of tech is again problematic. 3) half your potential audience for your review is women. Do they want to read about other women being talked about like this? 4) using language like this makes it easier to accept it's reasonable and inoffensive. It's not inoffensive. just saying oh well this is advertising and marketing is not enough. Questioning it's validity is worthwhile. Questioning whether we want to see this kind of exclusionary and sexist language in professional copy is worthwhile.
phkahler 12y ago
Actually, it doesn't belong anywhere. In the book "Women's Infidelity" the author makes a compelling argument that a lot of relationship issues today stem from the double standard society uses to shame womens sexuality. Promiscuous men are revered, while women are shamed. There's a LOT more to it and it's really interesting reading. Society is a changin' and this language needs to go, not just on tech sites.

hackerboos 12y ago

$649 in US $699 in Canada $1000 in UK <- What on earth is going on here - even with 20% VAT?

szatkus 12y ago
700 Euro at Redcoon.
albinoloverats 12y ago
But still, at £600 it's much less expensive than most other available 4K displays (that I've seen)
- hackerboos 12y ago
  There's a Samsung 4k pre-order for £500 on Amazon, Overclockers etc.
  - cbartlett 12y ago
    You wouldn't happen to have a link or know the model number would you?
    - hackerboos 12y ago
      U28D590 - You can get it on eBay from Korea for £450 including VAT and customs duty. Although probably better to buy in country for warranty reasons.
    - hackerboos 12y ago
      There's also a Dell UHD for 450 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IOUBOB2/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IOUBOB2/
chanux 12y ago
I can't find it right now but I read about a study that concluded British people would chose x£ over x$. That's probably being exploited here.

MartinMond 12y ago

Can someone explain how this is 4k? Apple's Thunderbolt Display has a resolution of 2560x1440 [1] and ASUS' PB287Q also has 2560x1440 according to Amazon [2]. What am I missing? UPDATE: I transposed digits and looked at the PB278Q not the PB287Q. [1] https://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html https://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html [2] http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-27-Inch-LED-lit-Professional-Graphics/dp/B009C3M7H0 http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-27-Inch-LED-lit-Professional-Gr...

bsimpson 12y ago
I believe you're looking at the 278Q. The 287Q (note the digit changes) has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 according to the article.
- twic 12y ago
  So it's 3.84K then. Almost 4K. A bit like how a carrier one sold me a phone with EDGE as 3G. I mean, 2.75G is pretty much 3G, right?
  - izacus 12y ago
    Um, anything that's marked as "4K" has 3840x2160 resolution. Pretty much any "<something>p" and similar marking is misleading in terms of marketing anyway.
  - devcpp 12y ago
    Don't blame it on bad intentions. It just happens to be four 1920x1080 screens for scaling purposes. Much like bytes and kibibytes. I'm okay with this.
  - fredsted 12y ago
    No. It's 4K. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution
- MartinMond 12y ago
  Ah yes. Thanks!

bsimpson 12y ago

My Chromebook Pixel has spoiled me. A 28" 4K monitor isn't sharp enough. Dell has a 24" that yields 180 ppi. I'd be interested to see that in person, but it probably still isn't sharp enough comparatively.

kayoone 12y ago
You typically sit closer to a Laptop screen than to a Desktop screen, so this should be pretty close to retina level DPI depending on the viewing distance http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdengleski.png http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdeng...

Kayou 12y ago

I may be a nitpicker, but for me 4k is 4096x2160, or am I wrong? This screen is UHD, or 2160p but not 4k.

