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Phoenix 26" Monitor
DJO_Maverick:
--- Quote from: javeryh on June 27, 2023, 09:35:44 am ---How much was it?
--- End quote ---
$299.99, plus $20 domestic shipping. They won't ship outside the US presently.
They've restocked another 250 this weekend, there are still some left. First wave has been shipped, but mine is still in transit...
DJO_Maverick:
So I got mine a few days ago and am still trying to put it through paces and iron out some details before committing to a final review, but some initial observations:
* While it is not recognized as truly VRR by the drivers, it does actually display any refresh rate I've elected to throw at it so far between 54hz and as high as 75hz, and appears to be syncing fine. Definitely plays nice with Groovymame LCD_Range.
* It almost perfectly fills the void of the 27" CRT I blew up. I had to throw together a homemade bracket and will need to shrink the bezel slightly, but it still does a great job fully filling the space
* It looks nice, picture is pretty vibrant, and viewing angles are excellent.
* Biggest ambiguity and complaint at the moment is what its native resolution actually is. The printed documentation in the box is wrong and applies to old prior prototype. The listing doesn't actually state one either, just that they've tested it up to 1600x1200. Their social media person is very responsive and is getting a definitive answer for me, but we'll see. The resolutions it reports as native are transparently wrong. It appears to use a generic Chinese control board by the same manufacturer that made the generic board I use for a LCD in my pincab, which has mislabeled buttons, and appears to want to believe it's attached to a 5:4 or 16:9 screen (the two native resolutions it reports are 720p and 1280x1024), but those are clearly stretched and wrong. For the time being, I'm running it at 1600x1200 and it looks good, but doesn't seem pixel-perfect (I've fiddled considerably and can't identify it yet). An issue, however, is it does not support that res out of the box... I had to add it as a custom resolution.
More info and pics to follow, whenever I iron out that resolution. I'd still already recommend it for someone trying to replace a 27" though at this point... the panel seems good enough and there's nothing else out there that fits that gap as well, and the apparent free-syncing is great.
lilshawn:
--- Quote from: DJO_Maverick on July 18, 2023, 11:47:05 pm ---It appears to use a generic Chinese control board by the same manufacturer that made the generic board I use for a LCD in my pincab, which has mislabeled buttons, and appears to want to believe it's attached to a 5:4 or 16:9 screen (the two native resolutions it reports are 720p and 1280x1024), but those are clearly stretched and wrong.
--- End quote ---
in that case, it probably does... and it couldn't hurt to grab a couple different cheap Chinese LVDS boards and try them out on that panel. perhaps another one would operate better and/or support more resolution scales.
harri:
--- Quote from: lilshawn on July 19, 2023, 12:58:05 am ---and it couldn't hurt to grab a couple different cheap Chinese LVDS boards and try them out on that panel. perhaps another one would operate better and/or support more resolution scales.
--- End quote ---
Just thinking out loud, how easy it would be to get this monitor to support the 15KHz signal Amiga outputs.
DJO_Maverick:
So I've been holding off for well over a week to give a candid assessment of this hardware, because I was waiting to hear something back from the Unico folks to address some of my most glaring concerns. I've been going back and forth with them for over a week now and still have no answer of any kind on that problem, so here is where I'm at so far.
First: Anyone anticipating running HLSL for a CRT simulation on this one with pixel-perfect accuracy will want to hold off until some of these questions are adequately answered. It pains me to say that, because I was excited about this and supporting it, but I think the ball's in their court to answer the issues now.
The Good
* The Biggy (to me): while it doesn't support Freesync/Gsync, it does appear to absolutely sync to any refresh rate I've thrown at it, from 50-75hz.
* It has a sturdy enclosure and mounting frame of good quality
* It does an excellent job of filling the space of a 27" CRT; with a stated purpose of being a drop in replacement for that, it's pretty darn close. I ended up quickly fashioning something to screw it down to in my cab in front of the original brackets out of 1" aluminum angles. While it loses about ~1" of diagonal screen size, it's close enough; closer than anything else on the market.
* The screen, itself, is physically 4:3... again, unlike anything close on the market... but, that's not without issues (see below).
* It does have excellent viewing angles. I can't contort myself to a position in-cab where it washes out (honestly didn't notice it when it was being tested out of the cab, either).
* Contrast seems pretty good for what it is, though I can't say for sure whether it meets the stated specs in that regard. Not qualified to measure that.
* Color and brightness are good, to my eye
* It looks fairly good with HLSL, but not great at the moment, because...
The Bad
* The native resolution of the panel is completely unknown at this point, and Unico has still not answered this pretty straightforward question. You can throw just about any arbitrary resolution you want at it... I've mostly used 1600x1200 as that's what they stated as the res, though have thrown 1920x1440 at it for giggles too, and everything down the line... and I've yet to find a resolution that is free from scaling artifacts when looking at a grid pattern in ArcadeOSD (or uneven scanlines in HLSL). I've hazarded a guess that it might actually be as low as 1024x768, but it does APPEAR to resolve more detail with a slot/aperture mask at 1600x1200... and it's still uneven stretching even at 768p. It's subtle, but it's there.
* It does not support high resolutions out of the box. There is no driver software I've seen, and Windows wants to hold it to a recommended 1024x768 out of the box (or, interestingly, widescreen resolutions). There are various contradictory resolutions reported in ArcadeOSD as the native resolution, but all of them have obvious scaling as well. So, expect to add a custom resolution to get that 1600x1200 that's stated on the site; it's not supported out of the box.
* It does not appear that the LCD control board matches the panel. The controller appears designed for a widescreen display, maybe even 16:10. This can be demonstrated by outputting a 4:3 signal (such as 1600x1200, 1280x960, 1024x768, etc) to the monitor via DSUB and then attempting to adjust the monitor's onboard 'aspect ratio' setting. Setting it to anything other than Auto causes issues. If set to 4:3, an actual 4:3 signal is very squashed and significantly pillar-boxed, despite the panel itself being 4:3. If set to 16:9, the 4:3 signal is LESS squashed, but STILL pillar-boxed. This seems to suggest that the monitor controller is stretching everything to 16:10 or some other wider proportion internally, prior to displaying it.
* There appears to be no way that I can find to disable the scaler on the monitor, and without knowing what target resolution it wants... well... it's currently making it impossible to get pixel perfect or prevent moire effect on scanlines. My growing concern is, what if there is a mis-match between the physical native resolution of the panel, and the believed native resolution of the controller? The inability to get an answer on something as elementary as what the native resolution of the monitor is, has me increasingly concerned.
* It's TFT, not IPS, just so you know. There's also no form of local backlighting, so there's definitely edge glow.
* Mine appears to have shipped with two dead pixels. No word back from them yet whether they will warranty it or what their dead pixel policy is.
1600x1200 set with HLSL on
Ditto
Ditto, Title Screen; Scanline moire very obvious here, with Groovy grabbing an integer scale
Same with HLSL off
One more quick shot with HLSL off (not the greatest reference screen, sorry)
Will certainly report back if they ever report about the resolution/scaling concern.
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