REVIEW: NEC PA-241W & PA-271W LCD Monitors

My PA241W-BK is configured in Landscape mode at 1920x1200 with a hood

Here’s an index of my NEC reviews not covered by this article:

• NEC PA242W Review (replaces the PA241W discussed here)
• NEC PA302W Review 
• NEC PA301W Review (old model replaced by above)
• NEC SoundBar Pro Display Speakers
• NEC SpectraSensor Pro (powered by X-Rite)
• NEC MultiProfiler - A Must for NEC Displays!

In September 2010 one of my most respected photography mentors contacted me and told me that I needed to review the NEC PA-Series displays because he felt they were almost as good as the Eizo ColorEdge CG221 ($5,034 @ B&H on 12/24/2010) for a fraction of the price (I paid $899.95 for My PA241W-BK on 8/3/2010). I liked my Dell 2407WFPb display and thought that there was no need to replace it. It had served me well for several years and I was actually looking forward to the day when I could buy a monitor for a couple hundred bucks!

Every time I talked to my mentor he would rave about this PA-Series monitor which he had added to his own collection, and during my printing series I was really struggling to get soft proofing results that matched what I was seeing in my GTI light box.

I did a little shopping around and some research and found out that this NEC display might be a wise investment, so I finally put down my own cash for the monitor and hood. I had no contacts with NEC (at that point) and purchased it just as you would. Here was my email to my photography club after I got this display:

So I ended up buying this NEC PA series monitor and calibrated it last night - OMG this thing rocks! I feel like I did when I went from my old TV to a nice LED 1080p HDTV. I thought my old Dell was good, but this thing blows it away. I felt like I could reach in and touch stuff in the photo.

I did the monitor hood too which has helped a lot and was built a lot better than I expected. Its felt lined on the inside and has a trap door for the calibration device, so it’s a lot more complex than one would think. I see why it’s $99 now, and given the cost of hoods I think it’s an okay value for what you get - much better than I thought when I threw it in the cart.

No regrets on this one - it’s a great monitor. I had zero noise with it too - can’t hear anything from it. I was glad to see it had USB ports and multiple input ports too. My pro source below told me that NEC engineers said the best results are only possible with the Display Port, and I have to use DVI so that’s a bummer. However, I can’t see how it could be much better - it’s damn good with DVI.

Since I have a MacBook Pro with a Display Port this sent me on a quest to try this display out with a Display Port to see if I could see the “better” results. Eventually this quest ended up with me talking to NEC directly where I got many of my questions (and probably some of yours too) answered. Here’s what I learned:

• The PA241W came out in February and the PA271W has been released since then. The PA271W has a slight edge in pixel density. Both are great displays, and I haven’t been able to observe any practical differences in everyday use between the 24 & 27 (more on that later).
• One REALLY cool feature is that you can do side-by-side of the same input in two windows on one of these displays and display the windows using different picture modes.
  
  Where this is really cool is that I could have one set for the full color gamut and the other set for a sRGB (for web proofing) or a printer paper profile (for soft proofing). This works best when the monitor is in portrait orientation as over and under looks a lot better than side by side. I find this extremely useful because wide color gamut displays show more of the red portion of the color gamut so it is easy to overcompensate for sunburned looking skin only to have the sRGB image for the web look like crap. Alternatively there are also shortcut buttons on the display to just change picture modes for the whole display so you can edit for the web’s sRGB colorspace and return to the wide colorspace when imaging for print.
• This display has built-in KVM functionality so you plug your mouse and keyboard in and when you switch inputs they will go with you to the other computer – this even works between the Mac & PC. Furthermore, you can stick a USB Flash drive in the display and that device will be available for the active computer so you can use it for situations where file transfer between computers isn’t working well (especially on mac/pc or pc/linux scenarios)
• The SpectraView II calibration device that NEC ships (offered below) is the X-Rite i1Display 2 that has been modified to support the wide color gamut display. Other calibration devices will work too and are shown here – page down. The word on the street is that the i1Pro or the ColorMunki are the preferred calibration devices for the best results.
• Calibration typically works on the display card by creating a profile that acts as a mapping table to render the accurate results on the display. Their SpectraView II software is unique in that it actually programs the look up tables in the display itself for what NEC claims offers OS independent calibration (especially useful if you are switching between computers with the same display – you only need to calibrate once)
• The MultiProfiler software on their web site is worth downloading and you can use it to control the Ambient Light Compensation (recommended off), Response Improve (on – esp, if motion video is important), Metamerism correction (optional and personal preference).