cs02rm0 12y ago
You're not wrong, but I think the argument has been lost with the marketers long ago.
unhammer 12y ago
Double disappointment (it also looks fairly ugly, as do all monitors I've seen apart from Apple's ones, which don't work with non-Apple computers :-/)
byuu 12y ago
For me, it's 7822x4096. Or even 7112x4000 if you must. This really should be called 2160p, but you know, marketing. Also really loving my 976GiB "terabyte" hard drive, and my "ten meg" 1.25MiB/s broadband.
- josephlord 12y ago
  The thing is the consumer displays are just reaching the resolutions that the cinema world has been working with for years and they always referred to the horizontal pixel count. CRTs of course never had meaningful horizontal pixel counts but had very meaningful line numbers so that was what was used in the TV industry. The broadband situation is sort of similar and has always historically been measured in bits. With hard drives I don't know if there is a reason they can't put 1000GiB on their "terabyte" hard drives which might be reasonable.
  - byuu 12y ago
    Interesting info on the cinema resolutions, wasn't aware of that, thanks. As for hard drives, it's unfortunately not even 1000GiB. It's 1,000,000,000,000 bytes; or 931.32GiB. Of course usually it's actually a bit higher based on the design, and they 'round down'. My OS is reporting my WD Reds as 976GiB, so I'm 'only' missing around 48GiB. And on that note, I understand the whole 'humans like base 10', but computers like base 2. And now half of my apps use base-10, half use base-2. And I pretty much have to use base-2 for all older stuff, like ROM sizes from old game cartridges. And I doubt people actually cared about 1000-vs-1024 when they said their file was "three megs", but now instead of consistency we have a mess.

kayoone 12y ago

Here's a chart which shows the ideal viewing distance for various resolutions, based on the smallest detail the human eye can discern at 20/20 vision. http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdengleski.png http://cdn.avsforum.com/4/4c/600x376px-LL-4cd4431b_200ppdeng... This monitor is pretty close to retina level DPI based on the typical viewing distance, but i guess a 24inch 4K would be even better.

baq 12y ago
do you have something like this but log scale? the most interesting part of the graph is the most unreadable.
reitzensteinm 12y ago
Note also that 20/20 vision isn't actually that high, especially if you're young, so the chart isn't necessarily definitive. "a subject diagnosed as having 20/20 vision will often actually have higher visual acuity because, once this standard is attained, the subject is considered to have normal (in the sense of undisturbed) vision and smaller optotypes are not tested." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity
Retric 12y ago
Your information is wildly inaccurate. Take a 30' black screen vs one with a single white pixel and someone can tell the difference from across a football field if it's dark enough. Do the same thing with one white pixel vs 2 next to each other and you can't tell the difference. The important point is screens showing normal video have aliasing effects so under some situations with unedited video you get differences such as flickering at fairly long distances. Edit: Basicly if you have 480p and 720p video having a 720p monitor is worse than a 720x4 monitor at fairly long distances. Toss in compression artifacts and you want a screen at least 4x the resolution as your showing in that chart.
- kayoone 12y ago
  The chart is just about how many DPI you need based on a specific distance to reach the point where the average human eye would stop seeing benefits vs even higher DPI. Your points are more about refresh rates, video compression and lightning. For example, in gaming antialising and other "smoothing" techniques are wildy used to improve image quality, but when playing in 4K resolution on a 24inch screen you wouldn't need those anymore because your eye can't see a difference.

zokier 12y ago

> Web browsers can be a problem. You may want to choose Internet Explorer rather than Chrome, since Microsoft has clearly done more work to support high-PPI configs. However, note that IE ditches the ClearType sub-pixel antialiasing scheme and snap-to-grid GDI font rendering in favor of simple greyscale antialiasing. As a result, the effective text resolution with IE at high PPIs isn't a huge leap from other browsers with ClearType on conventional displays. [emphasis mine] Umm.. I know Firefox is not fashionable these days but ignoring it completely seems bit odd, especially if both Chrome and IE produce suboptimal results. Also can't you these days force compatibility bitmap-scaling for applications like Fraps that apparently do not work correctly with HiDPI? Sure it is one extra step that ideally shouldn't be necessary, but it is not like you need to live with broken UIs.

