Manufacturers shipping 4K as 1440p to save money.

[ubersonic]

German site Prad.de reports that sources close to monitor panel manufacturers told them that the production cost of a 27" 4K 3840x2160 panel is lower or at least equal to that of a 27" 2560x1440 QHD panel. This drives monitor manufacturers to use 4K panels in monitors that are specified as QHD - when panel supply is low, or monitor demand is high.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ould-be-using-a-4k-panel.245367/#post-3859415

If true this is quite frankly shocking behaviour by the monitor manufacturers involved. They should own up and issue firmware fixes to unlock 4K on the screens or offer refunds if buyers didn't want 4K.

 

[Baddass]

I’ll post here what I posted on Twitter about this

Sounds like nonsense to me. You’d have much smaller pixels and the image scaling would look pretty poor (as the article says). You’d have users reporting poor text clarity and noticeably smaller pixels if this were really out there happening. We’ve certainly never seen it

And I’m also not convinced that a 4K panel is really going to be cheaper than a 1440p panel anyway. Can’t imagine there’s really any shortage of 1440p panels given the wide range available from many manufacturers

 

[Baddass]

Although having said all that, if they are doing it and there’s no degradation of image quality (which I’m pretty sure there would be), and no discernible difference to the user then it’s not really a problem. I don’t agree with the OP statement that they should “offer refunds” as long as the above is true. That’s a bit OTT

But like I say, I suspect it’s nonsense

 

[ubersonic]

I’m also not convinced that a 4K panel is really going to be cheaper than a 1440p panel anyway.

I would guess it's to do with supply/demand, sort of like how there have been numerous instances of graphics cards actually being a higher model with stuff locked in BIOS as it worked out better to produce one physical card than two. The demand for 1440p panels has never been as high as say 1080p or 4K so it's not unthinkable that some manufacturers may try and maximise profits by pulling a fast one, this is business after all.

I don’t agree with the OP statement that they should “offer refunds” as long as the above is true. That’s a bit OTT

I never said they should offer refunds, I said they should issue firmware updates to allow users to unlock 4K mode on the affected screens, and offer refunds to users who never wanted a 4K screen. It's in no way OTT as they have apparently been deliberately scamming buyers in order to boost profits, and so it's only right they compensate those who never wanted a 4K screen.

To put it in perspective, if you bought a 1440p screen and found out it was just a 1080p screen with a built resolution scaler that reported itself as 1440p, would you be happy? this is the same thing only they are using a 4K panel instead of 1080p, the ned result is the same.

 

[JediFragger]

Nah this is non-news, moaning for its own sake.

 

[NirK]

Does sound a bit odd to me as well, why would 4k be cheaper to produce than 1440p? I could understand if the screen sizes were 40-75" because they would be mass produced for TV's, but at the 24-32" size I am not sure why using 4k panels would be any advantage at all because most PC monitors are 1440p or 1080p. Also I would think it would be very obvious that the monitor was 4k at 1440p because it would look very blurry.

 

[Baddass]

Nah this is non-news, moaning for its own sake.

Agreed

 

[Pottsey]

Agreed

Nah this is non-news, moaning for its own sake.

How can you both say that when this has a noticeable negative impact on us end consumers? It is very much real news and a real problem.

 

[JediFragger]

How can you both say that when this has a noticeable negative impact on us end consumers? It is very much real news and a real problem.

How in the hell do you get a negative impact? You buy a 1440p screen you get a 1440p screen, you buy a 4K screen you get exactly what you bought. If this ‘news’ hadn’t come out you’d be non the wiser!

 

[ltron]

How in the hell do you get a negative impact? You buy a 1440p screen you get a 1440p screen, you buy a 4K screen you get exactly what you bought. If this ‘news’ hadn’t come out you’d be non the wiser!

Because 1440P on a 4K screen is not native resolution it would use interpolation to map the resolution to the pixels on the screen. This can make the image significantly blurrier than a native 1440P screen with 2560x1440 pixels, particularly if a cheap scaler is used.

 

[JediFragger]

Because 1440P on a 4K screen is not native resolution it would use interpolation to map the resolution to the pixels on the screen. This can make the image significantly blurrier than a native 1440P screen with 2560x1440 pixels, particularly if a cheap scaler is used.

Yes, but my point is if you can't tell then what's the difference? I doubt the manufacturer would ship it out unless it looked 'right'.

