dreamcolor vs nondreamcolor lcd panel free sample

Added to the mix of choices is a new generation of mobile workstations that are remarkably portable. They’ve been able to shave off the girth and pounds without seriously compromising performance or battery life. Following that trend to its logical conclusion, HP is now shipping the first quad-core mobile workstation that qualifies as a thin-and-light Ultrabook. It’s the HP ZBook Studio G3, and one of the soon-to-be-available configuration options is a 4K UHD DreamColor display.

The weight of the ZBook Studio will vary according to the components you choose. For example, the DreamColor UHD display weighs 345 grams versus 360 grams for the non-touch HD display. However, the variation in component weight isn’t likely to amount to a significant difference. The well-equipped configuration that HP supplied for this review weighed in at 4.7 pounds versus the 4.4-pound starting weight.

In May or June, a fourth display option will be available. It’s a DreamColor version of the UHD (3840×2160) UWVA IPS screen. Both of the 4K UHD display options support 100% of the Adobe RGB color gamut. The DreamColor version is color-calibrated at the factory. and it includes the DreamColor Assistant software, which lets you adjust the color space for individual applications. The DreamColor Assistant software also facilitates user color calibration.

Because it wasn’t mentioned in the specifications, I asked HP how much of the DCI-P3 color gamut will be covered by the ZBook Studio’s 4K DreamColor display. The answer I got back was that — when it ships in May or June — they’ll be able to calibrate the screen as it leaves the factory to 92 percent of the DCI-P3 colors. That’s quite a bit less than the 98.8 percent of DCI-P3 coverage with the HP DreamColor Z27x monitor, but then this is a portable 4K screen that can run on batteries. with a mobile workstation attached.

All four 15.6-inch screen options allow for viewing angles up to 85 percent in each direction (left, right, up, and down). That should give you ample flexibility for using the ZBook Studio for ad hoc presentations. The two HD and non-DreamColor UHD displays have a typical brightness rating of 300 nits, while the DreamColor UHD display is rated somewhat higher at 340 nits. There’s a significant difference in the contrast range among the four display options. If you go with either of the HD displays, the contrast range will typically be 600:1. The non-DreamColor UHD will typically be 400:1. And the DreamColor UHD will typically be 1000:1. All four are LED-backlit.

And all four screens have a matte finish to reduce glare, which is pretty much essential for use on an airplane and other fixed-position environments. The non-DreamColor UHD display on the review unit was reasonably bright. In direct sunlight, it did tend to wash out some, though it held up better than the screens that I’ve seen on other mobile workstations.

The review unit included the full 32 GB complement of DDR4 system RAM, the NVIDIA Quadro M1000M graphics chipset (with 4 GB of dedicated of GDDR5), a 512 GB Samsung NVMe PCIe SSD, and the non-DreamColor UHD (3840×2160) screen.

You could argue that a 15.6-inch UHD screen, even if it meets the DreamColor standards for color and contrast, is too small for judging critical detail in 4K content. That may depend on how you plan to use your mobile workstation and how crucial your judgements would need to be when you’re away from your desktop workstation and full-size monitor.