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Review: Samsung Ultra HD 4K UD590 28 inch monitor

3840x2160 Desktop

Having been spoiled by 2, large $1,000 each 32” Dell 2560×1600 resolution monitors with my work-from-home job over the last 3 years, when I switched jobs with a new company, I was left monitor-less after I returned the company owned hardware.  I opted for a one monitor, but higher res, and cheaper solution.  I first ordered a Dell 4K monitor, which was a disaster.

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imageWhile I was waiting for that monitor to arrive from Amazon during my 1 week vacation between jobs, I went to the local BestBuy to buy another to tied me over until the Dell arrived.  I bought the Samsung 4K UD590 28 inch monitor.  I ended up keeping the Samsung monitor and returning the Dell because the Dell monitor (see link above for why I ditched the Dell).

What I like

  • Picture Quality
    • Compared to the Dell monitor, the picture is brighter, has more vibrant colors, and a higher contrast.
  • Screen resolution
    • The screen resolution is a whopping 3840×2160 pixels.

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      • See that screen shot at the top of the article?  That’s my desktop at the full resolution.  Those two little windows in the middle and lower left are 1024×768 desktops in 2 separate virtual machines.  One is running Mac OSX, the other is running Windows XP.  That should give you a sense of the huge desktop real estate you get with all those pixels.
    • Response time
      • 1ms response time means the mouse is not delayed.  Video is not delayed.  Audio from your speakers is not ahead, in time, from the video displaying on the monitor.  This is HUGELY important.
    • Simplicity
      • 1 DisplayPort, 2 HDMI ports.
    • Screen Size
      • 28 inches large.  This provides a lot of screen real estate for your high-end computing needs such as software development, CAD, Graphics, etc…
    • PIP (Picture in picture)

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What I don’t like

  • Price
    • While ~$600 is lower than it was when it first came out and lower than the $1,000 Dell monitors with lower resolutions that I had before, it’s still a painful pill to swallow.
  • Ghost effects
    • I honestly don’t know if this is a problem with the monitor or the video card I bought, but it’s annoying as hell.  Here’s what I’m talking about:  When I move the mouse or scroll a window with a light background and dark text, there’s a ghost image left behind for a few milliseconds of where the mouse used to be or where the dark text used to be that is BRIGHTER than the white background.  It’s a poor user experience.
  • Lack of DVI and VGA ports
    • While I listed the 3 simple ports as a positive, it’s also a huge negative as it meant I couldn’t use my existing video card.  It was a high end card a few years ago, but lacks DisplayPort and HDMI.  It (my old video card) does, however, have 2 DVI ports and a VGA port and supports multiple monitors.  So, that meant I had to go buy a new video card.  I opted for the EVGA GeForce GTX 760 with 4GB of RAM.  Sadly, after I plugged that into my motherboard, I discovered that my power supply lacked the appropriate plugs to power this new video card, so I had to go purchase a new 600w power supply too…. all this just to run a new monitor!
  • Screen Size
    • Yes, I’m putting screen size in as both a positive and a negative.  While I’m used to a 32” screen, this one is a 28” screen.  I obviously do NOT blame Samsung for that.  It’s a 28” monitor… PERIOD!  But, when running the monitor at full resolution, the icons and text are so incredibly tiny, it’s ridiculous.  You really need a physically larger screen to run your desktop that this native resolution.  As a fix, I up’d the Windows DPI 150%.  That’s a feature that Windows has had for more than 20 years and this is the first time I’ve actually needed it.  This brought almost everything up to a large enough size that I can actually see it.  It also makes the text really crisp.  Think of it like a high-res display on your tablet… how it improves the text quality.  Same thing there.  If you want to run your desktop at 100% DPI with the full, native resolution of 4K, I strongly recommend getting a larger size than 28”.  I’d say 32” would be the bare minimum.  BUT, just crank up the DPI in your OS and you should be good to go.  MOST things scale up properly these days.  In the past, playing with DPI just hosed many apps.  Not true today.
  • Tilt
    • This monitor lacks usable tilt features.  You CANNOT tilt it forward.  So, if you place this monitor a little high, then you CANNOT tilt it down.  You CAN, however, tilt it UP, a little bit.  My computer desk has a shelf about 6 or 7 inches above the desk where I place my monitor.  The monitor stand holds the monitor about another 4 or 5 inches above that.  I’d prefer to have the monitor tilt down a little, but I can’t do that, so I have a cable running underneath the back edge of the monitor stand to tilt the whole thing forward just a little.
  • Raise/Lower
    • You CANNOT raise or lower the height of the monitor.  It is what it is as far as height goes.

Conclusion

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For the most part, I’m satisfied and happy with this monitor, but the ghosting and tilting are problems I’ll have to live with.

