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Samsung U28E850R 28.0 inch Widescreen 1,000:1 1ms HDMI/DisplayPort/Mini DisplayPort/USB LED LCD Monitor (Bla

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#1 ·
Samsung U28E850R 28.0 inch Widescreen 1,000:1 1ms HDMI/DisplayPort/Mini DisplayPort/USB LED LCD Monitor (Bla

Description:
28 inches Brightness 370 nits Display Resolution 3840x2160 Input HDMI Display Port Mini Display Port USB Hub (4) Warranty 3 Years Description 16:9 28" TN Panel with 1ms GTG refresh 3840x2160 370 nits 1Bil colors AMD Free Synch HDMI Display Port Mini Display Port USB Hub (4) with all 3 cables and USB

Details:
DetailValue
BindingElectronics
BrandSamsung
EAN0887276079455
FeatureSamsung IT
U28E850R
MONITORS
LabelSamsung IT
ManufacturerSamsung IT
ModelU28E850R
MPNU28E850R
PublisherSamsung IT
StudioSamsung IT
TitleSamsung U28E850R 28.0 inch Widescreen 1,000:1 1ms HDMI/DisplayPort/Mini DisplayPort/USB LED LCD Monitor (Bla
UPC887276079455
Item Height10.3 inches
Item Length26 inches
Item Width21.7 inches
Package Height12 inches
Package Length12 inches
Package Weight20 pounds
Package Width12 inches
PackageQuantity1
PartNumberU28E850R
ProductGroupPersonal Computer
ProductTypeNameMONITOR
UPCList - UPCListElement887276079455
Item Weight20 pounds
 

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#2 ·
Good 4K monitor with good panel and many in/outputs.

review by hattifnatten

DISCLAIMER: I do not have proper equipment to test the display properly. This review is based on my impressions and the feel I got for the product. I do not have a whole lot of experience when it comes to monitors.

It has been more than a year since Samsung introduced us to their value 4k monitor, the U28D590D. Unlike many of its competitors last year, it packed a 60hz display, with no tiling. Add the nice price of roughly 600-650$ when other 4k monitors could easily set you back thousands, and we had a winner. However, while it did pack some impressive hardware for its price, corners were cut to make the ends meet. The stand was not something to yell hooray for, which might have been fine if it had 100x100mm VESA mounts. It did not. The monitor was also shown to have an excessive amount of input-lag, up towards two whole frames.

Later that year, AMD gave us a taste of Freesync, and it was announced that all of Samsungs 2015 4k monitors would support it. These monitors quickly gained a lot of interest, but there was not a whole lot of information to be had. The lack of information could have been solved had there been a review or two of the monitors. There were none. It could have been solved by input from owners. There were none. I was therefore very hesitant about pulling the trigger on a U28E850, which I had been eying for quite some time. I was so hesitant in fact, that when I came across LGs 27MU67-B, a 27? 4k IPS 8-bit monitor with a VRR-window of 40-60Hz, I dropped the U28E850 completely. I spent the next couple of days digging for information about the 27MU67; price, availability, performance etc. I was very sad when I learned that LG did not sell any monitors in the Nordic countries for unknown reasons. The one store that actually had a few LG-monitors, imported them by their own accord on a per monitor basis, and was losing money on each and every one of them as a result. They would not stock the 27MU67. I therefore somewhat reluctantly went back to buy the U28E850, thinking I could at least bring some light into the darkness for future potential customers. As I?ve said earlier, lack of information really put me off. I did not know whether it was using a 10-bit panel, or an 8-bit + dithering. The product-page said 1 billion colours instead of 1,07 billion, which can often indicate use of dithering rather than native. To be frank though, that did not bother me at all. I was very concerned about input-lag though. But most important of all, I had absolutely no idea how wide the VRR-window was. So lets see what I found out.


I received the monitor on Friday. The monitor comes in a non-flashy brown box.


Inside you will find the accessories-box, and the monitor itself.


From top left to right: A whole bunch of warranty-cards, some more paper, driver-dvd with Magic Rotate, Easy Box Setting, and windows colour profiles, HDMI to HDMI cable, DP to MiniDP, USB3 type A to B, and a power-cord. Note that the cables are rather short, roughly 1 meter.


The monitor comes pre-assembled. It supports height adjust, tilt, pivot, and swivel. The stand is solid, and easily passed my table-wiggling-test with flying colours. The monitor has a built-in gyroscope, which it uses for orientation. With MagicRotate, the desktop is automatically rotated.



On the left side there are two USB3 ports and a 3,5mm headphone. The two USB ports can independently be set as charging ports.


