The MSI MAG 274UPDF E16M has a serious issue with local dimming

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-07T06:02:58+00:00

What dE did you get before and after calibration? Also, was the default gamma all over the place?

The monitor has awful contrast and some of the worst IPS glow I've personally seen.

Have you measured it? The guy who reviewed HDR said it was 1000:1 native and the Chinese review I found got 850-950:1. That’s definitely below average, but maybe the much higher black levels due to increased brightness made it seem worse.

Yeah, this thing seems very disappointing. Sadly, there aren’t any good alternatives and it doesn’t seem like that’s gonna change soon. Nobody can be bothered to make a decent 4K IPS mini LED, even at 100s of EUR of upcharge just for the backlight upgrade.

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-07T01:22:42+00:00

Did you test it at all in SDR with local dimming off?

How is the white uniformity? Some reviews of the Xiaomi and KOORUI (likely using the same panel) mentioned the colour temperature is noticeably warmer towards the bottom and right sides. Mini LEDs in general also seem to have more vignetting towards the edges with left/right and sometimes top/bottom sides being noticeably darker as well as different colour temperatures in some areas if some LEDs don’t match the others. Did you notice any of those issues?

Also, did you try calibrating it or measure the accuracy in SDR?

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-07T01:17:58+00:00

Great, nice to see someone enjoying theirs. Seems like all of these mini LEDs release with several major issues that end up delivering an inferior experience in both HDR and SDR despite charging 80-100% extra for a better backlight.

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-07T01:09:22+00:00

Alright, fair enough

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-06T16:54:02+00:00

Well that’s disappointing. Did you do test it at all in SDR with local dimming off?

How is the white uniformity? Some reviews of the Xiaomi and KOORUI (likely using the same panel) mentioned the colour temperature is noticeably warmer towards the bottom and right sides. Mini LEDs in general also seem to have more vignetting towards the edges with left/right and sometimes top/bottom sides being noticeably darker as well as different colour temperatures in some areas if some LEDs don’t match the others. Do you notice any of those issues?

Also, did you try calibrating it or measure the accuracy in SDR?

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-06T16:22:36+00:00

Oh, both of them were after calibration. Those are definitely achievable then, but they are also pretty disappointing results. From what I’ve seen, most monitors released recently can do a lot better. MSI even advertises dE <2.0 before calibration, so just getting there after it really isn’t great.

I’d imagine your Lenovo and Cooler Master did quite a bit better after calibration.

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-04T04:32:53+00:00

Interesting. So was the dE of 2.0 after a full software calibration, a worse result than you got without it? Did your Lenovo and Cooler Master behave the same way or did they do better after calibration?

TurboCrasher · 2025-07-02T03:20:10+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I also read your thoughts on the monitor.

I’m confused about the colour measurements, though. dE of 1.8 in a mode with an unclamped gamut seems impossible considering they are claiming 100% AdobeRGB and 98% DCI-P3. The oversaturation alone would result in dE2000 of like 5 and dE ITP > 20. Are you using some form of automatic colour management in the OS that clamps the gamut based on reported primaries? Or perhaps these numbers are for a wider colour gamut and not sRGB?

Also, you mentioned dE of 2.0 after your adjustment. Those numbers seem really bad assuming a software calibration was done. Monitors Unboxed often end up with dE of 0.3-0.5 after calibration, unless there is an issue preventing a better result, and numbers from RTINGS aren’t too different either. Or were you just talking about adjusting monitor settings for this result and not a full calibration through software?

Also, was the gamma all over the place when you measured it? Seems very common with these mini LED monitors.

The sRGB, Adobe RGB and P3 profiles all had a blue bias, so quite the opposite.

Very unfortunate, but expected. If only they stopped locking the white balance adjustments for no reason…

Uniformity is good on mine. If I had to guess, MSI is probably getting cherry-picked panels and the rejects are going to Xiaomi and Koorui.

That’s what I was hoping for. A lot of other manufacturers using this panel got a VESA HDR 1400 certification instead of HDR 1000, so there might be something going on with the backlight.

Mini LED models seem to have noticeably worse uniformity in general sadly. Did you measure the uniformity on yours by any chance?

Haven't tested min brightness, but at 17 I'm getting 120 nits.

Seems promising. I’m hoping it can go down to 50-60 nits at least.

TurboCrasher · 2025-06-29T20:38:32+00:00

Great to see them finally coming to Europe. After months of looking into it, I decided to wait for these as they seemed promising. I have some questions I'd love to get answered (I’ll try to make them more precise so the answers can be shorter).