Have you had any experience with any 4K monitors yet?  Tell us about it in the comments below.

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Review: Dell P2815Q Ultra HD 28-Inch LED-Lit 4K Monitor

The Dell 4K 28 inch Ultra HD 4K computer monitor has an incredibly high screen resolution, but has some serious problems.

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Serious Mouse Lag

The first thing you’ll notice is the incredibly frustrating lag with your mouse.  It turns out, there’s no fix.  The problem is because of how the monitor works.  There’s a full 100ms delay from when the monitor receives the image signal to when it displays it.  That means that your mouse movements and keystrokes are not seen until at least that delay.

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This causes you to overshoot your targets with your mouse (both in games and on the desktop).  It causes a very irritating and frustrating sluggishness sensation, like you’re forcing your mouse through syrup.

There’s a thread on the Dell website’s user forum where many people are complaining about this and Dell’s official response is not comforting.  The following is a response to a customer who purchased it from a retailer who won’t accept it as bad because it performs per Dell’s specs.  At least Dell did provide a direct response to that retailer, explaining that the problem is real.

DellMonitorResponse1
Due to the hardware architecture, the mouse lag is a result of the P2815Q requiring 100 ms to process video data. This cannot be changed with a firmware update. It would require a new architecture from the ground up which we will not do. If you have this complaint, your only recourse is to return the monitor for refund. Outside of the initial 30 days from the invoice date, it will take manager approval to get a refund. Using the Dell service tag number from the P2815Q, contact Dell Technical Support for your region. Explain that we do not have a fix for this complaint. The technician will need to escalate to their manager.

 

Here’s another Dell response on the same thread indicating that the only fix is to return the monitor.

Due to the hardware architecture, the mouse lag is a result of the P2815Q requiring 100 ms to process video data. If you have this complaint, your only recourse is to return the monitor for refund. Outside of the initial 30 days from the invoice date, it will take manager approval to get a refund.
Due to the hardware architecture, the mouse lag is a result of the P2815Q requiring 100 ms to process video data. If you have this complaint, your only recourse is to return the monitor for refund. Outside of the initial 30 days from the invoice date, it will take manager approval to get a refund.

They also explain that they WILL NOT fix this issue.

Stale Colors

Sitting this monitor next to my Samsung UD590 4K monitor of the same size, the colors on this Dell monitor are not as vibrant.  I tried changing the settings to equal those of the Samsung Monitor, but it could not be achieved.

A Little Hope

Back to the mouse problem…  There are several preset options for the Dell monitor, like you’d expect on most modern display devices such as:

  • Standard
  • Movie
  • Warm
  • Cool
  • Game

etc…  As it turns out, if you set it to “Game”, the lag is diminished a little bit.  It’s still unacceptable for my needs, but it MIGHT be enough to satisfy other users.  Unfortunately, that setting also changes the display settings.

You’d think that a preset display setting would have no effect on this, and I thought perhaps it’s just my imagination.  So, I called my teenage daughter into my computer room, and without telling her what was going on, I set the video mode to “Standard” and asked her to move the mouse around (I hid what I was doing by having the Dell dialog on a second monitor that she could not see.  It changed the settings for the Dell monitor).  Her response was that the mouse was laggy.  I then changed to “Game” (again, without telling her what I was doing) and asked if it was better, worse, or indifferent.  She said it was clearly “better”.  Then I set it to “Cool” and asked again.  She confirmed that it was just like the first one… laggy.

My recommendation?

Avoid the Dell P2815Q Ultra HD 28-Inch LED-Lit 4K Monitor.  The lag is just too much to deal with.  And if you’re a gamer, this is an absolute “NO!”.  More like a “HELL NO!”  For non-gamers, it will be frustrating for you too, but if you change it to “Game” mode, it MIGHT be OK for you, but you’ll have to accept the color settings that go along with the game mode setting.

I would also recommend getting a LARGER monitor if you’re going to be using desktop apps if your screen is going to be 4K resolution.  Text, menus, buttons, etc, are crazy small on this thing.  I’d say a 32″ monitor would probably be the smallest you’d want to go.

Alternatives?

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If you need a monitor that can rotate like this Dell P2815Q does, I do not have a recommendation other than to choose something else.  If you don’t need rotation, the Samsung UD590 4K monitor has great color and no noticeable lag with the mouse.  However, it does NOT have the ability to rotate from portrait to landscape mode AND it CANNOT be tilted to face down a little.  So if where you place your monitor is a little high, it may be aimed at an odd, upward angle.  It CAN be aimed higher, but NOT lower.

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You’ll find an actual working versions of them at the top and bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this article.

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