[luisdent]

I’m struggling with a few issues.
I understand the gamma issue, and to my eyes the Samsung seems to have more actual colors. Maybe that is what you mean by the gamut? I assume the Samsung gamut is wider?

I’m using the rise of the tomb raider demo, and I can see that there is more banding with things like her pants that have very close colors. But colors aside, the aoc has better curves. Pain my ignorance, but I can only compare it to photoshop curves. Perhaps that is gamma, but black crush aside, the aoc generally looks more realistic in how it changes from dark to light. The Samsung seems almost identical in low light darkness when comparing a full black screen. But when I play games, the Samsung seems washed out in the lower darkness. As though the lower 40% of the range of brightness is boosted. I don’t notice it on the windows desktop with photos. The Samsung is more correct. But in games, to get a similar effect as the aoc, I need to turn the game dark booster sting up to 20 on the Samsung. And on the aoc, to get the accuracy of the lower tones the Samsung has, I need to leave its darkness setting at default, but then it is very washed out lower blacks. I tried messing with your icc, and calibrating them with windows, but it doesn’t really help.

If I had to choose, I think I’d pick the Samsung but I’m just trying to make sure they are as good as I can get then for comparison.

[PCM2]

The colour gamut describes the potential range of shades but not the precision at which those shades are displayed. The precision is described by bit-depth and games under SDR are ‘8-bit’ regardless of monitor capability. The effects of the wide gamut are explored in the Samsung review. Under SDR, most content (including games) is designed with the sRGB colour space in mind. If the display has a wider colour gamut than sRGB, then things are displayed with extra saturation. The only time this doesn’t occur is for colour-aware applications where the monitor is appropriately profiled and therefore the gamut is taken into account, with suitable transformations made. This doesn’t occur on games as they’re not colour-managed in this way. This is an even boost in saturation, as the shades still maintain suitable spacing on the gamut. This is counter to a digital saturation boost (Nvidia Digital Vibrance or a monitor OSD saturation slider) which simply pulls things closer to the edge of the gamut without expanding the gamut. These aspects are explored in quite some detail in our more recent reviews of models with a wide gamut, such as this one.

What you’re observing with respect to “banding” and other shade representation for closely-matching shades is certainly related to gamma. The “banding” is actually detail that is contained on the game itself, which should be well-masked if gamma is setup correctly. But is brought out in a more obvious way if gamma is too low. You should notice the visibility of this detail change if you change your viewing position relative to the screen and to some extent when you’re observing that content centrally vs. when it’s displayed towards the edge of the screen. That’s due to the perceived gamma changes related to viewing angle, as explored in the reviews. The measured gamma on the C24G1 we tested was lower than it should be in many regions of the curve, but somewhat higher in others. There is no guarantee that other units would follow this pattern in exactly the same way, so to correct that properly you’d need your own colorimeter or similar device. But it’s why we used ICC profiles and profiled the monitor for our testing, whereas with the Samsung that was not necessary as the gamma tracking of our unit was very good.

[luisdent]

Let me say this…

The samsung is the clear overall winner for me, but I’m hesitant to keep either, because neither has a “correct” gamma or darkness curve by a pretty noticeable degree. The problem with that is I don’t have any simple mechanism to fix it.

I wish you could see it, because I truly believe neither is close to accurate in that way. And the limited settings they both give don’t allow you to adjust that type of thing. Windows calibration doesn’t help either, as it is primarily color related. The contrast sections simply relies on the monitor controls. Do I have to buy a colorimeter just to adjust the darkness curve that I can easily do without any scientific equipment? For instance, on the aoc, the issue would be fixed if the black level setting or has had something between the default and first step down. At least it would be a lot closer.

The samsung would be fixed if the darkness boost setting it has affectd more of the mid darkness and not just blacks. It is like an audio eq. I feel like the samsung has no bass, but it gives you a sub bass adjustment. It might increase the low bass, but regular bass will always be wrong. The aoc has perfect sub bass with the lower setting, but the bass also goes up causing masking of details. On default there is not enough bass or sub bass…m

Sorry, I’m coming from an audio world primarily. 😛 let me ask you this, would these issues be eliminated with an IPS, or do they share the same variations in game? And if the samsung looks so good on windows 10, why do games seem so faded?