sergiosgc 12y ago
Firefox does not handle high DPI screens. It renders fonts at a fixed 96dpi and your only option is to crank up the devPixelsPerPx pref, which is akin to page zoom. The bug has been reported multiple times. It always ends up being closed as wontfix, which is just burying the head in the sand. My laptop is 210dpi, and I guess we'll just go up from here. One instance of the bug:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512522 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512522
- __david__ 12y ago
  Firefox handles the high DPI (227) display on my Macbook just fine…
  - orbifold 12y ago
    Presumably because it uses native libraries that have support for high DPI displays.
- zokier 12y ago
  > your only option is to crank up the devPixelsPerPx pref, which is akin to page zoom Since Firefox 22 you shouldn't need to adjust it manually. See eg this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844604 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=844604 (Status: RESOLVED FIXED). I'm not sure why you seem to think that "akin page zoom" is not the proper result, what else you expected? Quoting Anandtech: > Chrome is scaled 150% as Windows asked, but it is hazy and blurry. Disabling DPI scaling for the application and then scaling to 150% inside Chrome produces crisp, clear text. Firefox also didn’t scale automatically, but it has a setting to adjust to make it follow the Windows DPI scaling rules. Once set, Firefox looks very nice and crisp. For most people, that setting should already be set to follow DPI scaling. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ultrahd-4k-monitor-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ultrahd-4k-mo... Note that the review predates the release of Firefox 22. edit: This is the tracking bug for Firefox HiDPI support on Windows: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=820679&hide_resolved=0 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=82067... . Hardly burying their heads in sand.

rayiner 12y ago

The Miley comment is totally unprofessional and unnecessary.

nailer 12y ago

So how long till we get 4K touch displays? These displays are fantastic, but I'd worry about touch models being released in a couple of years. If you use Windows, or OS X gets good touch support, you might regret the purchase.

bsimpson 12y ago
I'm still holding out for the ThinkVision 28: http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/ThinkVision%20Spec%20Sheets.pdf http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/ThinkVision%20Spec%20She...

cpks 12y ago

I'd buy one if I knew it would work. Heck, I'd buy two or four for a multimonitor setup. The process of figuring out whether a given laptop or graphics card will drive 4k over a particular standard is daunting. Knowing if it will work with Ubuntu, in particular, is beyond me. I wish there was a standard -- perhaps over USB -- where ordinary people who don't play games and just want a machine to work on (emacs, xterms, web browsers, word processors, rather than gaming) could make many monitors and large monitors work plug-and-play.

zokier 12y ago
> I wish there was a standard -- perhaps over USB -- where ordinary people who don't play games and just want a machine to work on (emacs, xterms, web browsers, word processors, rather than gaming) could make many monitors and large monitors work plug-and-play. You mean like DisplayPort? If your system supports DisplayPort (1.2 or later), you should have no issues getting image on screen. EDID/DisplayID can be used to autoconfigure DPI/PPI scaling, so ideally the experience should indeed be just plug-and-play.
fulafel 12y ago
USB display adapters do exist, people have been using USB 2 adapters with 1080 displays, and USB 3 with 4K will have more bandwidth per pixel available.

bainsfather 12y ago

Good to see the price of big high resolution screens coming down, after so many stagnant years. > The one thing that may freeze you from pulling the trigger right now on the PB287Q is, oddly enough for the monitor market, the promise of better things coming soon. Any guesses about how the market will progress in the next year or two? I have an old 30" 2560x1600, bought for £1200 6 years ago - good enough for my uses (coding). Would like to get a second similar screen, when they are cheap. At the moment I see e.g. 27" 2560x1440 for £420 [1] - would buy it today, except maybe I can get something cheaper and better soon ... [1] http://www.cclonline.com/product/95902/U2713HM/Monitors/Dell-UltraSharp-U2713HM-27-Widescreen-LED-Monitor/MON1192/ http://www.cclonline.com/product/95902/U2713HM/Monitors/Dell...

firefoxNX11 12y ago

Good to see prices of 4K coming down. Are 4k displays better at rendering text for those who read and work with code a lot?

akilism 12y ago

why not a seiki 39" 4k for $399? http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra-120Hz/dp/B00DOPGO2G/ http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra-120Hz/dp/...

what_ever 12y ago
Err, 30Hz refresh rate at 4k as the review mentioned?

vdm 12y ago

vs Samsung U28D590D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YzTJheuFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YzTJheuFs (4:48)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

headShrinker 12y ago

> The sRGB option does produce colors that appear to be closer to our post-calibration settings than the default "standard" mode, for what it's worth. Hmmmm... I need something that can do a little better than "closer to". Guess $650 and color accuracy is too much to ask at 4k.

wlesieutre 12y ago
Dell's UP2414Q was on sale for $765 a couple of times this month. It's a smaller screen, but has really great color. Details from Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-up2414q-monitor-review,3781-7.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-up2414q-monitor-rev...