Out Of Box LCD Performance: Color Accuracy And Gamut
We are using a Spectracal-certified X-Rite i1Pro, along with CalMan, to report color gamut and color accuracy. For those unfamiliar with the terms, color gamut refers to the range of colors that a display can produce, and color accuracy refers to the display's ability to output the color requested by the GPU. Typically, professionals represent these values by showing a gamut and a delta E value, which is a mathematical representation of how far the display's output is from the original source. The higher the delta E value, the more inaccurate the color representation. An uncalibrated delta E is largely a worthless number. Delta E is dependent on the black and white luminance levels, contrast ratio, color temperature, and target gamma.
Suppose there are two displays: one has an uncalibrated delta E value of 3.0, and the other, 2.1. It is hard to make a comparison without first calibrating the color space. Monitor calibration is to display quality what quality settings are to game benchmarks. By calibrating displays, we are able to normalize the settings and see how one display compares to another.
For this reason, we’re going to provide information in the form of a color gamut map, along with a gamut luminance chart. This will give a better picture of how a display performs both fresh out of the box and once it's calibrated.
Color Gamut and Accuracy
CalMan uses specific targets that are displayed as squares in the gamut xy map. The dots are the actual measured values. Gamut luminance expresses how bright the primary and secondary colors are in relation to the source color requested by the GPU (gray bars are target values).
Gamut CIE XY Map
Gamut Luminance
HP's TouchSmart 310 generates more accurate colors than the ZX4931, but this is mainly because it has a default white point closer to 6500 K. It is still a little weak in magenta production, and it exceeds the reference luminance near the cyan-green border. In comparison, Gateway's ZX4931 has the opposite problem because its 6000 K white point only makes colors worse. It produces higher magenta and red luminance, but it shows a significant amount of weakness near the cyan-green border. As a result, the white point is skewed towards yellow, while blue tones remain largely unaffected.
Neither touchscreen uses a wide-gamut LCD panel, but the gamuts are still substantially better than what you will get out of a budget LCD monitor. Gateway doesn't provide a gamut spec, but our test results confirm HP's 72% gamut claim.
Keep in mind that both of these all-in-one PCs use lower-end integrated GPUs, which means that neither configuration is a great choice for gaming.
