Dough Spectrum One review: a top-quality 4k monitor

The Dough Spectrum One is arguably the nicest-looking gaming monitor available on the market, because of its tremendous slim steel stand and in any other case clear design, however, it’s not type over substance. It additionally has a 4K decision, 144Hz most refresh price, a surprisingly quick response time, and a few helpful different options, however is it among the finest 4K gaming displays? It received’t be a go-to possibility for esports fans however as an all-rounder show, it’s more likely to have extensive enchantment.

The Dough firm used to go by the title Eve, underneath which it launched a Kickstarter to create community-designed displays, providing a selection of sizes, resolutions, refresh charges, and numerous different choices. This included the choice that also exists to purchase the Spectrum One in both shiny or matte panel coatings and to purchase the show with or with out its stand.

As with so many Kickstarters, the launch didn’t precisely go to plan and this potential greatest gaming monitor candidate arrived late to market with a really excessive worth. Nevertheless, with a reputation change and new pricing, this show has the potential to be a contemporary basic.

Dough Spectrum One specs

Dough Spectrum One specs:

Dough Spectrum One design and construct high quality

The one most defining characteristic of the Dough Spectrum One – apart from the shopping for choices talked about above – is its design. The show panel itself is essentially only a neat black rectangle with a plain flat, matte black rear, no RGB lighting, and really slim bezels; it’s an all-business type of vibe. As such, for those who purchase it with out the stand, there’s nothing too thrilling right here.

Nevertheless, purchase the Spectrum One with its optionally available $99 stand and also you get simply the best-looking monitor stand available on the market, in my humble opinion. It’s fabricated from strong steel with a gunmetal paint end that strikes simply the best steadiness of smartness with out being too boring. Furthermore, it’s extremely slim seen from the entrance, measuring simply 10mm extensive for many of its size. From the aspect, you may see it’s fairly a bit deeper however the general impression remains to be of a supplies science-defying balancing act.

The stand can also be impressively stiff, exhibiting not one of the wobble of some low-cost stands, regardless of additionally incorporating 130mm of peak adjustability, together with pivot, rotation (in each clockwise and anti-clockwise instructions), and tilt adjustment. A gap underneath the place the stand broadens to its height-adjusting part acts as the one cable-tidying addition to the stand. Watch out pivoting the display screen with cables working via this gap, although – they snag simply and may wrench fairly arduous on the facility and video sockets.

The foot of the stand is heavy and thick, and its underside is totally coated with thick rubber, which offers a robust grip in your desk. What’s extra, it’s not too massive (200mm extensive by 225mm deep), so it doesn’t take up a lot desk area, and the area it does occupy remains to be usable because of the flat prime of the foot.

Choose to go with out the stand and there’s a regular 100 x 100mm VESA mount on the again of the panel, and the screws are handily pre-installed, somewhat than being free in a bag and straightforward to lose.

Dough Spectrum One options

The Spectrum One’s headline characteristic is its 27-inch, 144Hz, 4K, IPS LCD panel, which is on the market in both shiny or matte coatings. The selection of coatings means you may both have a end that reduces annoying reflections, however can lead to a barely much less crisp-looking picture with a slight greying impact to darkish colours, or you may settle for reflections, however take pleasure in a barely crisper picture with darkish colours that aren’t so washed out. I speak extra about my expertise with each choices beneath within the picture high quality part.

Dough used to supply extra choices for display screen decision and refresh price combos, however the One is presently solely out there on this 144Hz/4K configuration. The corporate does additionally provides the Spectrum Black OLED vary, although, that are 240Hz 27-inch/1440p and 32-inch/4K displays.

For options apart from the display screen, the Spectrum One isn’t precisely bristling. There aren’t any built-in audio system or gaming extras, resembling a pop–out headphone stand, and, as talked about earlier, there’s no RGB lighting both. Nevertheless, you do get a USB hub with two USB-A 3.1 sockets for peripherals and two USB-C inputs that additionally help video enter.

The USB-C sockets may also ship as much as 100W for machine charging, so you need to use a single cable for energy and video to your laptop computer. Fairly just a few displays provide this characteristic nowadays, however a number of solely present within the area of 30W of energy, so 100W is a major step up, permitting for fairly highly effective laptops to run at full pelt.

Alongside the 2 USB-A ports and one of many USB-C ports on the left fringe of the again of the display screen is a headphone jack, which lets you pipe audio from linked video sources to your headphones. Its sound high quality is obvious and with a full sonic vary – there’s not one of the skinny, crackly sound you get from some low-cost monitor headphone jacks.

For different video inputs, you get one DisplayPort 1.4 connector and two HDMI 2.1 ports, so you may get the total 144Hz 4K expertise of this show on all inputs, and have help for options resembling variable refresh price on consoles.

Again to the display screen, this panel has a 10-bit shade depth capable of produce as much as 96% of the DCI-P3 shade area, which interprets to it conforming to even probably the most demanding HDR shade requirements. It additionally has a DisplayHDR 600 score, which requires the show to hit a peak brightness of 600nits versus the extra normal 400nits, for extra dazzling moments of brightness.

Nevertheless, there’s no stipulation for greater than the 1,000:1 static distinction ratio of non-HDR shows, and positive sufficient, that’s all you get right here. You’ll need an OLED monitor or an LCD monitor with some extent of native dimming to get higher distinction.

Dough Spectrum One picture high quality

Fireplace up the Spectrum one and its mixture of a 27-inch display screen dimension and 4K decision instantly offers you that satisfying pin-sharp view that you just anticipate from a 4K display screen. Its pixel density is 163ppi, which is definitely sufficient to make sure no single pixel is discernible from a typical 2ft viewing distance. As an alternative, you get a lusciously {smooth} picture that brings a lifelike high quality to video and gorgeous readability to video games, in addition to guaranteeing textual content is splendidly smooth-edged and straightforward to learn.