In the end I learned that there is a PC-only configuration that can be done to get the improved 10-bit display output which does require a display port video cable using a video card that has yet to be released and a PC driver configuration that is not for the faint of heart. In short, it’s vaporware now so don’t worry about connecting your NEC display via the DVI port at this time.

Should I buy the NEC Calibration Device or Software?

My recommendation is that if you don't have an i1Pro or ColorMunki spectrophotometer, and you don't intend to generate paper profiles then get the NEC bundle with the calibrator as you'll save yourself a lot of headaches. It is included in bundles when ordering (see below) or you can purchase it after the fact here, but even with it you’ll need to purchase the NEC software separately.

If you have one of the X-Rite products then just get the display and buy the SpectraView software from NEC.

I also found this article to be useful in discussions about calibrating this display.

One very cool feature of these displays for calibration is that you can use the MultiProfiler tool to load your paper profiles as input to get display based softproofing which can effectively bring softproofing to Lightroom – which doesn’t exist today. NEC confirms that Photoshop’s soft proofing of paper profiles is superior, but this method works wonders for those looking to bring soft proofing to well color managed applications that don’t currently support it.

How does the PA241W compare to the PA271W?

My PA271W-BK is configured in Portrait mode at 1440x2560

After I got involved with NEC my contact suggested I try out the 27” display to which I replied – I’d love to if you send it, but I can’t afford it. NEC agreed to let me borrow one for a short time which is kinda like your local crack dealer giving free samples for newbies – some things you shouldn’t sample unless you are prepared to make it a part of your life!

My PA241W-BK with my old Dell 2407WFPb on the right
(NOTE: Colors and lighting way off in photo so make no inferences from this shot)

When I got the 27” I ditched my Dell 2407WFPb and put the PA271W-BK in portrait mode as shown above and configured in my control panel below as follows:

My Windows 7 system display layout

In practical use I’ve not seen any negative aspects of the 27” over the 24”, and in fact I use the 27” to write my blog articles as I’m doing now. I absolutely love this 27” display and it is wonderful when viewing Lightroom 3.3’s 2nd display window in Grid mode as the high resolution allows me to see the details I need yet still view a lot of images from the library.

PA231W-BK – The new addition to the family for much less

NEC has added the PA231W to the line up for a much more friendly price at a slight cost in features. This is effectively the budget minded solution at the expense of not being a wide-gamut display (useful for photo editing – critical for soft proofing/printing).

I have not tested this display, so I only mention it for completeness. It should be suitable for sRGB photo editing and proofing for display, not print, output. it is for this reason why I’m perplexed as to why this monitor is part of the PA series as it seems more suited to a different series of displays.

I am of the opinion that it’s not worth replacing your display unless you are moving up to wide gamut so my advice is for the other PA series displays featured in this article.

A word about switching to wide color gamut displays

When you go from a normal display to a wide color gamut display it takes some getting used to because the colors that you can now see (especially in the reds) can throw you when you edit your photos. This is why when I do my final photo edits before sending them to display output (i.e., web, facebook, flickr, etc…) I like to switch my NEC display to sRGB mode to see how it will look. I still edit with the full color gamut turned on which can burn me sometimes for output to web browsers, but the output on properly color managed devices and print is brilliant. I therefore edit for print and then adjust or remove some Photoshop layers to get my display output – in a separate file (or virtual copy in Lightroom). This is a challenge for moving to ANY wide color gamut display, not just these NEC’s.

I also advise that if you are a business and you are doing color critical work that you should only upgrade your displays until you can afford to move all color management displays up to wide color gamut displays to avoid headaches of switching between color spaces and having two people image the same file differently because of what they see on their display.

UPDATE: Comparison to Eizo FlexScan SX2762W

The 2560 x 1440 resolution makes of the FlexScan SX2762W makes it competitive with the PA271W, so its clear that Eizo is targeting this display to NEC PA Series buyers. The SX2762W seems to have a slight benefit in edge to edge performance, and it has the typical Eizo super fast startup & warm up times (which is critical for accurate calibration). I much prefer the PA Series SpectaView calibration software and hardware and the PA series value is unmatched, so if I were buying a 27” display I’d still go for the NEC. With that said, Eizo loyalists will probably favor the SX2762W for its impressive feature list (click here) and the superior edge to edge performance that make Eizo so popular. However, if I were buying a 27”, I’d go for the NEC.