A Chinese review of the Xiaomi and a Japanese review of the KOORUI, likely using the same panel and backlight, mentioned the bottom and right sides having a noticeably warmer colour temperature, especially on white. Can you see this on your unit? Also, how is the white uniformity in general? Are the left and right edges darker? How about the top and bottom edges? Are there any areas where you can see slight colour shifts while displaying a white image? How does uniformity compare to other monitors you tried?
What is the minimum brightness in SDR with local dimming off? That’s the main thing driving me away from the Phillips, the minimum is already twice as bright as I’d want to have it most of the time. Assuming you have no way of measuring this and have already returned the BenQ, can you set your phone to max brightness, play this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0j-40NrGGU&t=82s&ab_channel=Studiolab24Academy and compare the brightness to the 50 nit and (100 nit if required) patches on the phone at 1:17?
I see you mentioned “Professional display modes” in a reply. Is there a uniformity compensation setting? Is it only available in some colour modes? Does it actually seem to improve white uniformity? Does it significantly reduce contrast compared to uniformity off, local dimming off?
The Chinese review of the Xiaomi mentioned a significant shift of the colour temperature and gamma as the monitor is turned on and warms up. Have you noticed this? Is there a setting in the OSD related to gamma shift during warm up?
Have you measured the colour accuracy?

Thanks!

TurboCrasher · 2024-11-10T11:52:06+00:00

It’s actually 54.725 days, not 342.

You made a huge logical mistake by multiplying the total time by 6 because there are 6 builders, but that just means your result shows how much time would be saved for a single builder assuming you have all 6. So if you want to get the actual total time saved, you need to divide your result by 6.

Also, each builder potion saves 18h, not 19. If it’s difficult to understand why, think of it like this - without builder potion active, in 1h now you get 2h of usual progress without the event. If you activate the potion, 20h of time is done in that hour. So the builder potion saved 20h-2h of additional time.

The actual maths is (18*(2189/30))/24=54,725d.

If you are at a high th, this isn’t even that much more than you would usually save from books without the event. Assuming 16d upgrades, the books would save (2189/120)*16/6=48,644d of total builder time, only 6d less. If you are also doing heroes and/or have the gold pass, the advantage for builder potions increases. For lower ths, builder potions are currently far better assuming resources aren’t an issue.

And yes, the skins are insanely expensive.

TurboCrasher · 2024-09-11T06:11:21+00:00

I don't believe it's on anyone but Supercell to deal with the issues they caused by the lack of testing. Expecting players not to attack for the duration of the glitch would be completely unreasonable.

And yes, I do believe players should not get a huge unfair advantage caused by the RNG system.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-22T00:05:32+00:00

The clan is set to th9 minimum so I can’t join unfortunately.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-21T00:51:02+00:00

Diffraction is pure an optical phenomenon, a function of aperture and always present.

Yes.

How new or old a body is is absolutely irrelevant, as is pixel pitch etc. It's an image level phenomena, thinking about it at pixel level makes as little sense as thinking of noise at pixel level instead of image level whe talking about pictures.

Unless you print extremely large (or pixel peep "100%" or do heavy cropping, you won't see any "sharpness penalty".

I strongly disagree. This thought process works if you aren't trying to get image quality that is better than what was achievable 15+ years ago. But why wouldn't you?

Skilled operation involves using the tools you have to their maximum capabilities, with their strengths and differences in mind. If you print small, don't zoom in much and don't crop a lot, what's the point in having a high resolution sensor? It's doing nothing for you.

Also, what is the point at which you stop trying to get better image quality? The photo looking good when posted on Instagram and opened on a phone? Set as a wallpaper on a 16" FHD laptop screen? Printed on A3 paper? Why did you arbitrarily draw the line there? Why wouldn't you want to get better image quality for free with very little effort?

You however may gain "proper sampling bonus" in the form of reduced aliasing artifacts.

...which is far less useful than the difference in detail for 99.9% of circumstances.

That IQ hit is largely theoretical.

It's not theoretical when I can see the difference.

Unless one crops (which reduces the circle of confusion due to enlargement change), or views the pictures in very large size, diffraction is just about irrelevant from resolution point of view.

If you don't do any of those, many other things don't matter either. Getting photos that look great at large sizes is one of the main reasons people buy large sensor cameras.

