Instrument 08 ยท display quality
Monitor test
Four diagnostic screens and the pure colors. Advance with a click; judge with the notes below.
Fullscreen screens: gray gradient (banding), checkerboard (sharpness), 50% gray (uniformity), then pure colors. Click or press any key to advance; Esc exits.
Test the rest of your setup
How to read each screen
- Gradient: should ramp smoothly black to white. Visible vertical bands mean the panel or its signal path is crushing gradations; try switching the cable or forcing 10-bit/full-range output before blaming the panel.
- Checkerboard: should read as an even fine gray shimmer at native resolution. Moire patterns or soft patches mean the display is not running at native resolution or scaling is on: fix that in display settings before judging sharpness.
- 50% gray: the uniformity torture test. Brighter clouds near edges are backlight bleed, common on budget IPS; whether it bothers you in real content is the honest standard.
- Pure colors: tinted patches on white or uneven color fields expose aging backlights and panel defects; also a second chance to catch stuck pixels.
Fixes worth trying before a return
- Confirm native resolution and 100% scaling while testing.
- Swap the cable: a surprising share of banding and speckle is a marginal cable, not the panel.
- Let a new monitor warm up thirty minutes before final judgment; uniformity shifts as the backlight settles.