Screen/Monitor QC - Why can't anyone get it right!!?

Caporegime
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So I received the "repaired" monitor back from Acer and it does EXACTLY the same thing. No change whatsoever. They claim they changed the motherboard and tested it and that it is fully working now on the sheet they gave me! HA! Tested it? Did they ****.

I have literally never experienced such poor service from a manufacturer before. ACER are absolutely awful. My case id to check the repair status did not work in their system. I asked the live chat people repeatedly whether I would get an email when the monitor was repaired and being sent back and was told repeatedly that I would. Did I? No, so that means I missed the delivery and had to go and collect it (as UPS said ACER pay extra so it cant be delivered to a neighbour...brilliant).

I should just get a refund but part of me wants to be bloody minded about it and keep sending it back until they ****** fix it.

For anyone else thinking of buying an ACER monitor, I strongly suggest you don't, however good the price is.
 
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Caporegime
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Why would businesses pay extra to remove delivery options to their customers???

Apparently for security so that it has to go to my address and no one else. UPS said the computer blocked them from leaving it with a neighbor because of this.

The whole thing is becoming an aggravating farce to be honest.
 
Soldato
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I think the base issue here is that 99% of consumers tend to just look at cost. 99% of them don't ever notice backlight bleed/tint/dead pixels. As a result it is simply not worth it for manufacturers to worry about these issues.

Oh, and then the other way pf keeping costs down is to cut CS.

The result is that the 1% of the 1% end up furious.

The other way of doing it is to buy prograde monitors. These cost more for a reason. You get proper QC and proper CS.

I look back at what a 20" 4:3 TFT monitor cost back in 2000 and todays monitors look amazing value. The reasons are not just down to economies of scale they are also down to cut thoat competition. Something has to give, sadly it does tend to be QC and CS.
 
Soldato
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Lack of quality screen is what's stopping my purchase of a new 1070 GPU, I have a 970 on a Samsung 27" 1080p 120Hz IPS Screen at the moment and apart from annoying random handshake issues on Display Port I'm happy with display quality and wouldn't replace it with anything less than a 27" 1440p Gsync IPS screen but there isn't one so I'm sticking :(
 
Associate
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The other way of doing it is to buy prograde monitors. These cost more for a reason. You get proper QC and proper CS.
Care to elaborate, which ones? In my recent experience "pro-grade" is pretty much the same in QC and CS, you pay extra for *features* (e.g. wide-gamut, hardware calibration, etc).

E.g. look at this "pro-grade" 21:9 Ultrasharp light bleed. I'd say exactly the same (shocking) as lot of "save on QC and hope user accepts" Acer and Asus siblings - same panel, same quality. The fact that Dell labels it "pro-grade" hardly changes anything.

Here is "pro-grade" Eizo EV3237-BK with extremely bad grey uniformity. Again, not much better than its siblings from Acer and Asus from 4K 32". And this very expensive monitor supposed to have "uniformity compensation".

I did extensive research on my new monitor recently (and went through 3), and I didn't go for "pro" monitor because its just seemed pointless - you pay more for features you don't need (wide gamut) but still the same lottery issues - no point in wasting money...
 
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Soldato
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Care to elaborate, which ones? In my recent experience "pro-grade" is pretty much the same in QC and CS, you pay extra for *features* (e.g. wide-gamut, hardware calibration, etc).

E.g. look at this "pro-grade" 21:9 Ultrasharp light bleed. I'd say exactly the same (shocking) as lot of "save on QC and hope user accepts" Acer and Asus siblings - same panel, same quality. The fact that Dell labels it "pro-grade" hardly changes anything.

Here is "pro-grade" Eizo EV3237-BK with extremely bad grey uniformity. Again, not much better than its siblings from Acer and Asus from 4K 32". And this very expensive monitor supposed to have "uniformity compensation".

I did extensive research on my new monitor recently (and went through 3), and I didn't go for "pro" monitor because its just seemed pointless - you pay more for features you don't need (wide gamut) but still the same lottery issues - no point in wasting money...