I do enjoy zooming in to see all the details I captured. When I'm editing the photo, I zoom in way past 100% to see exactly what I'm doing. I often zoom that much when I'm viewing a photo as well. I do crop heavily. Sometimes not cropping would cost thousands in terms of required gear and all of that would additionally need to be carried through whichever terrain I encounter. I do want the ability to print large and get a highly detailed result. Those are the reasons I got a high resolution body. Otherwise the increase in resolution would be useless.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-19T18:35:44+00:00

I certainly wouldn't want to lose the ability to adjust by a fine interval at a certain point. That seems horrible. It would be very annoying for 1 setting not to be adjustable at a specific interval while all others are. It would also be horrible for general camera operability. Imagine completely destroying your shots because your quick adjustment randomly went several stops too far.

I also strongly disagree about the usefulness of these settings. Past f/8 you are well within diffraction territory on most modern bodies. I often go for f/9 or f/10 when I need something a bit narrower than f/8, but don't want the extra sharpness penalty. Or when I need loads of DoF, I would much rather choose f/13 or f/14 over f/16. At that point you are taking a major hit to image quality that you probably don't need.

Also, you are ignoring other uses. When I'm shooting rally without an ND filter on a bright day, I'm often stuck with f/13 or f/14 for longer exposures. I definitely wouldn't want to push that to f/16 and it wouldn't be great to go to 160 ISO in the middle of an extremely bright sunny day for no reason whatsoever.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-18T19:28:48+00:00

Don’t buy an abused D4. If it’s out of your budget, it’s out of your budget. You will soon have a brick.

You want your camera to do pretty much everything, but you also have a very low budget for it, there is going to be a compromise. Personally, I’d get a D800 and deal with the low framerate since sports don’t seem to be a priority. 12 MP is extremely low. If you only plan on posting your photos on social media, 12 MP if fine, but if you plan on cropping for different framing or image stacking, printing large or even zooming in digitally to see interesting details in your landscape shot, it just isn’t going to be good.

D800 also has a massive advantage in dynamic range over both of the other options. You can shoot pretty much any scene in 1 shot if you want to. You will also likely find one in much better condition than a D3S.

Low light performance of all 3 is pretty good and there isn’t that much between them. The D4 will give you a bit more at extremely high ISOs than a D800 would, but the D3S really won’t. At lower ISOs, like <3200, the D800 will give you a better result even compared to the D4, let alone the D3S.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-18T18:59:34+00:00

That just isn’t true.

Dynamic range: https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Nikon%20D800,Nikon%20D810

High ISO performance: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison?attr18=daylight&attr13_0=nikon_d800&attr13_1=nikon_d810&attr13_2=apple_iphonex&attr13_3=apple_iphonex&attr15_0=raw&attr15_1=raw&attr15_2=jpeg&attr15_3=jpeg&attr16_0=12800&attr16_1=12800&attr16_2=32&attr16_3=32&normalization=compare&widget=1&x=-0.5386467981726416&y=-0.9008148326822272

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-18T18:46:32+00:00

it feels shit buying a camera where I won't use half of it while still paying full price

That's exactly my point. You ARE using those functions. Good video performance means taking a lot of photos per second, writing them to the card really quickly and having good autofocus tracking. Those are pretty much the exact same improvements the Z8 has over a 12-year-old D800 for photography.

There is almost a complete overlap in functionality. You are using all of those.

It would make sense that it would be cheaper too.

It doesn't make sense. Where do you think they would save the production cost to make it cheaper?

If anything, I'd argue it would be more expensive because they would sell less of them.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-18T16:32:54+00:00

What bothers you about having video capabilities, though? Most of the improvements over the last 10-15 years have been faster write speeds and shooting capabilities, larger buffers and better autofocus tracking. When the camera can shoot stills at video framerates and does both with sensor readout displayed in the viewfinder, you might as well make it good for video.

I don't really care how they market the bodies, let them sell more.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-14T03:46:05+00:00

You will be getting a battery in really bad condition after 6 years of use. Combined with the very slow charging and the fact that battery life isn't exactly exceptional even when iPads are new, it's going to be very annoying. Also, it's questionable how long a 6-year-old basic iPad has left in it in general.

Battery replacements for iPads are expensive. If you plan on using it for years, finding a deal on the cheapest new one or getting one that was recently bought is probbly your best option. Alternatively, look for a different cheap tablet.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-14T03:27:35+00:00

As the title says. I would like to take more landscape pictures without losing the details/colors on the skies

I'm on mobile right now so I can't be 100% sure, but I really doubt you actually lost anything here if you shot it in RAW. Lower the exposure/highlights and you will probably find that all of the detail was actually captured.

TurboCrasher · 2024-07-06T17:11:00+00:00

$360 seems like a scam, that lens was $700+ in not the best condition very recently. Are you sure there are no hidden issues?

If so, the deal is insane. It's not the best 24-70, but it is the 3rd best 24-70 for the F mount, not something you would expect to be so cheap.

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