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Asus PG279Q overly bright - should i insist on a replacement?

3K views 16 replies 4 participants last post by  gypsygib 
#1 ·
Hello,

I'm having a real pain with a PG279Q I bought 2 months ago.
Right at the start I noticed its brightness and native gamma is definitely wrong and after 4 days of messing around I sent it to them for a replacement, cause I believe it is considered "abnormal color".
After 3 weeks their technician anounced "It's not overly bright", didn't even bother to check it with a colorimeter or something, and they just sent it back to me anouncing it is proper.

I couldn't stand living with such bright colors and washed out blacks, so I invested and ordered a spyder.
Guess what? I was right.
The specs of my monitor are:

brightness: 427.86cdm ! (It is advertised as max 350)
gamma: 2.05 (should be 2.2)
contrast: 934:1 (should be 1000:1)

After calibrating to 120cdm (lowering the brightness to 15!) I am now left with 850:1 contrast, and the image is not so great.

Should I insist on replacing this unit? is it considered abnormal?
I payed a lot of money and I think I deserve normal native colors and contrast.

Thanks in advance.
 
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#2 ·
Something seems off. The Acer, Viewsonic, and AOC versions are shipping these days with calibrated contrast ratio's in the 1100-1200 range and gamma should be very close to 2.2.

My PG278Q had a better gamma and contrast ration than that uncalibrated.

What's you black level at 120 cd/M, my XB271hu is around 0.10 at that brightness. I would image all these monitors to be around the same.
 
#3 ·
Yeah, I know it's off. The question is - is it off enough to be considered "abnormal color" which should be eligible for a replacement?
I need to know that before i go to a "war" over this, as Asus' idiot technician claims "everything's great".
My black level after calibration is 0.14..
 
#5 ·
I live in a country where you can't replace or return electric product after you used it without an extremely good reason, so right now i can't just return it, unless I can convince Asus there is something wrong. The bigger problem is, it seems noone at Asus local here knows what I'm talking about.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by orior View Post

I live in a country where you can't replace or return electric product after you used it without an extremely good reason, so right now i can't just return it, unless I can convince Asus there is something wrong. The bigger problem is, it seems noone at Asus local here knows what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I would replace it. It advertises 1000:1 contrast ratio and can't get close to spec, also the 2.2 gamma setting isn't working. Not sure if there's a 2.4 setting that's closer to 2.2. Tell them that competitors and it's cheaper PG278Q model has better image quality and that it requires a panel replacement due to substandard image quality that is below advertised specs.

If you can, make a report like this and show it too them. The technician can't eyeball gamma and contrast ratio lol.

Measurement-Report-3.4--XB271HU--0_-0_-2560x1440--2018-01.jpg 596k .jpg file


https://i.imgur.com/6x1wpl5.jpg

EDIT: Are you sure you got a PG279Q and not a PG278Q? I'd check the back.
 

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#7 ·

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#14 · (Edited)
How did you make a jpg file out of it?
I just did an html like this with uncalibrated profile and 100 brightness and it looks awful,
just look at it:
<a class="attachment loginreq" href="/attachments/51772" title="">1.jpg 594k .jpg file
<a class="attachment loginreq" href="/attachments/51773" title="">2.jpg 498k .jpg file
<a class="attachment loginreq" href="/attachments/51774" title="">3.jpg 295k .jpg file
<a class="attachment loginreq" href="/attachments/51775" title="">4.jpg 246k .jpg file

It is a PG279. it says so in the osd, and also the viewing angles are fine..
Other than that it looks like a big lemon..
well I don't have the PG279Q but I do own a MG279Q and it is very similar to the one you have. my MG279Q is 4 years old and still works great nothing like the PIC's shown. I would send the pic's you have of your monitor and I would send pic's of a good one to Asus along with the results of the test you ran on your monitor as the resulting image is way out of spec. for a good gaming monitor.

now about the RMA process, try to understand that no one wants to replace a $700 monitor, and getting that done can take some time, and a lot of effort on your part. I have never lost a RMA as I just don't give up, do not baby that monitor, work it hard, and on max settings for every thing. if there is a defect in the monitor, it will fail, this will also make the RMA process easier for you. still keep trying, I mean really bother them. continue to make email of the monitors screen appearance, especially if it gets worse.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by orior View Post