My desktop wallpaper looks almost identical on both after I adjust them, but then games look so much more vivid and contrasty on the aoc, minus the dark crush being an issue. So it almost seems like the samsung is changing gama or something…?

[PCM2]

The monitor itself is “dumb” to the content it’s displaying. That is to say it treats games no differently to the desktop environment, in terms of its image output. The C27HG70 is factory calibrated and usually the gamma tracking would be appropriate, closely tracking the ‘2.2’ curve. If the gamma is inappropriate in some regions but not others, the only way to properly adjust that would be using a colorimeter. Are you sure you’re not observing games with HDR active or something? Also make sure you don’t have ‘Local Dimming’ enabled on the Samsung as it could be causing issues.

Also, if you’ve made any adjustments in the graphics driver or using ICC profiles or are using a utility such as F.lux which makes its own adjustments at that sort of level, you’d be observing those in action on the desktop. But they might not be applied correctly (if at all) in-game.

[luisdent]

No changes anywhere outside the monitor. And this is a fairly new widow’s install too, so no chance of any 3rd party hardware doing anything funky.

Dimming was enabled. I’ll play around more. I switched back to the e222 for comparison sake side by side. Man I wish VA had the viewing angle quality of an IPS. Haha. Is there any IPS that comes close to VA in contrast? The e222 looks obviously lacking in that regard. But very good in every other.

[PCM2]

I’ve already covered which IPS-type models offer the strongest contrast. 🙂

You need to be extremely careful doing any side by side comparisons with a VA model like the C27HG70. If you’re viewing it from even a slightly decentralised angle then you’re going to perceive significant gamma shifts. You need to be sitting quite centrally to avoid this, so would need to shift between the monitors rather than simply glance at the VA model from an angle. If you’ve got the VA model central and are using the IPS-type model as an “accessory” monitor (to the side) then that’s fine and your comparison will be valid.

[luisdent]

Yes. I am being very careful about viewing angles. I’m always comparing in the central, ideal spot for each monitor.

I’ve read all of your IPS stuff you mention. And it is helpful, but after now seeing these I simply know that for the most part, data doesnt mean much until you see it. If I knew what the hp e222 measured I’d have a comparison to go on. But I only have comparisons I can’t discern without seeing.

If I could have an IPS that was as good as the samsung, but eliminated the viewing angle inconsistency and only sacrificed a slight bit of dark level I’d be very happy. But if they all look like the hp e222 in the black department then I’ll stick with a VA.

But black luminance values mean nothing to someone who hasn’t seen a bunch of different models to compare. 🙂 If I knew my hp was .7 and the samsung is .2 or whatever real numbers they are could then say I know I’d be happy with a .4 monitor. But if the samsung is .2 and the hp is 2.4 then I might be fine with a .9 monitor. But I have no real means of comparison…

[PCM2]

I couldn’t agree more that numbers don’t really paint a true picture, especially when you don’t have a baseline to compare against. And indeed static contrast ratios and black depth measurements tell you nothing about ‘glow’ or how viewing angle affects what you perceive. That’s why numbers make up such a small part of our reviews and why we go into such detail to share subjective impressions. Describing the experience both in written and video form as best we can. It’s the best impression you’ll get short of seeing a monitor yourself.

The specified static contrast of the HP E222 is 1000:1 and based on my experience with similar models I’d say that’s a fair representation of measured value. The strongest IPS performers go up to ~1300:1 so do not offer significant improvement in that respect. As I mentioned earlier ‘IPS glow’ can become quite a dominant factor on a 27″ monitor and a 21.5″ screen (from the same viewing distance) is quite different in that respect. So put this together and I don’t really think there will be an IPS-type model out there that would impress you with its contrast. Short of those super-expensive models with loads of dimming zones.

