Asus PA246Q ProArt Professional monitor – Made for photographers
As a photographer you need to be able to really get the most out of your images, you need a color accurate monitor. You usually have to pay a lot of money to get a good monitor that’s factory calibrated and uses a IPS panel, a panel type that is better at showing correct colors than the more common (and cheaper) TN panels. But there are some reasonably priced monitors. One of them is the Asus PA246Q ProArt monitor. It’s factory calibrated and even ships with a printout of the calibration result from the factory. You can set the monitor to sRGB or Adobe RGB 1998 color space directly on the front controls of the monitor. It’s also has fairly high resolution with 24″ size 1920×1200 pixels.
After using my Spyder Color calibrator there wasn’t that much of a difference between the built-in calibration and the Spyder created one, but calibrating the monitor is always a good thing to do.
The monitor is thick, so you need ample of desk space to accommodate it, but the monitor stand is sturdy and there is a lot of adjustments available including height. Very handy.
When comparing the Asus PA246Q monitor to the monitor on my Macbook Pro mid 2010, you really see the difference in image quality. I wouldn’t edit images using Lightroom or Photoshop on the Macbook anymore. You get spoiled fast when seeing the difference you get from a good monitor.
There is a built-in USB hub and connectors for HDMI, D-Sub, DisplayPort and DVI-D. It also includes all the cables, except for the mini-DisplayPort cable for my Mac, which is a nice touch. There is an audio-in port but the build in amplifier has way to low gain to be usable. It’s essentially useless. But for me that’s not a problem. I bought the monitor for it’s image quality.
When buying a monitor, one thing to look out for are dead pixels. A dead pixel in the middle of the screen can really be annoying when doing editing. Different manufacturer has a minimum of dead pixels the monitor has to have for a replacement. Mine has one dead pixel fairly low on the screen, so I can live with that.
There’s a built in 7-1 card reader, but considering that the monitor is aimed for the professional market, the absence of CF-card capability seems a bit stupid.
Would I recommend this monitor? Yes, even though there are some problems, the price and image quality makes up for the faults.
Here’s the manufactures description:
The Most User-friendly P-IPS ProArt Series Professional Monitor
P-IPS panel with 98% Adobe RGB coverage and 178° wide viewing angle
QuickFit Function instantly boost design efficiency by providing real-size document, photo, and grid on screen
Built-in USB hubs and 7-in-1 card reader for instant connection
- Panel Size: Wide Screen 24.1″(61.13cm) 16:10
- Color Saturation : 98%(Adobe RGB), 100%(sRGB), 102%(NTSC
- Panel Type : P-IPS
- Resolution : 1920×1200
- Display Colors : 1073.7M (10bit)
So here is my likes and dislikes about this monitor:
Good
- Factory color calibrated.
- Great image quality
- Able to display 98% of the Adobe RGB color space.
Bad
- Built-in audio interface has too low gain, making it practically useless.
- No CF card support in card reader.
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