How did you make a jpg file out of it?
I just did an html like this with uncalibrated profile and 100 brightness and it looks awful,
just look at it:

1.jpg 594k .jpg file


2.jpg 498k .jpg file


3.jpg 295k .jpg file


4.jpg 246k .jpg file


It is a PG279. it says so in the osd, and also the viewing angles are fine..
Other than that it looks like a big lemon..
I used a free convert html to jpeg site.

https://convertio.co/html-jpg/

Holy crap that's bad. Maybe find some pics on the PG279Q forum to show them the range of what it's supposed to be like. Pretty sure most of the IPS 1440p Gsync releasing in the last year have contrast ratio's well above 1000, even when calibrated. And that gamma is horrendous. It's a manufacturing defect if none of the other PG279Q's have gamma that bad. That's unacceptable for a monitor at that price. You would have even been much better off getting the much cheaper Dell with that type of image quality.
 
#10 ·
Yeah, but I just wanted the "top of the line", and indeed received a display worse than my 150$ xiaomi phone.
I hope that now that I got the "proof" (that costed me another 150$ for the spyder+shipping), they would have to admit that monitor is flawed.
 
#11 ·
Best of luck. Nothing is worse than spending a lot of money on a monitor and it having glaring flaws.

That service tech should have just replaced the panel. What customer would go through the hassle of RMA for no reason? Can't believe he looked at it and thought the image was fine. Max brightness varies from model to model but if you're buying a PG279Q it's expected to be within spec in terms of contrast, gamma, sRGB and black level. Yours looks off in every measure.
 
#12 ·
To be honest, It looks that awful especially in that max brightness mode (Scenery mode).
It looks bad on other modes too (FPS - 80 brightness, Racing - 60) but less.
in SRGB mode it looks the least worst, and the contrast suddenly goes up to a whopping 944:1 !
the gamma and deltaE are also still messed up:

1082750404SRGB 596k .jpg file


That technician was a real clown. replacing panel? haha, I don't think he even knows what gamma/contrast/luminance and all that means.
I think all he knows is to check if the slider button works, and if so - everything's great!
He told me on the phone "There's nothing wrong with the brightness, the monitor is not too bright"
I said "Do you know what gamma is? Did you check the gamma?"
He got angry and said: "I didn't check the gamma, I will do that, but I say the monitor is fine, good day" and hung up the phone.
A week later of course they anounce that the monitor is proper and everything's fine with it.
I'm sure he didn't even check the gamma.

A clown techician determines if I get replacement for my deffective monitor..

But now that I got the proof, I will go all the way to replace that monitor. I shouldn't compromise on this expensive monitor which I should tolerate for years now.
 

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#13 ·
Okay so here is the update to my situation with that monitor, if it's of any interest to anyone:

I got the local Asus to ask the global Asus about all this stuff with the measurement reports. A month or so later I received an answer: "This is considered normal." not much details of course.
I think I would have gone completely mad about this answer if I haven't received displaycal's developer opinion which seems to agree with them.
He says that as for the contrast, spyder5 struggles to read properly the black patches, so It usually reports lower contrast ratio than the xrite.
About the gamma he says it can happen and isn't considered a defect.
About the incredible brightness (430 max!), he says that manufacturers use various backlights and that it's actually a good thing as the monitor will last longer.

So, I actually have no choice but to be stuck with this monitor.
The only thing I don't have an answer to is: Why are the review sites even bother with detailed monitor reviews if they can deviate that much in the same model and it isn't even considered a flaw?
The reviews I read about the Pg279q are totally irrelevant to the monitor I received.
 
#16 ·
As for the RMA, it isn't faulty in any other way than the default bad pretty washed out colors. I nagged Asus so much and they don't really care, they consider it normal, they made me feel like a crazy customer and eventually lifted my spirits down. The monitor costed me a lot more than 700$, in my country it costs more than 1000$.
After calibrating with the spider it's actually better, I just wish it was its defaults. without banding at all and without checking every game if the gamma calibration is passed to the game.
 
#17 ·
I'd keep trying, try posting on twitter and newegg/amazon reviews about the horrible gamma, companies seem to take more action when things are made public. No one would buy the monitor if they knew the gamma was stuck at 2.05. Also mention the horrible customer service.
 
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