[luisdent]

that is my fear. But i’m contemplating keeping one of these and getting one more IPS panel to compare. But I don’t know if i could ever go back to the HP contrast. 😛

i’m doing some comparisons today on the samsung and aoc and i’ll report back later. the more i use them, the more i’m noticing issues with both. again, i am obviously “looking” for issues, but won’t be focused on that while gaming, however one issue has come up from simply playing a game last night for fun. And that is that the center of the samsung specifically is very much darker when all is calibrated well. it’s like i have a dark spot on my eye. if i tilt slightly to the side it looks good but then the sides are faded. no amount of distance eliminates this, and i honestly hadn’t even noticed it being obvious until i was playing obduction last night. you read a lot in the game and examine things. after getting the display looking great “overall” i find that when i examine things in the center of the screen (items in the game, not the screen itself) i was finding i had to struggle to make out dark details. an unfortunate compromise of the technology i suppose.

i have the added unfortunate problem of a) being very picky, and b) being spoiled by my plasma tv for so long. :-/ it makes me feel like computer monitors are all crap. i simply don’t understand why they haven’t developed to have the best of at least IPS and VA combined. seems lazy. but i digress…

[PCM2]

What you’re describing there is ‘black crush’. It’s actually more pronounced on most VA models than on the Samsung or other curved SVA panels. Although it’s still a feature on the Samsung, as described in the review. The effect of having a ‘cone’ in the centre of the screen that’s more blended than the surrounding area can indeed be annoying when you start noticing it. I would say it’s something users generally get used to or simply ignore when just using the monitor normally. And it’s generally considered less obtrusive than ‘IPS glow’, which is the alternative. But as with anything, it’s subjective and why there is no consensus on which is the best overall panel type. They each have clear strengths and weaknesses and it is indeed a shame things haven’t moved on from that yet. This all comes back to the discussion I was having with atomicus a few pages back and why he is disillusioned with the current state of the monitor market.

[luisdent]

so then i would say that to my eyes, the aoc, when calibrated to have the best overall picture and contrast, suffers more than the samsung from black crush. the samsung suffers more from sometimes looking flat. And i don’t mean flat to someone who isn’t used to accurate colors and expects an over saturated, hyped up contrast. I mean flat as in part of the gamma or something isn’t linear and it causes the mid dark levels to appear washed out. it’s not too bad, but it’s possible the biggest thing i notice. that, and an odd color tint to the overall monitor i can’t seem to remove.

when calibrated with your color settings on each, the samsung takes on a sort of reddish purple “tone”. The aoc has a more bluish tone and looks more “correct” and natural. this is very apparent in some things such as rocks and skies in obduction. there is an unnatural shift in the purplish red overtones to the image. no amount of reducing the red removes it. the closest way i can fix it is to use the warm 1 preset on the samsung. that looks more “correct” but also makes everything a little less blue and more warm (obviously), but it gets rid of the purplish tinge from custom colors. not sure if that is inherent to the profile, but it’s not “bad”, it’s simply not neutral in all colors for some reason.

i wish i had some way to show you these things. hmmmm.

[luisdent]

ok, now i’m thoroughly confused. I noticed in the OSD info screen that the aoc was showing 67hz. i told it to use 144hz in the nvidia panel, but if i close the nvidia settings and go back in it is back to 60hz. so this whole time it has been 60hz. and i thought the screen and specifically the whiteness wasn’t as good as the samsung.

I now went into windows display properties to try and override it. i set it to 144hz in windows and the monitor now shows 158khz, and the whites look almost identical to the samsung now WITHOUT the black setting lowered. In fact, i’m shocked. The black setting is default and I can make out every single lagom black square, but the contrast is still great and not washed out like on 60hz. That doesn’t seem right. Why would the 60hz look different other than the flickering aspect? Does it actually affect white point and whatnot? this is going to require more testing now.

[PCM2]

If you set a Full HD (or UHD) monitor to 60Hz, you may need to correct the colour signal. Nvidia should really give users a dialogue option when running under such conditions or otherwise bring this to their attention, because it often catches people out.

Also, the monitor is sample and hold (unless using MBR, which isn’t an option at 60Hz), so refresh rate has no influence on “flicker” or how the backlight behaves.

[luisdent]

I don’t mean flicker. But simply the refresh is visible to me. Like the lines of the screen are being drawn JUSTslowly enough to give them a visual motion effect like a vibration or something. Without comparing it you wouldn’t actually see this as an effect, but things just look “off” after seeing it at 144hz.

Now that it is set right thendiffernces are much smaller. In fact, I think the aoc might take the edge in a few areas.

