Gadgetory

what's up guys today I'll be reviewing my brand new 27-inch 2560 by 1440 monitor which arrived on my doorstep last week straight from Korea this is the Kuhn excuse to 710 and it's very comparable to other popular korean panels that are being sold in the US right now for dirt cheap like the yama kasi cat league for example now I've been in the market for a high-res monitor for a long time now but with all these high-end video cards coming out like the r9 290x and the GTX 780 Ti I knew I needed to pull the trigger on a high res panel ASAP if I wanted to continue running relevant benchmarks at resolutions that most appropriately reflect what these cards can handle the reason I decided to go with a 16 by 9 panel instead of opting for 2560 by 1600 is a most of the Korean panels only offer 1440 whereas the options for 1600 screens are much more limited B I like the idea of evenly scaling my benchmarks going from 1080 to 1440 I don't know why it just makes sense to me and see the simple truth is that I just prefer 16 by 9 monitors because I like the wider field of view and in playing games and the widescreen look when watching blu-rays if you're wondering why I decided to go with a Korean panel well the truth is I almost did it I was clicks away from buying an Asus PB 2 7 8 Q but in the end I went with the communiques because even though I'd be losing some of the convenient features on the Asus monitor they weren't worth paying the extra $200 I picked up my mother on new egg for 350 bucks and I've been feeling guilty for not paying more money for it ever since it's that good of a deal so that's that I'm quickly going to go over what comes included besides the monitor itself it has the stand power cord dual link DVI cable 3.5 millimeter analog audio cable and in manual entirely in Korean now to reiterate it's 27 inches at 2560 by 1440 resolution and at the time of buying this monitor I thought it was IPS but the Newegg website actually claims it to be a pls panel which stands for playing to line switching if you're familiar with pls it's a technology from Samsung that's very similar to IPS in regards to color reproduction and viewing angle but it's able to output a bit more brightness while consuming less power and it's marginally cheaper than its IPS brethren I stare into IPS panels all day at work and I can't even tell the difference between one of those monitors and this one neither one seems brighter to me or has noticeably better color resolution than the other now just like IPS panels pls panels do have slower response times because their LEDs can't rapidly snap into position like they do on TN panels the QX to 710 has a time of eight milliseconds but before you gamers pull out your pitchforks I've been playing battlefield 4 on this panel with motion blur disabled for the last week or so and I haven't noticed any ghosting everything is super sharp and crystal clear and with the high resolution I can even afford to disable some of the filters to get more frames and the game still looks amazing the Mater has a 60 Hertz refresh rate which means it's not quite as sharp as my 144 Hertz vg2 7-8 when there's really fast movement on the screen but the difference is only noticeable if I immediately switch from 144 to 60 otherwise I completely forget about it because I'm blown away by how much insanely better the color looks speaking of which the wide colour spectrum of this panel can be appreciated within a 170 degree viewing angle one factor I'm basing this review on is the overall condition of the monitor from the packaging to the physical condition of the panel itself right out of the box I was pretty happy with the packaging the box came wrapped in this sort of thin foam enclosure to help absorb any shock and I had a fragile sticker on it which was hopefully legible by both Koreans and Americans the retail box was in average condition had some minor creases and scuffs about it but nothing really traumatic enough to raise concern for the monitor inside the monitor was held securely inside the box with large foam pieces on either side I guess that's pretty standard packaging protocol these days and upon taking a first look at the monitor itself the only stuff I could find was on the fake button thingy in the bottom right corner of the bezel this button literally doesn't do anything in fact it can't even be pushed inwards but it did have a small scratch on it and a little scuff on the side it's a harsh world but I think I'll live after having survived all that I finally powered it up and face my greatest fear of buying a Korean panel dead pixels to my surprise there actually was only one I did a white background test and I could only find one off to the left side of the screen and after I spotted it for the first time I haven't noticed it since unless I'm actively looking for it I know this might bother some of you pixel perfectionists out there but considering the 6000 miles this monitor traveled to get to my doorstep one small scuff and dead pixel eang bad now in case you're colorblind or just plain blind this monitor is black it has a plastic bezel that's about an inch and a half thick and it does