 

[ltron]

Yes, but my point is if you can't tell then what's the difference? I doubt the manufacturer would ship it out unless it looked 'right'.

When LCDs were new tech all the reviews were touting the importance of native resolution for a clear image vs CRTs where it didn't matter because the tech was different. Unless things have radically improved, which I haven't seen any evidence of, then I think you should easily be able to tell the difference.

 

[Pottsey]

Yes, but my point is if you can't tell then what's the difference? I doubt the manufacturer would ship it out unless it looked 'right'.

When screens are run at none native resolutions they look worse than at native. For professional design development you need 1 to 1 pixel mapped screen which is impossible with a 1440P on a 4K screen.
With 1440P on a 4K screen you have to scale 1 pixel onto 1 and a half pixels which creates all sort of problems. Even in the none pro world that can causes problems with loss of detail, blurriness, text being hard to read.

 

[Baddass]

How can you both say that when this has a noticeable negative impact on us end consumers? It is very much real news and a real problem.

Because the problem doesn’t exist. There’s no evidence at all that this is happening

 

[Pottsey]

Because the problem doesn’t exist. There’s no evidence at all that this is happening

It does exist its a well known problem with lots of evidence. In fact you can test it your self if you have an LCD screen, lower your resolution so you have a ratio of 1.5 against your native resolution and watch how blurred it goes. This problem with LCD panels has been around since the start which is a very long time. I have never seen a screen run at none native resolution without a noticeable negative impact. The problem is less bad when then pixels can be rounded to hole numbers but in this case we are talking half pixels.

Think of it this way. If you have a blue pixel next to a green pixel on a 2560x1440 screen. Now take a 3840x2160 panel running at 2560x1440. Now you have a blue pixel, empty pixel, green pixel. What is the panel scaler going to put in that middle pixel that wont distort what is on screen? You cannot leave it empty and what ever the colour the scaler picks will be wrong. Two greens will mean the green it too wide, a mix of green and blue will create other problems.

If you are a designer you need an accurate screen. You need what you print off to be the same as what is on screen and you need what you see on screen to display the same as on other peoples screens in other words you need a 1:1 pixel mapped screen. You cannot do that on a 3840x2160 panel running at 2560x1440 its just impossible. Even outside designer work like reading websites or games you will see a reduction in quality.

Unless you have a CRT go test it yourself. Lower you resolution so you have half pixels and see what difference it makes.

 

[Baddass]

You’re missing my point. I’m saying that this “news” of manufacturers doing this is nonsense. It’s not happening, there’s no evidence of it happening, so there’s no need for anyone to worry about it or get worked up about how manufacturers are conning us.

 

[Rroff]

You’re missing my point. I’m saying that this “news” of manufacturers doing this is nonsense. It’s not happening, there’s no evidence of it happening, so there’s no need for anyone to worry about it or get worked up about how manufacturers are combing us.

Yeah can't see it happening - there is no way to use a 27" 4K panel and reproduce 1440p without very noticeable effects like two letter Is next to each other where the vertical bit on one is an extra pixel fat compared to the one next to it, etc. if there are manufacturers doing it I can't see how they'd get away with it very long without even fairly casual users noticing.

 

[Pottsey]

You’re missing my point. I’m saying that this “news” of manufacturers doing this is nonsense. It’s not happening, there’s no evidence of it happening, so there’s no need for anyone to worry about it or get worked up about how manufacturers are combing us.

Yes I was reading your post from the wrong point of view. But I can see it happening as I have experienced it not with screens but in lots of other areas with everything from cars, to laptops, graphic cards even wireless chips. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some cheap china brand had tried this.

 

[ubersonic]

I doubt the manufacturer would ship it out unless it looked 'right'.

Ever heard of dead pixels?

 

[Stu]

Because 1440P on a 4K screen is not native resolution it would use interpolation to map the resolution to the pixels on the screen. This can make the image significantly blurrier than a native 1440P screen with 2560x1440 pixels, particularly if a cheap scaler is used.

My sympathy is lacking if you accept a screen that is obviously not native resolution and the image looks really bad... most people would send it back if the image is so bad. If the image looks perfect, then no issue. But, as said before, I do not believe this is actually happening, because lots of people would pick up on it, and I can't believe there is excess stock of 27" 4k panels compared to 1440p.