MONITORS
78 NOVEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 381
WHENAMANUFACTURERclaims that a
screen is designed for‘creative professionals’
–asIiyama does with this 27in, 4K display–
you expect some supporting evidence.A
promise about colour accuracy would be
good; all Iiyama states on its websiteisthat
100% of the sRGB gamut is covered. Youalso
expect the screen to be calibrated before it
leaves the factory,with areport supplied in
the box. There are no such reassurances here.
Then again, there’s another thing you’d expect
from aprofessional-grade monitor and that’s
aprice nudging £700, £800, even £1,000.
That’s certainly what we’re accustomed to
seeing with professional 4K screens. With the
XUB2792UHSU, Iiyama has slashed the price
by taking adifferent approach. It’s shipping
panels direct from the factory,without the
calibration tests we normally see from the
likes of Eizo and NEC, banking instead on the
reliability of its manufacturing process and its
high standards of quality testing.
There’s an element of risk in this, as less
accuratepanels could slip through the net, but
if the model we’ve tested is any reflection, the
hardware is of an extremely high standard.
SHARPATTACK
The ProLiteXUB2792UHSU achieved some
tremendous results in our technical tests,
hitting apeak brightness of 355cd/m2. While
this brightness wasn’t perfectly uniform –it
fell off by between 6% and 11% at the edges
–that’s still arespectable result. The highlight
was an average delta-E of 0.33; any score
under one is excellent, and even at its very
worst this panel scored 0.63. That makes it,
by some distance,the most colour-
accuratemonitor of the eight here.
Contrast is altogether less special,
although since we measured it at
1,068:1, it’s not bad either.The ProLite
XUB2792UHSU also came close enough
on the promise of 100% sRGB coverage,
with a10-bit lookup table helping
deliver a99.6% result in our tests. The
news isn’t so good forthose who work
in the Adobe RGB space: the panel
proved capable of reproducing only
72.7% of that gamut, and fared little
better in the DCI-P3 space with 76%.
If you’re aweb designer working in
sRGB, this is an excellent monitor,but print
designers should stick with asuitably
calibrated display. While that limitation may
be disappointing, it’s hard to complain when
you look again at that glorious 4K resolution
IIYAMA ProLite
XUB2792UHSU
★★★★★
£400•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
Superbcolourperformanceand4K
sharpnessatanalmostirresistibleprice
and consider that £400 price.Yes, cheaper
27in 4K monitors are available,but none
approaches this level of quality.The Iiyama
even pushes the brilliant NEC MultiSync
EA271U close,and that costs around £725.
It doesn’t quitebeat it, however.
OUT OF CONTROL
One area where the Iiyama falls behind is its
OSD,which is counter-intuitive in almost every
way. In particular,the leftand right navigation
buttons double as up and down buttons
depending on the context, so if you’re deep in
menus, things get confusing. Still, once you
get the hang of it, you can switch between
standard, game,cinema, scenery and text
modes by pressing the Exit button (we told
you it was counter-intuitive), control the
picture-in-picture window and tweak the
colour balance.Another niggle is that the
displaydidn’t always recognise when our
connected laptop was resuming from standby;
we had to press the input button on the
monitor to wake it from its slumber.
All three major inputs are catered for, with
DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI ports sitting side
by side,and there are two conveniently placed
USB3 ports on the left-hand side if you want
to use it as aUSB hub.Connectivity is another
area where the NEC EA271U outdoes this,
however,with aforward-looking USB Type-C
input and an extra HDMI connector.
The MultiSync also has narrower bezels,
compared to the 8mm border surrounding the
top, leftand right of the Iiyama’s screen, and
while the ProLite’sstand is solid and flexible
–itcan pivot 90°, swivels leftand right
through 45° and offers 130mm of height
adjustment –its looks are functional at best.
The NEC will swivel through almost 360°, and
wins out on both design and build quality.
HIGHER POWER
Thefinalcriticismisoftheweedy2Wspeakers.
Theymay be good enough forvoice and video
calls, but we wouldn’t want to rely on them for
watching videos, listening to music or playing
games. That said, gamers should notethe low
4ms response time and overdrive
options, which make it more viable as a
monitor forboth work and playthan a
lot of office-minded displays.
It’s irritating that Iiyama wastes a
physical button on avolume shortcut; it
would make much more sense to have
abrightness button, forinstance.
There are some shortcomings to be
aware of,then, and we still think the
ProLiteXUB2792UHSU would benefit
from being pre-calibrated. When it
comes to image quality versus price,
however,this monitor is practically
unbeatable.Take alook if you want to
upgrade to 4K; if you desperately want USB
Type-C connectivity,both the Dell UltraSharp
U2719DC and HP EliteDisplayE243d will cater
to this need forsimilar cash, although they’re
only 1440p and 1080p respectively.