have a glossy finish which I'm not the biggest fan of I can accept it however since I generally use my desktop in low-light anyway and I don't have any heavy sunlight hitting this part of my room so solar beams aren't constantly being reflected into my retina along the bottom of the monitor runs a dark gray strip which is also made of plastic but strives to give off sort of a faux brushed aluminum aesthetic it looks pretty nice oh I remember that fake button with the scuffs well there are five more buttons to the left of it underneath the monitor four of which are also fake yeah the brightness and the volume buttons do nothing which makes the power button the only working physical button on this panel this is most likely because the company didn't want to manufacture a new housing for these panels so they just recycled the ones that they already had that were used for other models that actually featured volume and brightness adjustment lucky for me the brightness of this panel is already where I'd like it to be and I have no interest in using built-in monitor speakers for as long as I live the screen itself has a matte finish so it hardly picks up any reflections at all but if you choose to pick up any Korean panel from eBay or New Ager anywhere make sure you know what kind of screen you're getting because a lot of them feature that horrendous tempered glass display which makes me want to vomit and I'm sure the same goes for many of you the backplate of the monitor has a textured plastic construction and there's a 100 by 100 base amount so you can always buy a dedicated monitor stand if you're not happy with the one that's included speaking of which the included stand is made from the same glossy plastic as the bezel and unfortunately only offers tilt functionality and this is my biggest gripe with this panel is with all of the Korean panels for that matter is the same stiff wobbly stand and I maybe I'm just used to the awesome stand of my VG 278 and sure the Kunik stand gets the job done but that's it there's no overachieving in this particular area and honestly if it wasn't for the vase amount option on the back I probably would have thought twice before buying this panel on the back right side of the monitor is a power port analog audio jack and the only video input for this panel being a dual link DVI port now this is something to be mindful of guys because in order for this monitor to display properly it needs to be connected to a dual link DVI digital output so check the back of your video card because a single link DVI connection won't work now I haven't tried using any adapters with this panel but based on the other Korean monitors I've seen my guess is that unless you shell out the hundred plus dollars for a powered active converter those won't work either it's also pretty obvious that if you plan on connecting multiple video sources to your monitor don't buy this one because the one video input is all you get for me personally 95% of the video cards that benchmark have dual link DVI deport and I don't intend on hooking up anything else to my monitor for the time being so that definitely helped me get over this otherwise deal breaking limitation the last category for this review is performance and it's probably the category that this monitor scores the highest in I mean the color resolution is just out of control the colors aren't oversaturated at all so while the color on my TN panel looks a bit more vibrant it's also just exaggerated and it looks artificial being a pls panel the Q mix has this vast color spectrum so you get significantly greater color accuracy skin tones on people look natural and objects are more easily visible in low-light scenes it just brings people and environments to life in a way that you just can't get on a TN and this is true for both gaming and HD video playback as I mentioned before the refresh rate and the response time is something I haven't had a problem with yet but after several hours of battlefield 4 and countless scenes from one to many Michael Bay movies I don't think I ever will and of course everyone's eyes are different so all of this ultimately boils down to personal preference but that's just how I feel about it overall I have to save the additional screen real estate and the massive image quality boost has made it really hard for me to go back to my 1080 TN panel at work not that I play games or watching movies at work anyway to sum things up the qx2 710 has some shortcomings that will inevitably be deal-breakers for some of you but if you can get past the bad stand and the lack of video inputs this monitor will give you just about the best image quality that you can find at this size and resolution for under 400 bucks and for that I'm giving it a 9 out of 10 and my first ever felon award given to a product whose price to performance ratio is so good that when you buy one it feels like you got away with murder let me know what you guys think of the panel in the comments below and be sure to like or dislike the video accordingly don't forget to subscribe to awesomesauce news for more tech and boxing's and reviews and i'll see you guys in the next video