HP Z27q Monitor Review: Aiming For More Pixels
by Brett Howse on December 22, 2015 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
When HP entered the 5K market with the Z27q, the only real competition was the 27-inch Dell 5K display, but it cost close to $2000. HP came into the market with the same display dimensions and resolution, but undercut Dell by almost $800. $1200 for a display is still a lot of money, but if you are someone that needs high resolution, the HP Z27q needs to be considered.
The overall accuracy of the display is great, especially in the AdobeRGB color mode. sRGB does need some calibration of the grayscale and white point to make it practically perfect, but the calibration of the LUT at the factory by HP is quite good resulting in a decent out of the box experience. The one real issue with this display is that the backlight is uneven, dropping as high as 20% from the center when measured at the top left corner. This is pretty much the same issue that we found with the Z27x, and it would not be surprising to find that both monitors are designed similarly. It is the one blemish on an otherwise great performing display.
People looking at 5K displays have to factor in that it takes a lot of GPU power to drive these. You can’t even drive the display with a single cable; instead you have to use two DisplayPort 1.2 ports and cables to achieve the 5120x2880 resolution. This means that the display leverages MST, and while I’ve heard of people having issues with this, I did not have any issues with MST driving this display with an AMD FirePro card in Windows 10. It will still be a while before we have the DisplayPort 1.3 capabilities to drive this with just a single cable.
The construction of the HP Z27q is not going to win any style awards, but it is functional and for most people, a black monitor is all that is needed. The stand is very easy to use though, with lots of options to tilt -5° to +22°, and the swivel is plus or minus 45°.
Due to the nature of the display, input lag was not able to be tested, since the tester used is HDMI and 1080p. In my time with it, there was no noticable lag at the native resolution.
There are not too many people that need almost 15 million pixels, but there are certainly use cases for a display like this. Editing 4K video is an obvious use case, since you can have the entire 4K video in a pixel perfect window, with enough room for toolbars as well. The gamut is a long way from the Z27x offering from HP, but that is only a 2560x1440 panel. Just like the Z27x the one glaring issue is the uniformity. If HP can get on top of this, they will likely have the display to beat, especially at this price.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
92 Comments
View All Comments
SanX - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
Watch my lips: all that standard traditional PC monitor crap is dead. Monitors must be 4K 50+ inch size, period. I can not even look at that old junk after using for 6 months Samsung 50" 7100 4K TV. Despite it formally is a TV it's light years better then anything else called "PC monitor".The only defect -- it has no PnP functionality so that your PC can not switch it ON. As a result if your PC is ON and TV is off the PnP functionality of Windows may think that you changed monitor to standard resolution and move your open windows to the upper left corner. There exist software which can restore windows positions. It has one of the best latencies ~20ms so with GTX980TI class graphics card it is great for gamers too.
Zan Lynx - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
I wouldn't say regular monitors are dead. I do agree that 50" 4K screens are amazing. It is exactly like having four 24" 1080p monitors in front of you without the obnoxious screen borders.AnnonymousCoward - Friday, December 25, 2015 - link
The Samsung 7100 lags 44ms in 4:4:4 mode, according to http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1853884 That's totally unacceptable.SanX - Friday, December 25, 2015 - link
The only where this could be unacceptable is fast gaming for which there specially exist Game mode which halves the lag. Additional ms you get from high end graphics. Aside from games, in PC mode the 44 ms is still more then twice the human reaction time, I personally do not feel any lag at all, repeating, AT ALL. Monitor quality just overwhelms you, the wow factor is incredible. Do not look at any smaller regular monitors even 4k 28", like Samdung or ASUS, even for free, they are unacceptable in PC text use without scalingSlyNine - Friday, December 25, 2015 - link
Which means you're increasing reaction time by 50%.This would, and has, drove me nuts with tv's used as monitors.
AnnonymousCoward - Monday, December 28, 2015 - link
> more then twice the human reaction timeReaction time is different than observing feedback from your moved hand. The former requires you to interpret a stimulus and respond. The latter involves consciously moving and looking for the result. The difference is probably about a factor of 10: ~200ms reaction time, ~20ms threshold for seeing a result.
SanX - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
You still live with impressions of old TVs 50-100 ms lags playing games but things changed a lot.The 44ms lag for standard PC usage (browsing and programming) is absolutely great and not noticeable. For games you have Game Mode with 20-25ms lags which is not noticeable too unless you are a champion of the Republic of Gamers. No other TV monitors beat that (may be only Sammys JS7500 and the Vizio's with 18ms lag) while all Sonys, LGs etc TVs are in 33-55ms and longer range and still are used with for example Playstation for ages.
AnnonymousCoward - Sunday, December 27, 2015 - link
I easily notice 30ms lag with any mouse usage. I'm also a fast user with high acuity. I consider 20ms to be the max acceptable.Using non-4:4:4 in games is clearly a compromise.
It's not true that no other "TV monitor" beats the JU7100. check out this thread: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1874753 The Crossovers and Wasabi only lag 20ms in 4:4:4.
But hey, if you're a slow user and don't notice 44ms, that's great.
SanX - Sunday, December 27, 2015 - link
I repeat that the only where 44 ms is potentially niticeable is fast gaming, but for that exists game mode whete no one motice any lag as it is way below the human threshold. When I move mouse with as fast as possible circular motion for example I don't see any delay in position of mouse on the screen and on the table een recording this comparison on 30fps video (means it is below 33ms)Who trust your compilation from unknown sources obtained with unknown measurement methodology? Who would use unknown unrated brands? Who needs a monitor unusable for text and browsing because the monitor size MUST be 48 inch minimum to be comfortable for texts without DPI scaling, some people even claim 53 inch minimum? Those monitors you have mentioned are too small for multiple use. For gaming they are OK, for office use not, for use as a 4k TV - way too small, plus their quality is questionable.
Go to the best place which assesses all 4K monitors thoroughly for multiple use calles Rtings www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-usage/pc-monitor/best
AnnonymousCoward - Monday, December 28, 2015 - link
Man, you're wrong on pretty much everything :)I just told you, I NOTICE 30ms! But you still foolishly repeat 44ms can only be noticed in fast gaming. And 26ms game mode is beyond human detection. It's beyond YOUR detection, not everyone's! (is that not obvious yet?)
> Who trust your compilation from unknown sources obtained with unknown measurement methodology?
Do you have better data? Even if there's +-5ms of error, the data is immensely useful.
> Who would use unknown unrated brands?
They still use AH-IPS LG panels, and that's arguably _better_ than Samsung's VA.
> MUST be 48 inch minimum to be comfortable for texts without DPI scaling
Nope. 43" is only 103 PPI. And anything bigger is a lot less comfortable (with a normal viewing distance) since the screen is too big and you have to move your head around. Or, you get a 55" and push it farther back to prevent moving your head around, and then have an even higher effective PPI due to further viewing distance.