Objective Image Quality
As usual, we ran the E2400HD through the
Lagom suite of image quality tests, a handy little collection of benchmarks that are simple to use and yet reveal much about a monitor's characteristics in metrics such as colour rendering, contrast, viewing angles, pixel response and more.
It gives us absolutely no pleasure to trot out the same old critique of the shortcomings of TN panels. We say it over and over again, but sadly we've little choice with the E2400HD.
Just like other TN screens, the E2400HD's performance in our suite of objective image quality benchmarks is mediocre at best.
Take the viewing angles. A lack of colour stability in the vertical plane is extremely obvious with certain hues. That can translate into a noticeable gradient across the screen in day to day use at normal viewing distances.
Likewise, a perusal of the tone and colour scales reveals plenty of evidence of compression, though the E2400HD hangs together notably better at the darker end of scales than in whites or bright tones which have a tendency to bleed into one another at the expense of definition and contrast. That reflects the fact that TN panels are somewhat short on dynamic range.
Another indication of this shortcoming is mild pixel noise in colour gradients. Upon close inspection it's just possible to see the pixel “fizz” that is a result of the dithering techniques used in an attempt to make this 6-bit panel simulate the colour fidelity of an 8-bit screen.
The back story here involves the fact that an individual pixel in a 6-bit-per-channel TN panel can assume far fewer static colour states than those of higher quality VA and IPS 8-bit panels. All told, a 6-bit panel can render 262,144 static colours, which compares poorly to the 16,777,216 colours of an 8-bit screen.
Click to enlarge
Anywho, by forcing 6-bit pixels to constantly cycle between two colour states, a third intermediate state can be approximated. From a distance this technique works fairly well. But it's usually visible if you look closely enough.
Those issues aside, the good news is that this is as lag free and responsive as you would expect of a TN monitor with a 2ms grey-to-grey response specification. It performs well in the
Lagom pixel response test.
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