Additionally essential to the widely pleasing feeling of utilizing this show is using Home windows 11, because it handles decision scaling so significantly better than earlier variations of Home windows. Utilizing a 4K display screen beforehand meant that for those who needed to run sure video games at decrease resolutions your complete desktop could be tousled while you exited the sport. Now, although, Home windows 11 handles issues with ease so you may run no matter decision you want, everytime you like, and nonetheless discover your desktop is correctly.

As an IPS LCD panel, viewing angles of each the shiny and matte variations of those screens are glorious, guaranteeing colours stay correct even when seen from excessive angles. Not solely does this permit for a number of folks to comfortably view a display screen, or for a person to step away from a display screen with no ruined picture – maybe to sit down again and watch a film – nevertheless it additionally ensures there’s not one of the shade shimmer and distinction loss that come from some TN and VA panels when transferring your head barely. The principle draw back is IPS glow (the slight graying that may have an effect on elements of the display screen when seen from an angle) nevertheless it’s no worse right here than on every other IPS display screen.

Speaking of the shiny and matte finishes, these each conform to expectations. The shiny panel has only a contact extra depth to its darkish colours, extra punch to its vivid colours, and thus a better perceived distinction. Plus, textual content is only a contact sharper, as there’s no grainy matte coating to barely disperse the sunshine. Nevertheless, reflections are noticeable – for those who’re going to be working in a vivid room it received’t be ideally suited.

In the meantime, the matte end can look only a contact greyer, and fewer punchy, and there’s only a slight loss in readability on advantageous particulars in comparison with the shiny end. Nevertheless, reflections are all however nonexistent. In brief, the matte model is healthier for work – particularly in brighter environments – and the shiny model is healthier for gaming and video. I discovered myself preferring the shiny possibility, although I wouldn’t pay the additional $100 it prices to get it.

Whichever display screen end you select, the general picture high quality right here is superb, with that prolonged 96% DCI-P3 shade vary (96.9% in our exams) making for vivid and punchy colours, however with none of the overly lurid, virtually luminous colours you get on some prolonged shade vary shows. You can too change the show to solely run within the sRGB shade vary (about 65% DCI-P3) if obligatory.

Distinction can also be good, if unexceptional for an IPS panel. We measured a degree of 1,034:1 in our exams, which is in the midst of the 700-1,200:1 distinction you’ll typically get on a show of this sort. That’s nicely beneath the three,000-5,000:1 some VA panels can provide, not to mention the ten,000:1 of OLED shows, however VA panels have their compromises and OLEDs are costly!

Though to my eye this show appeared to have an correct steadiness of colours, with white backgrounds trying like true white, in our exams the show recorded a shade temperature of seven,087K, which is a long way from the best temperature of 6,500K. Nevertheless, this was simple sufficient to steadiness out with the assistance of a colorimeter, and would solely be a priority for skilled picture enhancing – it wasn’t far sufficient off to have an effect on my enjoyment of the display screen or use of it for enhancing the photographs on this assessment, as an illustration.

Dough Spectrum One gaming efficiency

In all honesty, I wasn’t anticipating such an incredible efficiency from this show when it got here to gaming. Certain, its 144Hz refresh price and claimed 1ms gray-to-gray response time means it was all the time more likely to be loads {smooth} sufficient for all however esports titles, however to my amazement, this panel was surprisingly good even for aggressive shooters.

The crux of that good efficiency is a surprisingly quick response time. Even with overdrive utterly turned off, this show nonetheless delivers a mean response time of 5.61ms. Crank overdrive to excessive and that drops to 4.48ms with no significant rise in shade overshoot – that bizarre glowing path impact you get on some displays. You possibly can be taught extra about response time and its results in our information to LCD displays.

What’s extra, you may even fine-tune the overdrive your self by switching to guide mode. I turned this characteristic on, then set overdrive to 50/100, and the response time dropped to only 3.28ms – plus, whereas overshoot turned noticeable, it wasn’t terrible.

All that signifies that with a refresh price of 144Hz, this monitor comfortably delivers a response time that’s quick sufficient to make sure it hardly ever reveals any of the image-blurring, ghostly trails which can be the tell-tale signal – and big distraction – of a gradual response time (as a result of its common response time is lower than its body time of 1/144Hz = 6.9ms). For comparability, the Dell G2524H has a 280Hz refresh price (for a 3.5ms body time) however at greatest has a 7.5ms response time so it suffers terribly with apparent ghosting.

So, whereas the Spectrum One isn’t the final phrase in esports displays – you’ll need to step as much as 240Hz or 360Hz panels (and past) for that – it will probably greater than ship the products for all different gaming situations.

Dough Spectrum One worth

Value: Anticipate to pay $649 (matte) or $749 (shiny) and $99 for the stand.

Dough Spectrum One assessment conclusion

The Dough Spectrum One is a implausible gaming monitor that will have been an absolute revelation at its present worth a 12 months or two in the past when it was initially slated to be launched. Even with a current $500 drop in worth, although, it’s nonetheless an costly show. There are many 4K/144Hz displays out there with a stand for underneath $500. So, to should pay $748 for the equal spec here’s a powerful promote.

That mentioned, this show genuinely is better-looking and with superior efficiency than most cheaper rivals. Mixed with its gorgeous stand design, this earns it a spot on our greatest gaming monitor listing simply as a premium fashionable possibility for many who are completely satisfied to spend the additional for the design.

For extra gaming monitor suggestions, try our greatest gaming monitor information.