It seems like only yesterday that the race to bring full HD (1,920-by-1,080) resolution to the desktop monitor was in full swing. Now that HD monitors are fairly commonplace we're starting to see Wide Quad-HD or WQHD (2,560 by 1,440) and UHD (3,840 by 2,160) monitors designed for professionals who require the intricate detail that you get as a result of all those tightly packed pixels. The Viewsonic VP2770-LED ($789.99 list) is a pro-grade WQHD monitor that uses a 27-inch IPS panel to deliver very accurate colors and an extremely sharp picture. Video and USB ports are plentiful, and a flexible stand provides a comfortable, ergonomic viewing experience. It has trouble displaying the darkest shades of gray, and it's expensive, but any professional-grade monitor worth its salt is going to carry a premium price.
Design and Features
The VP2770-LED($249.99 at Amazon) has a solid look and feel, thanks to its heavy-duty three-legged stand and thick telescoping mounting arm. The 27-inch IPS panel is framed by thin (0.8-inch) black bezels and is housed in a 2.2-inch thick black cabinet with four VESA mounting holes around back. Also around back are DVI-D, VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort video inputs, an upstream USB 3.0 port, two downstream USB 2.0 ports, and an audio output. Two USB 3.0 ports are positioned on the left side of cabinet.
The flexible stand offers 5.3 inches of height and 20 degrees of tilt adjustments. It also has a 360-degree swivel mechanism and a hinge that lets you pivot the panel 90 degrees so you can switch from landscape to portrait mode.
There are five touch-sensitive buttons on the lower bezel, one of which is the power switch. The 1 button brings up the on-screen menu, and the 2 button is used to select menu choices. The up and down arrow buttons let you scroll through the menus. The VP2770-LED doesn't offer the wealth of picture setting that you get with the NEC MultiSync PA271W($999.00 at Amazon); for example, it doesn't have hue, saturation, and brightness settings for each color, and it doesn't let you adjust white balance and black level. It does have brightness, contrast, and color temperature settings as well as a user setting where you can adjust red, green, and blue color values. It also has two Eco mode settings and three gamma presets.
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ViewSonic bundles dual-link DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, and USB cables in the box, along with a resource CD, a user guide, and a Quick Start guide. The VP2770-LED also come with a three-year warranty covering parts, labor, and backlighting.
Performance
The VP2770-LED delivers accurate colors out of the box. As shown on the CIE chromaticity chart, red, green, and blue colors (represented by the dots) are all within their ideal zones (represented by the boxes), with blue landing dead center. Colors appeared vibrant and uniform on the DisplayMate Color Scales test and skin tones looked natural in my test photos.
Highlight detail was sharp but shadow detail took a hit due to the VP2770-LED's mediocre dark grayscale reproduction. While almost all the shades from the 64-Step Grayscale test gradated evenly from light to dark, the final two dark shades were crushed and appeared black.
The IPS panel provided very good viewing angle performance; I saw no evidence of color shifting and no noticeable loss of luminance. Additionally, small text on the Scaled Fonts test was sharp and legible. The panel's matte anti-glare treatment did a wonderful job while keeping reflections to a minimum.
The VP2770's LED backlighting won't burden your electricity bill as long as you use one of its Eco settings. It consumed 40 watts of power in standard mode but only 30 watts with Eco set to Optimize, which maintained a very bright picture. It used 21 watts in conserve mode but I found this setting to be much too dim. This is significantly better than the CCFL-backlit NEC PA271W, which used 77 watts in Eco mode 1, but pretty much in line with the LED backlit NEC MultiSync EA274WMi($670.06 at Amazon), which used 32 watts with Eco mode enabled.
There's a lot to like about the ViewSonic VP2770-LED. It provides accurate, uniform colors that look awesome from every angle, and its ergonomic stand provides comfortable viewing and portrait mode capabilities. Its multiple video inputs provide connectivity to nearly every video source around, and its four-port USB hub lets you connect to all sorts of peripherals, including thumb drives, keyboards, mice, and hard drives. Its dark grayscale performance was a bit off, however, and it lacks the color management settings found on many professional-grade monitors. If you require very accurate grayscale performance and lots of picture calibration controls, NEC MultiSync PA271W, our Editors' Choice for professional-grade monitors, is a better—albeit more expensive—choice.
The ViewSonic VP2770-LED is a well-appointed 27-inch monitor for professionals who require accurate colors. It's a solid performer, but it has trouble at the dark end of the grayscale, and it's expensive.
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