Better 27" IPS from Korea? PCBANK 3VIEW PB2700 - Page 11

Looks like the "super" one has a different stand. Both are LED backlit.


Has anyone tried one of these stands? Says compatible with 100x100mm VESA mount, and I'd bet it works with a 27" panel:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10828&cs_id=1082808&p_id=5970&seq=1&format=2

I believe the difference is just the better support design. The panel should be the same.

No luck playing with overclock since I probably don't know what I'm doing. Increase in pixel clock gave me a black screen where I had to reboot. Increase in refresh rate directly caused rainbow stripes vertically across my screen. Wasn't expecting to be able to overclock. I'm still just really happy I received a perfect panel.

Got my PB2700 in today from red-cap. First impressions:

Stand is sturdier than the Catleap, and obviously tucks down as close to my desk as I want. Makes it fit under my hutch easier.

Brightness/backlight control seems to be more 'continuous' than the dozen or so discrete steps on the Catleap. Has a very good range though and doesn't seem to change the white point much.

One stuck (off) pixel in the VERY upper left, conveniently on the border between the first two 'pinned' tabs in Google Chrome, as a reference point. There's no way i'll ever notice or care.

Panel non-uniformity is about the same as my Catleap. The lower right portion of the screen is slightly yellower than the rest on the PB2700, versus on the Catleap it was in the middle.

Backlight non-uniformity/bleeding seems slightly worse than the Catleap, but that's not a branding thing so much as it is to do with the variance in the panels used.

Disassembly/overclock testing to happen tonight.
Edited by ThingyNess - 3/28/12 at 6:28pm

What buttons are you pressing? The only button that seems to do anything at all on mine is the on/off switch on the far right.

(I can also report that it won't overclock, tested 68 Hz with a GT430 card = black screen.)

For me the up/down buttons are the backlight control. Keep in mind that there are some extra 'dummy' buttons below, presumably for what would have been the 'menu' button and perhaps a 'source' button on the multi-input version and those obviously do nothing.

Keep in mind that it is rather slow, and again, it has no discrete steps. You have to hold the button for ~5 seconds depending where in the range it is to actually see a difference.

You have to line up your fingers right underneath the up/down labels and touch those buttons specifically.

Just finished tearing mine opening and re-assembling it + attaching it to the VESA desk mount. Much better, and after some furtive finger pressing on the backlight LED strips + tape and such when I was inside, the screen uniformity seems better too!
Edited by ThingyNess - 3/28/12 at 6:16pm

One other quick note - subjectively at least, it seems a lot more contrast-y and saturated than the Catleap. Maybe there's something to the 1200:1 versus 1000:1 contrast in the Korean reviews?

I'm running it with the catleap-6500k.icm calibration loaded with dispwin.exe and at least to my untrained eye, the white point + colors look superb.

The catleap-native.icm gives it a more distinct yellow-green tinge that my eyes don't like, but without a calibrator I don't really know which is closer to technically correct.

Disassembly pictures and some more fun details to come in a minute.

It's my understanding that calibrated displays tend to look a little on "yellow" side if you aren't used to viewing them. I would imagine after a few days of viewing it in that configuration, any other way will look "blue" and "off".

Pictures?

So impatient for the pictures!

The gallery is here, and you can poke through them:

https://picasaweb.google.com/thingy2098/Mar282012NewPCBankPB2700Teardown?authkey=Gv1sRgCJuosZuqz6jN5AE

Some interesting things to note:

- My monitor looks like it's had the original stickers from LG on the panel removed. There are sticky bits where it looks like a label used to be, but no label.

- It's definitely an e-DisplayPort model, not LVDS. Timing controller is silkscreened with 'LM27WQ1-SDA2' so I am operating under the assumption that's the panel model used, but it's quite possible that many of the various revisions of the eDP panel all use the same timing controller board. With the lack of stickers it's hard to tell conclusively what the panel is, unfortunately.

- One of the ten screw holes used to mount the LCD panel to the plastic back panel was stripped out with little plastic shavings around the hole, from the factory. Not surprising if you've ever visited an overseas factory or seen how these are assembled, or even if you've ever taken apart any modern consumer electronics before, but still amusing to note nonetheless.

- Last two pics in the gallery are backlight bleed/light levels at max and min backlighting. Pretty good overall, and my eyes detect a green component to the 'bleed' in the lower right hand corner at the lowest backlight level. I think the power LED might be partially to blame. Thankfully removing or disabling the power LED is a 5 minute job and just requires the bezel to be removed. If it annoys me I might try clipping one of the power LED leads and seeing if it mkaes a difference.

- There's also a little surface-mounted momentary switch on my TMDS->eDP converter board. I'm not sure what it does, but I want to push it!

- There's zero buzzing/noise coming from the inductors, in spite of their lack of glue/epoxy potting.
Edited by ThingyNess - 3/28/12 at 7:15pm