[luisdent]

Ok. I played games all night and have some thoughts…

The aoc is awesome. But the Samsung is better. I’m going to say the decision is very difficult. After activating true 144hz, the aoc looks almost identical to the Samsung to me after tweaking. I had been tweaking settings before without knowing the hdmi limited signal/color issue was present. So I was trying to counteract the loss of quality by essentially over adjusting things. Once I got it working correctly, it was much easier. For a while I thought you must have been crazy to think the settings in your review made the monitor look good. haha.

Once adjusted, the white point, color accuracy, black level, etc. Are almost identical to the Samsung. In the sense that just looking at them, the look very similar. The aoc does have the slightest bit more coolness, even on the warm setting. Is like each monitor has it’s own slight color tinte that doesn’t go away no matter what you adjust. It’s only visible in a quick direct comparison, and it is very slight. I would say the aoc is on the ever so slighty bluer side.

I would say that accuracy-wise, I would be happy with both. Games and images look superb. The overall quality of the image is excellent on both. The main differences I see are these…

The Samsung is smoother with motion. I would have expected the smaller screen to win here. But I played multiple rounds of rocket league and then switched monitors and played a few and then kept switching to get a good feeling of simply playing on each. Everytime I played on the Samsung it felt more liquid smooth. And this is at a higher resolution, so it wasn’t framerate. I checked and they both were synced at 144fps. I still feel that it might be partly due to resolution though. Even with static content, the pixels on the aoc look more rough if you’re too close. And with less clarity, perhaps the notion blurriness seems more exaggerated…?

Second, the Samsung is higher resolution. But doesn’t lose anything by being so. It looks the same, just more detailed. More desktop space. I like this. I wish my 4k at work was 1440p. It really is my sweet spot.

While the image quality is similar the viewing angles are less so. Even up close, the aoc doesn’t have as severe of a black crush cone in the middle. But the size does make it hard to compare. With the Samsung I feel like I have to move my head around to try and very the perfect balance. This is only noticeable in very dark scenes. In rocket league i haven’t noticed it at all. In fact, the viewing angles are pretty good with lighter content. Although using the lagom viewing angle test, oddly the words are barely even visible on the aoc at any angle. The Samsung showed them with no issues until you get off center a lot. In practice, it’s not bad unless you’re looking for it or the scene is very dark.

Lastly the curve. It just feels right on the Samsung. I think the aoc should be flat. It doesn’t hurt things much, although I do tend to notice internet browsers and such have curves lines more. But in reality I forget all about it when gaming. But it simply doesn’t add much for me. The Samsung really does envelope me more. And if you back up more it is still flat enough to not be disturbing.

Lastly, the Samsung is the best of both monitors. Running 1080p is a bit soft, and the motion effects are more apparent. Things like bushes shimmer and bright more when you move. However, if you’re not opposed to moving back, I set the Samsung further back with the aoc next to it so that they looked the same relative size top my eyes. And I angled then so I was looking at each straight and centered. When doing this, the differences were incredibly slim. So I would say 1080p is viable on the Samsung at the right distance. The soc still had the slightest bit more clarity running natively, but you only notice if you are really looking. At normal seating distance for me, the Samsung is softer.

I like the Samsung osd better also for what it’s worth.

So for me the Samsung is equal with the added bonus of higher resolution, bigger screen, more immersive, but is it worth almost $250-$300 more? I’m not sure yet, but the resolution alone for windows makes me think so.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your extended thoughts on the C27HG70 and C24G1. That will be very helpful to others reading the thread and I found it very interesting to read myself. With the messed up colour signal, I’m not surprised you were having a tough time trying to get things to match up better. And whilst you can expect some inter-unit variation (our ‘Test Settings’ are never perfect in all cases), I can quite imagine how you’d be confused as to what they even came close to achieving. Glad you got that sorted and could get on with comparing other aspects. You’ll always find some slight differences in overall perceived tone and colour temperature on monitors like those which have very different backlights to one another, no matter what you do in the OSD.

I’m assuming you’re testing the AOC with its ‘Medium’ overdrive setting and the Samsung with ‘Standard’. Have you tried the ‘Strong’ setting on the AOC? You’re correct that higher resolution can reduce how obvious some of the weaknesses are. You can think of trailing caused by slower than optimal pixel transitions as a given number of pixels which are displaying incorrect information. If you increase the pixel density, the same number of pixels may be displaying incorrect information but they take up less physical space on the screen.