Both bought from Amazon and we know to avoid 21:9 screens from even Dell. You would be dealing with Amazon CS for these returns most likely.

I'm sure all makes will have problems, but the issue is how QC and CS has fallen to an all time low with many brands and only the likes of Dell are holding up. The problem is you have to look at a certain grade of monitor and buy direct to get the quality that should be industry wide.

You clearly have a much, much higher chance of getting what's advertised if you go to Dell or Eizo than you do with an Acer or Asus.
 
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You clearly have a much, much higher chance of getting what's advertised if you go to Dell or Eizo than you do with an Acer or Asus.
If that's the case (much, much higher chance), their average review rating should be much, much higher (and percentage of "1 stars" much, much lower). Its not, however.
Dell is not "holding up" anything for at least 1.5-2 years now.
 
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Soldato
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Well it seems very much to the case that the best way to avoid hassle is to buy direct from Dell. We see lots of confirmation.

But what rating system are you talking about?
 
Caporegime
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It's always the same though. People will generally buy cheap and take a chance than buy expensive and be safe in the knowledge it'll be perfect. Or at least has a higher chance of being perfect. Gamers are far more demanding than any normal, home user who will use the monitor in a brightly lit room for surfing, emails or online shopping. We expect and demand little backlight bleed, screen uniformity and good response rates. The current panel yields only give very few perfect screens and even the ISO standard allows for dead or stuck pixels!
 
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My three Dell's were all spot out of the box.

However I did have issues with the three AOC ones I tried first ... the colours were all over the place and I couldn't even get the whites to be the same on all three and as they all sit together they had to go back....
 
Caporegime
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The saga is ongoing - Sent it back for a second time and got a call today asking for more information as the technician can't find the fault...even though it is EXACTLY the same fault they identified first time and didn't fix. I gave more detail and the chap went away so we will see what happens.

I don't believe for one second they can't see what i am talking about - it is crazy obvious to anyone with eyes.

Total clowns.
 
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It might help if you gave them a link to this thread. Philips customer support tried the same crap with me, trying to deny and dismiss the clearly visible color banding on my HDTV with the Computer mode. After the constant back and forth I got fed up, so I made public polls and threads (with the same sample images I had given them earlier), and gave them links to them so they can read "other people's opinions". And EVERYONE noticed the flaw right from the start. The tone of the conversation changed quite rapidly after that.

In reality, I think they knew perfectly well what was the matter, they just tried to give me the run-around. And in the end, they admitted the flaw. They probably gave up because they realized that the bad PR wasn't worth it for them. Then again, they never fixed the issue, either. Even though they said they'll forward it to the firmware team. Not that I was surprised, really. They were quite pathetic at fixing things. Usually they only managed to make things worse... Well, never gonna buy anything from Philips, anymore.

Ps. I also gave them THIS link. They said "they couldn't open it". :D
 
Caporegime
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It might help if you gave them a link to this thread. Philips customer support tried the same crap with me, trying to deny and dismiss the clearly visible color banding on my HDTV with the Computer mode. After the constant back and forth I got fed up, so I made public polls and threads (with the same sample images I had given them earlier), and gave them links to them so they can read "other people's opinions". And EVERYONE noticed the flaw right from the start. The tone of the conversation changed quite rapidly after that.

In reality, I think they knew perfectly well what was the matter, they just tried to give me the run-around. And in the end, they admitted the flaw. They probably gave up because they realized that the bad PR wasn't worth it for them. Then again, they never fixed the issue, either. Even though they said they'll forward it to the firmware team. Not that I was surprised, really. They were quite pathetic at fixing things. Usually they only managed to make things worse... Well, never gonna buy anything from Philips, anymore.

Ps. I also gave them THIS link. They said "they couldn't open it". :D

Well if they don't fix it this time I'm sending it back to the retailer for a full refund.

2 repair attempts is ample and I don't wish to waste anymore of my time on it.

This is the issue:

Afterburner had been open for about 4 minutes on the desktop before hand...

monitor_problem.jpg


..and they said they have tested it for hours and can't see the problem :confused: It is literally the most obvious problem ever - even the gigabyte logo that shows for 10 seconds when starting my pc get faintly ghosted onto the blue windows start up screen!

