We’re witnessing an oversaturation of the wide-use monitor market. The price range has shrunk so much that something simply has to be pushed out on the cheaper end, while something new has to appear to refresh the more expensive one. ASUS’ PA246Q doesn’t seem connected to this story in any way at first. It’s clearly labelled Pro and has a red line on it, so that it matches a DSLR objective, which is all that pros look for, right? The frame around the display contains metric and imperial unit scales, while the stand is optimised for measuring swivel angle in degrees. A separate button, clearly labelled with a removable sticker, calls several different templates, such as the centimetre net or A4 paper format. These are displayed over the image coming from your PC, supposedly significantly speeding up some processes in the graphics editing department. How these are better than the graphics tools on your PC, and why anyone would change the DPI settings of the PC to match those of the monitor, just so as to approximately place the image onto a rarely used paper format in professional publications, remains a mystery to us.
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Swivel, pivot and height adjustments are something that anyone can appreciate nevertheless. The only problem may be that the pivot doesn’t stop at the usual angles; it has to be either approximately set up or measured using a level, if precision is truly of key importance. The USB hub with two ports and a 7-in-1 card reader on the side are always welcome additions. A DisplayPort connector is available as well, although it doesn’t have any image quality advantages in itself. The OSD menu is replete with options, but we doubt that anyone would dare change any of them, at least not after reading the factory report on advanced calibration done for each model before shipment. An increased colour palette, closer to industry standards, is proudly advertised on the packaging, seeing as the monitor has an IPS panel. And to think that we’ve recently wished for the end of TN+Film panels and more exotic technologies…
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At first glance, without detailed testing, it’s clear that this monitor packs much more colour display quality than the supermarket gamma. An exceptional contrast ratio enables the user to delve into the world of chiaroscuro that dynamic contrast numbers with six zeroes and similar eye candy constantly promise, but never deliver. The best thing about it all is that we haven’t managed to spot a single nuance, let alone colour, that wasn’t in its exact place. Black is uniform across the entire display, without any trace of backlight bleeding. We’ve also noticed a very mild phenomenon which produces glare under certain angles, which is the only thing separating this monitor from being entirely matte; this is doubtlessly a consequence of the type of panel used.
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The viewing angles aren’t record-setting, but serve well to remind us just how inferior the consumer ones have become. Even on a display this big, one can’t notice any noticeable variations from one angle to another. The response time deserves to be applauded as well, although we’ve already got used to this aspect being delivered. Fast multimedia content is displayed without visible issues, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. We’ve also tested this monitor in games, which has raised some very interesting questions, such as - why would we need 3D at all, if a display this big covers most of our effective field of view (from the ideal distance)? Not only that, but it also transforms headshots from a skill that needs to be endlessly honed into a task not that more difficult than clicking an icon on the desktop.
