HP Z27q Monitor Review: Aiming For More Pixels
by Brett Howse on December 22, 2015 8:00 AM ESTDisplay Uniformity
Having an accurate display is great, but the best displays maintain that accuracy across the entire display. This is challenging for most displays, with larger displays struggling to keep an even backlighting across the entire panel.
White Levels
The HP Z27q suffers from the same issues with uniformity that the Z27x had. There is a significant drop in brightness at the edges of the display. The maximum drop is the upper left corner, where it falls over 20% from the center. The rest of the panel is quite a bit more consistent, but some work could be done here to improve the results.
Black Levels
The black levels are even more inconsistent than the white levels, with the top of the display having the best black levels, and the bottom of the display has the brightest blacks. As a percentage basis, it’s not great.
Color Variation
The error level from the center is, on average, pretty good. There are a couple of areas where the error level is above that of something you would notice, but generally it is pretty close to the same error level as the center. Color uniformity is likely impacted by the same backlight issues that caused the white levels to drop off. Overall, the uniformity results of the Z27q are very similar to the Z27x. There is quite a bit of variation across the panel, and true professionals will likely want a display more accurate than this. At the center, it is very good, but once you move out to the edges, the backlight is quite uneven.
Power Use
Power is measured at the wall with a Kll-A-Watt meter. Measurements are done at both the maximum backlight level, and the minimum backlight level. Maximum brightness is right around 300 nits, and minimum is 51.
The display draws quite a bit of power compared to other 27-inch panels, with a maximum draw of 78 watts at 100% brightness. The minimum power draw is 37 watts, which is once again pretty high. This is not that surprising due to the resolution of this panel, since in order to hit the same brightness levels as a lower resolution display, it is going to need a more powerful backlight due to the transistors in the panel blocking more of the light.
The standby power draw was also quite high. I measured 16 watts at the wall when the display is in standby mode.
Efficiency
Once again, with the high number of pixels, this panel is not going to be as efficient as lower resolution devices. However, it is not as far off as you may think. Candelas per Watt at maximum brightness was 14.01, which is certainly lower than some of the other 27-inch devices, but not excessively so. At minimum brightness the efficiency drops to just 5.02 Candelas per Watt, and more of the power usage is shifted to the electronics of the unit rather than the backlight.
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petteyg359 - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
Why use software to do what hardware should be doing by giving me multiple screens?DanNeely - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
Has there been any news about LGs 31.5" 5k panel (same height as 30" 1600p models) since the initial announcement in January. At that time, they were expecting panel production in Q3 of this year and initial retail availability around now, but I haven't seen anything since then.http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/289516-lgdispl...
BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
It's pretty, but also pretty impractical. I just got an 18.5 inch replacement for my 15 inch monitor and it was hard to find one in that size at 1366x768 which is annoying since high resolutions just require scaling and end up only able to display the same amount of information at a cost of additional computation making the entire higher resolution thing a bit of an exercise in pointlessness. But aside from that, 27 inch screens are far too large for personal computing at a desk, forcing the user to push the screen away from their eyes in order to make effective use of it, once again defeating the purpose of scaling up the display. I'm already experiencing this moving up to an 18.5 inch screen. It's uncomfortable to use at the same distance so it had to move further away until it appears effectively the same size as my previous screen. The larger panel is therefore something of a waste as it's also too small to effectively serve as a conference room display. Overall, I'd say it's a very niche market and highly impractical screen. I'd be surprised if it makes many sales.Spunjji - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
You're not on the side of the average consumer with your comments there, but this is definitely intended to be a niche product.Scaling is still useful, too. Text at the same size but rendered with more pixels is a lot more legible and pictures treated in the same manner look much more natural.
zodiacfml - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
5K is essentially for photo or high resolution video work. I have 15inch notebook with 1366x768 resolution and the pixels are pretty big and obvious. I can see it right now in this blue border of this Post your comment box. I have seen a 5K Mac display at close distance and the it reminds me of looking at a smartphone display in terms of PPI/sharpness.chaos215bar2 - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
Is there a technical reason we aren't seeing the 5k equivalent of 30" monitors (5120x3200)? 27" 5k is nice, but this is a computer monitor, not a TV. Until monitors start seriously going beyond 27" (while maintaining pixel density), 16:9 really isn't an ideal aspect ratio for most work.DanNeely - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
16:10 is dead, just as 4:3 died years prior. Being the same resolution as TVs certainly helped; that a 16:9 screen took less material and was therefor cheaper than a 16:10 one with the same diagonal size was probably the final nail in the coffin.theduckofdeath - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
Agreed, 19:10 is for people who still full-screen all their apps, I think. 16:9 is more practical for side by side windows.theduckofdeath - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
-3:p
okashira - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
16 watts in standby? What a POS.