It does the same through hdmi and display port and it most certainly is not my computer as I am using my previous monitor (a 1080p Samsung 27 inch) and TV (a Panasonic 42 inch) absolutely fine with zero issues.
 
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Yes, that is indeed quite obvious. Either they're lying about testing it, or they don't understand the issue itself.

But, if they say there's nothing wrong with it, then ask them to send another unit to you, and they can keep your "non-flawed" unit themselves. Shouldn't make a difference to them, if they're both working "ok".

Problem with this, though, is that if the flaw is more wide-spread, then they have multiple units with the same flaw, and that would be the reason why they're now trying to wiggle their way out of it, because they could only send you another with the same flaw, which they know you will spot immediately.

But, if they indeed send another unit with the same flaw (or any other flaw, for that matter), then just return it to the retailer, possibly with copies of the conversation between Acer and you, where they state that it's indeed working correctly. The retailer will have more muscle to actually have an impact on them (by not stocking any more Acer products, for example).
 
Caporegime
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So the saga continued.

I waited another 24 hours and called them for an update and was told that their technician still couldn't find the problem and it was still on test...lol.

At this point i just gave up and said to just send it back to me and i will get a refund from the retailer.

To add insult to injury i was expecting it to be delivered to my work address (as this is the address i gave them to send back this second return and it was even printed on the return lable/documentation i got) on Friday. Nothing came and when i got home i had a UPS card through the door....they had sent it to my home address. ARGH!

The retailer i bought it from is being good though and have arranged for it to be collected next week so they can give me a full refund.

I called their escalation team and by luck got through to their deputy manager and basically told them what a shoddy experience this whole thing has been and she sounded very sympathetic and almost embarrassed, like she knew their warranty/repair policy and service is rubbish :(

Hopefully i will have my money back the week after next and can put this behind me.

ACER..... Never again
 
Caporegime
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For those interested, the ACER monitor went back and I got a full refund.

Having realised all new monitors are likely going to have issues, I found a very cheap deal on a certain site's warehouse branch on an AOC Q2770PQU. Only 60hz and no adaptive sync but it has 1440p res and is IPS. It had REALLY bad backlight bleed (like someone was shining a torch from the bottom corners) and uniformity so contacted AOC and they very kindly replaced it with a brand new one!

The replacement still isn't perfect (screen uniformity wise) but it is liveable with. Backlight is almost perfect and hardly any IPS glow.

Interestingly I found a very cheap deal on an Asus PG279Q from the same place. Now I thought this is the best monitor money can buy so if this isn't right I literally give up and will stick with the AOC screen.

Got it yesterday and guess what? Dead pixel, bright spot/bright pixel cluster, some bad bleed through the top and bad ips glow.....oh and the screen uniformity was just as bad as the cheap AOC screen.

Monitor buying...literally ****** awful. They are all crap.

On the plus side 1440p + IPS is glorious coming from an old 1080p TN panel (IPS colour/richness is brilliant, as are the viewing angles - TN panels look very washed out in comparison) and I have spent half the money I spent originally on the ACER screen.
 
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Soldato
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Monitor buying...literally ****** awful. They are all crap.

That sums up my experiences perfectly in a nutshell :(.

Quality control is non existent and it truly is a gamble when buying a monitor, it shouldn't be like this though, you should see the monitor you want, buy it, unbox and set it up and it just works, but nope it doesn't happen like this at all :mad:
 
Caporegime
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It's always the same though. People will generally buy cheap and take a chance than buy expensive and be safe in the knowledge it'll be perfect. Or at least has a higher chance of being perfect. Gamers are far more demanding than any normal, home user who will use the monitor in a brightly lit room for surfing, emails or online shopping. We expect and demand little backlight bleed, screen uniformity and good response rates. The current panel yields only give very few perfect screens and even the ISO standard allows for dead or stuck pixels!

Even expensive doesnt work. I, like others, would happily pay a £100 or £200 premium to get a screen from a manufacturer that had actually gone through some QC,
 
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