[luisdent]

Yes. I set the aoc to medium. The samsung is on whatever the default is. And I didn’t mention the aoc has two very slight blobs of light on the top and bottom right third of the display. Not bothersome at all. They are incredibly slight and only visible on 100% black. The samsung has fairly consistent black, but slightly more illumination on the bottom. It is almost completely eliminated if you sit back a bit and make sure you are perfectly centered vertically. But both are minor. And I think part of it may be the size. It’s hard to get a truly equivelant comparison of viewing distance and angle.

Both are superb though and I think I’ll be very happy with either. Leaning towards the samsung simply due to its resolution and those sort of extras. Both have what I consider major downfalls, but I truly feel that it is the technology and not the monitors. I’d pay more for a VA contrast with and IPS type screen, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t exist. And the typical 1000:1 contrast is just plain dull. I feel like these two monitors are very comparable to my plasma in overall visual quality, but simply adding the few of the VA technology’s downfalls. But ignoring the downfalls and just using the monitor results and a very pleasing experience so far.

[luisdent]

well, i have what i “think” is the last questions for my decision. Here is my final thought on the comparison.

Frankly, when at the appropriate distances, with both monitors adjusted to the best of my ability, i’m able to get the to be “almost” indistinguishable from each other. At least in regales to what I call “overall quality.” There are the slightest shifts of color and black level and whatnot. But simply watching a 4k hdr video simultaneously or mirroring shadow of the tomb raider, or comparing high quality photographs. There are times when the samsung has a more natural look. Almost like the image breaths more and is more realistic. And then there are times when the AOC looks more vibrant and “pops” a bit more. But a lot of this is tweaking. I can adjust the samsung to the more vivid gamma and it more closely “pops,” but yet the more accurate gamma is what allows certain photos to look more realistic.

Vice versa, I can adjust the AOC to have more saturation with its color setting to mimic the samsung’s excellent color saturation, but then some scenes look overly colored. But although, when optimally configured both vary scene by scene sometimes, the differences are truly negligible. If you gave me either I would be happy with the overall quality. What I’m not sure I would be happy with is the resolution. 1080p is sooooo low resolution to me. I can see the pixels on the AOC fairly easily unless I’m far enough back that I would not enjoy the size/distance ratio. To make things a bit worse, I swear the AOC pixels are less refined somehow. Maybe this is the gap between them you mention in the review, but they just look more ragged around small details, as though they are rough somehow. During normal use at the right distance this isn’t obvious, but as I said, where I sit I can see the pixels.

So I’m pretty set on 1440p, but the samsung is $300 MORE than the AOC. And since i have them at roughly identical quality levels, that seems like a high price to pay for bumping up the resolution slider a bit. So I’m wondering is there an identical AOC monitor in 1440p 27″ that might be half the price of the samsung? If not, I may keep the samsung, but the price difference doesn’t provide as much benefit as i though in terms of actual image quality. I do think it’s better, but marginally. Whereas almost all of the improvements for me lie in the resolution gains.

[PCM2]

I think that’s a fair and reasonable assessment. Although I would add that the AOC C24G1 can’t physically display some of the same saturation levels as the Samsung. Even if it can be brought closer for some shades due to digital saturation adjustment or certain gamma settings (refer to my earlier post). This seems to be more or less what you were describing anyway, with some scenes looking overly colourful on the AOC if you make certain adjustments. If you observe the Lagom contrast gradients you’ll be able to see if you’re losing shade variety due to digitally enhancing saturation.

There are certainly some alternatives to the Samsung C27HG70 that deliver the sort of things you’re enjoying from the experience (i.e. the resolution and lack of partial subpixel illumination). The AOC CG27G1 comes to mind, which is very much like a combination of the two models you’re testing and was a model you mentioned earlier. There is also the similar Samsung C27J52/56 to consider. If you aren’t getting any use or enjoyment out of the HDR capability of the CHG70 or the local dimming features then these models might be good somewhat more economical alternatives.

[luisdent]

oh now you’ve gone an done it. i didn’t even realize shadow of the tomb raider has HDR.

[Author]

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