Author: Ryan Johnson
Introduction
Introduction
The Samsung S24E390HL is a low budget monitor intended for use by average home users. I am evaluating this unit for its home use, as well as its use in photography retouching and editing.
Home use
As far as home use goes, it is an excellent unit. There are two major caveats, but for the most part, the design and build quality are very good.
Caveat 1: No DVI port. This is both a progressive move from Samsung and a backwards move. DVI is being phased out, but the new display connections have not stabilized in the market, yet. This was a premature move on Samsung's part, so I really don't like this choice. The advantages to this choice, however, are a less expensive and less weighty unit.
Caveat 2: Light bleed. This unit (or mine at least) has several noticeable areas with light bleed on the edges. This is probably due to having such a thin chassis design. The light bleed is something that can be ignored, unless you're working on dark parts in a photo near the edge of the screen or watching dark movie scenes.
A general rule: This unit needs calibration, just like any other unit. It cannot be calibrated properly with only its internal display controls. The color temperature needs to be left at its default value (Normal). This is approximately 7000 Kelvin. The Gamma should be adjusted to Mode 1 (Gamma 2.2). Mode 2 is Gamma 2.0, and Mode 3 is Gamma 2.4 or 2.6 (I don't remember). The contrast on the device needs to be adjusted to 50. After this, it can be calibrated using a color-calibration puck and software.
Photography and editing use
After using the device for half a year, I have found this monitor insufficient for photography work. This monitor is a PLS (Plane-to-line switching) panel. The PLS technology is supposed to be a middle-ground between the color accuracy of IPS (In-plane-switching) panels and the speed, game performance, and manufacturing cost of T/N (Twisted Nematic) panels.
This is a good idea, but I will show you why Samsung failed to accomplish this with this monitor. The monitor has a few key design problems:
- PLS technology instead of IPS
- Poor color spectrum due to the white LED backlight (WLED).
- Only a 6-bit panel; uses dithering
- Muddy colors due to Anti-glare coating (AG)
PLS vs IPS
I received this monitor as a gift and had intended to use it as a photo editing monitor. This monitor CANNOT serve your purposes if you are a photo editing professional or enthusiast. It has major color fidelity issues. IPS panel monitors are, in general, a much bigger step up in terms of color accuracy, compared to PLS. This monitor's colors seem really muddy and indistinct, so it is difficult to notice gradual changes in color.
WLED backlight
The backlight on this monitor seems to be a major culprit in its inability to "do colors" correctly. The Reds and Greens for this monitor are lacking. This monitor can be calibrated, but its WLED (White LED) backlight's frequency response curve is in no way comparable to high end monitors that use RGB-LEDs, AMOLEDs, or Quantum-dot LED's (saw this new technology in a TV recently). There are certain colors that this monitor struggles to reproduce at sufficient saturation levels. WLED is never used in high quality televisions, because it does not reproduce colors well. Recent advances such as Quantum-dot lighting are an attempt to patch up the shortcomings of traditional WLED and remain more cost-efficient than RGB-LED. AMOLED may be the best for color saturation and black levels, since there is no backlight. In AMOLED panels, the pixels themselves are the light source, so there is less light bleed. They are expensive and may have shorter life-spans than other panel types.
6-bit panel with dithering
The monitor is only a 6-bit panel. Photo monitors require at least 8 bits per channel (8 red, 8 green, 8 blue), making 24 bits total. Your computer's OS sends 8 bits per channel to the monitor. This panel takes those 8 bits and compresses them into 6 bits and applies a dithering technique (switching back and forth between two very close colors) to emulate the missing colors in the 6 bit color spectrum. This is a cheapskate tactic that Samsung is using so they don't have to produce proper panels. They say "it doesn't matter", but it really really does. It can be noticeable. If you stare at your screen long enough, you'll notice little "noise" patterns in dark areas where it's alternating back and forth between two colors, and if you really space out while staring at the screen, you might notice it in other more brightly lit areas as well. This dithering is effective at letting you pretend the colors are there, but it is noticeable as a "feeling", not a direct observation. The image just feels fake. This is one of the two biggest reasons that it is difficult to discern color-changes while editing a photo (adjusting a color's hue), the other reason being the anti-glare coating.
Anti-glare coating
Anti-glare blurs the reflection of the environment, at the expense of making the picture blurry. Photography monitors should, ideally, have the more expensive anti-reflective (AR) coatings that are commonly found on camera lenses. AR coatings are obvious: they show a color-tinted reflection of the surroundings but leave the picture clean and clear. You can see the difference between these easily on most TV's at Best Buy. Anti-reflective coating is what the latest release of Apple Cinema Display uses. Again, high quality TVs are not made with Anti-glare (AG) coatings. These are cheaper and lower quality. Quality TVs will use Anti-reflective (AR) coatings.
