Aero 15x-v8 Pantone display calibration just marketing?

So I've been playing with a 15x-v8 with an UHD display for a day. Does anyone know if there is a way to load the display calibration to the hardware? SmartManager seems to simply activate the Pantone profile in Windows color management settings, which means the profile only works with color managed apps.

With all the marketing talk about Pantone certified displays one would expect the calibration to be useful throughout all software. It looks like all we got instead is an ICC profile for use with color managed applications (photoshop, browsers, the usual suspects). Games are painfully oversaturated as with any other wide gamut display, as they bypass OS color management. Similarly, video is unwatchable. Even the Windows desktop (icons, wallpapers, etc) is painfully oversaturated, cause Windows doesn't color manage its desktop.

I've read multiple reviews, which include phrases like "best laptop for video editing" (except, pretty much all pro video editing software isn't color managed, it expects users to have hardware calibrated displays), and Gigabyte's own website says "Each display on the laptop is fully calibrated through a professional calibration solution from X-Rite™ Pantone®. Gamers can now enjoy every gaming moment and also take advantage of the accurate color contrasts in order to distinguish between enemies from the environment" (except, games aren't color managed, so they don't use the ICC profiles).

Am I missing something?

 

In gaming you need to change the color profile to the other except Pantone as that profile only works on Intel GPU and not Nvidia GPU afaik and cmiiw. This is more on Windows 10 issue (and previous Windows version) with Colour profile and so far no solution given by Microsoft, I currently go to Native profile as it is seems the best for game. You may also try color compensation in Nvidia display setting, see if it affect the game.


p.s This issue also happen in Windows 7 and my Dell xps 15 LX502 (I use X-Rite calibrator)

 

"Native" means "treat the display as if it is sRGB compliant" (that is, do nothing), SmartManager simply sets the default sRGB ICC profile, that comes with Windows. The result is that color managed software thinks you have an sRGB display, which is a disaster when the display is actually wide gamut. For the FHD version (with approx. sRGB gamut) it would be ok.

 

Ah ok, actually you can just grab the calibration file inside smartmanager and implement it manually or grab from system folder and then install it as system wide gamut, cmiiw. (The tutorial is available at this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...5-w-x-v7-v8-common-problems-solutions.816143/ under reinstall procedure)

 

Thanks, but this won't work for software that doesn't respect ICC profiles (which includes games). For a wide gamut display to map down to a smaller gamut like sRGB (which is what games expect your display is), you need either a 3d LUT, or a matrix transform (+ 1d LUTs), or both. The best you can get from the OS is setting gamma tables into the GPU. This won't help for wide gamut displays. What is necessary is a firmware / hardware level support which stands at the display level. This is how hardware calibration works in the first place: it simply bypasses the OS and software calibration layer by presenting the OS with a calibrated display.

Currently, wide gamut displays only make sense if you print photos and do color proofing. HDR is in its infancy, and its wide gamut aspect in particular is unused by content. So for everything else, wide gamut displays are a pain in the ass (when there is no hardware calibration). So the question stands: what's the point of touting accurate colors and sticking "Pantone certified" badges on the laptop, when you only get these colors in a handful of apps, and everything else is an oversaturated mess?