On the bottom we have a Type B in, two more USB3 ports, MiniDP, DP, and two HDMI ports.


A fairly light anti-glare coat is used.


The OSD main menu is divided into 5 categories. Picture, PIB/PBP, OSD, System and Information. I don?t think I need to explain the pictures, they talk for themselves.













My first impressions from using the monitor, was ?WOW, this is sharp?. Reading text was just as reading printed paper. The added screen estate from going from a 24? to a 28? was nice too.
Then I turned up the brightness from its standard 30% to 100%, and stung my eyes for a bit. I had never seen a monitor this bright. That being said though, all of my previous monitors have been low-end, as-cheap-as-you-can-get-em run-of-the-mill 1080p displays, and my room is not exactly well-lit. But I?d still say it is a bright monitor. Going down is equally impressive. Thanks to a hybrid backlight-system, the monitor can be incredible dim. From 30% to 100% the brightness is voltage-controlled. From 29 and down though, it uses PWM. I do not have the equipment to test the frequency, though I suspect it?s a fairly high, as I have not had any eye-strain from using it at its lower brightness-settings.

The TN-panel was superb. Having seen a RoG Swift in person, and played around with it for a few hours, I would say that the U28E850 has an equally good panel. It is a native 10-bit panel, though with Freesync enabled and in 64Hz mode (only available when Freesync is turned on, no frameskipping), it operates in 8-bit mode. There is of course some unavoidable colour-shifting going on when you look at it from extreme angles. That is simply to be expected of a TN-panel. Samsung have however worked their magic, and one of the features I thought was just a marketing gimmick actually turned out to work wonders. MagicAngle allows you to manually set a viewing-angle. In the photos below, I have chosen ?Standing mode?. Just look at the difference!

That being said, it is still somewhat gimmicky. How often do you find yourself looking at the monitor from a standing position? And why not just tilt it back a bit? But the feature?s there, it works, and someone would probably find it useful.

Gaming on the monitor is quite pleasant. The high resolution and large screen overshadows the slight ghosting and input-lag. I don?t want this to sound worse than it is though. I happily played CS:GO and Dirt Rally with no problems whatsoever. It?s not a monitor for the competitive gamer, but it?s not slow and blurry either. Turning on Game Mode alters the colours and sharpness, and I believe cuts down on the input-lag just a tiny bit. Could have been placebo though. And if you?re one of those who believes that no current GPU is powerful enough to drive a 4k monitor, you?re wrong. Sure, you can cripple any card by maxing every possible setting and applying 200% scaling alongside 8x MSAA, but you just don?t do that. You don?t need to. Aliasing is as good as gone in 4k. Just tune your settings in a bit, and you?ll easily reach 60+ minimum framerates on most games. I have no problems doing that on a single 290. And if I apply my 24/7 overclock, even easier.

Now lets move on to some of the not-so-good aspects of the monitor. Surprisingly, I find the build-quality lacking. Pressing two fingers against the frame reveals a noticeably clicking noise, and movement between the pieces. The monitor rotates 90 degrees to the right, but I found mine to also rotate quite a bit to the left. Not good. And now we come to the elephant in the room. Freesync. I could not find any information on this topic with the exception of two forum-posts from two people who had the 5-series. One said the VRR-window was 39-60, the other said 55-64. The manual isn?t any help either. Now that I have a monitor, it is clear to me that there are different models with different types of Freesync. The manual does not specify which has which. Here?s how it is: Some models have the option between Off, Standard Engine, and Ultimate Engine. The manual does not say what the difference between these modes are. Other models though, only have Off/On. Mine is one of those.

I really hope that Ultimate Engine does something drastically. Because those with Off/On have an appalling VRR-window. To be brutally honest, it is absolutely useless. You can?t really game with it without resorting to FRTC, and you definitely can?t watch 24Hz video. Using the Pendulum demo and the test-pattern, I found my monitor to have a VRR-window of 55 to 64Hz. I hope this is some sort of driver-issue with Windows 10, because the guy who said his 5-series had a 39-60 window was using Windows 7, and the one who said his 5-series had a 55-64 window was using Windows 10. I will contact Samsung at some point and see if I can?t get the proper numbers from them.

So there you have it. To sum it all up, the U28E850 is a monitor with a nice solid stand, very good TN-panel which works just fine for gaming, though with lacking Freesync functionality. I was considering for a while to return the monitor, but in the end, I decided to keep it. Though I have some mixed feelings about it, they are mostly positive, and I therefore give it a 8.5/10

ProsCons
Good panel, usable for gaming, many options. Bright, able to dim down very much.Build quality not what's expected, poor A-sync implementation.

Ratings
Overall4
 
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