How to calibrate the monitor
First, reset the monitor's settings in the On-screen display (OSD). After that, adjust the contrast to any desired level. After extensive testing, I have found that mine will still show proper black levels and white levels at 100 Contrast, without clipping. The brightness will be adjusted by Spyder5 PRO (or whatever your calibration software is, if it uses a colorimeter).
Next, you will need to use the RGB channel sliders in the On Screen Display (OSD) for the monitor. Using a Spyder5 PRO sensor, you need to enable the feature in the Spyder5 PRO options menu for "RGB sliders". Then Spyder5 PRO will tell you what levels your RGB sliders are at, relative to your chosen white-balance. The industry standard white balance is 6500K. When it shows you the RGB levels, you must adjust the RGB sliders in the OSD by SUBTRACTING from (under-driving) the channels that are too high. If you try ADDING to (over-driving) the channels that are too low, you will get an unpleasant color cast. My monitor is set at R=50/G=46/B=42 for 6500K. This is the only correct way to adjust the real-life color gamut of your monitor. It will adjust the voltages applied in the monitor's panel at the hardware level, instead of adjusting the digital output from the computer. This is necessary so that your image does not show color banding (an unwanted consequence of 8-bit to 6-bit conversion and the difference between the monitor's default white balance of 7000K and the industry standard of 6500K). After that, the Spyder5 PRO software will adjust the individual values along the RGB channels to adhere to the chosen gamma curve (2.2 is industry standard). For my panel, this process made the blacks darker.
Next, you will need to use the RGB channel sliders in the On Screen Display (OSD) for the monitor. Using a Spyder5 PRO sensor, you need to enable the feature in the Spyder5 PRO options menu for "RGB sliders". Then Spyder5 PRO will tell you what levels your RGB sliders are at, relative to your chosen white-balance. The industry standard white balance is 6500K. When it shows you the RGB levels, you must adjust the RGB sliders in the OSD by SUBTRACTING from (under-driving) the channels that are too high. If you try ADDING to (over-driving) the channels that are too low, you will get an unpleasant color cast. My monitor is set at R=50/G=46/B=42 for 6500K. This is the only correct way to adjust the real-life color gamut of your monitor. It will adjust the voltages applied in the monitor's panel at the hardware level, instead of adjusting the digital output from the computer. This is necessary so that your image does not show color banding (an unwanted consequence of 8-bit to 6-bit conversion and the difference between the monitor's default white balance of 7000K and the industry standard of 6500K). After that, the Spyder5 PRO software will adjust the individual values along the RGB channels to adhere to the chosen gamma curve (2.2 is industry standard). For my panel, this process made the blacks darker.
Conclusion
I was hoping for a good monitor, and hoping that Samsung's research into the PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching) technology would prove a viable competitor or middle ground between regular T/N panels and IPS panels. It may accomplish this to some degree, but it still pales in comparison to IPS panels for image editing and color-sensitive work. As far as gaming goes, this monitor has none of the appropriate features that make dedicated gaming monitors exceptional at what they do.
If you have to choose a monitor, know your intended usage pattern first, and do not attempt to compromise between the two. Otherwise, you will just get a jack of all trades with no hope of doing anything well.
Resources
This website is a great resource for planning your purchase of a monitor:
http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ip
This website is a great way to test your monitor's calibration and inherent panel quality:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
Note that it will not help you evaluate your monitor's real color gamut (how many real colors it reproduces relative to real life colors), but it will help you evaluate the internal gamut (how many it reproduces relative to the backlight's available colors, which are a subset of the real life color spectrum). At least, this is my going theory. I need to research this more. I may be wrong.
If you have to choose a monitor, know your intended usage pattern first, and do not attempt to compromise between the two. Otherwise, you will just get a jack of all trades with no hope of doing anything well.
Resources
This website is a great resource for planning your purchase of a monitor:
http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ip
This website is a great way to test your monitor's calibration and inherent panel quality:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
Note that it will not help you evaluate your monitor's real color gamut (how many real colors it reproduces relative to real life colors), but it will help you evaluate the internal gamut (how many it reproduces relative to the backlight's available colors, which are a subset of the real life color spectrum). At least, this is my going theory. I need to research this more. I may be wrong.