Conclusion

I love these displays! They’ve been rock solid and a joy to use. I did have one glitch in that my display started to blink, but it turns out that it is known issue if you have your PIP (picture-in-picture) display input set to display port (not the default). If your PIP input is set to anything else then you won’t see this problem.

I also missed my speakers attached to my Dell display, but you can buy the NEC Soundbar to work around that problem.

Now that I have used both I’d want to keep the 27 over the 24 as the extra screen real estate is VERY nice to have, but it is also a no comprise high quality display. The 24 is better on paper, but the 27 is just as good to me and my eyes.

I strongly recommend the hood (27” requires a different model) for those displays in landscape mode, but I find the hood useless and annoying in portrait mode. I had zero issues with glare, so the hood recommendation is based on pure color management advice of avoiding light contamination on your photo editing display.

It’s also a must that you get the SpectraView II Software (sold here) if you wish to properly calibrate this display with non NEC calibration devices. I do suggest buying the NEC calibration device if you already don’t own a supported calibration device). UPDATE: Check out this article for NEW calibration devices by X-Rite which support wide gamut displays like these.

These are a great couple of displays that I can’t recommend highly enough. I will warn you though – once you try them you’ll be hooked, so if you don’t have the budget then run away now! :)

Online Ordering Information

PA241W-BK 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor with Wide Color Gamut

• VGA + DVI-D + DisplayPort
• 1920 x 1200
• 1000:1 Contrast Ratio
• 360cd/m² Brightness
• 178° Viewing Angle
• 8ms ray-to-Gray Response Time
• 98.1% Coverage of AdobeRGB Color Space
• Height Adjustment and 90° Pivot

PA241W-BK-SV 24.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor with SpectraView II Color Calibration Solution

• Same as above, plus SpectraViewI I Colorimeter and Software

PA271W-BK 27" Widescreen LCD Computer Display

• · DVI-D + DisplayPort
• · 2560 x 1440
• · 1000:1 Contrast Ratio
• · 300cd/m² Brightness
• · 178°/178° Viewing Angle
• · 7ms Response Time
• 97.1% Adobe RGB
• 3-Port USB 2.0 Hub

PA271W-BK-SV 27" Widescreen LCD Monitor with SpectraView II Color Calibration Solution

• Same as above, plus SpectraView II Colorimeter and Software

NEC PA231W Series

• VGA + DVI-D + DVI-D + DisplayPort
• 1920 x 1080
• 1000:1 Contrast Ratio
• 270cd/m² Brightness
• 178°/178° Viewing Angle
• 8ms Response Time
• 72% NTSC
• 3-Port USB 2.0 Hub

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• NEC PA242W Review (replaces the PA241W discussed here)
• NEC PA302W Review 
• NEC PA301W Review (old model replaced by above)
• NEC SoundBar Pro Display Speakers
• NEC SpectraSensor Pro (powered by X-Rite)
• NEC MultiProfiler - A Must for NEC Displays!
• Choosing The Right Display Calibration Device
• Understanding 10-bit Color by NEC’s Art Marshall

Disclosure

NEC loaned me a PA271W display, a Spectraview II calibration device and the software, but everything else I owned via my own private party purchase. I may get a link if you purchase using the links in this article, so I would appreciate your support for more articles like this if you come back here when making your purchases.

REVIEW: Expert Shield - THE Screen Protector

Expert Shield - THE Screen Protector

I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed with my latest generation of cameras that the LCD’s seem to be more surface scratch prone than their predecessors. While phones these days tend to use Gorilla Glass®, it seems that camera LCD’s still aren’t quite that durable. Either that, or I’m just harder on my gear these days.

Whatever the reason, when I got contacted by Expert Shield about their screen protectors I quickly jumped on the chance to try them out. After several months of use without any issues, I’m not happy to report that I like this product. It hasn’t peeled off like some of the ones that I’ve used on cell phones on the past, and it didn’t degrade the quality of my LCD image. A big reason for this is that this product uses a firm gel that resists warping and peeling, plus it has a glossy finish to match your LCD. The net result, is that if you get it put on without any dust then you’ll not be able to tell it has even been installed.

The Big If

If you’ve ever put one of these types of things on then you know how easy it is to get dust and dust bubbles. My studio is a dust library, so my best first effort resulted in the one dust bubble you see in the photo at the top of this article. My attempt to video an application of another shield while on the carpet failed miserably due to all of the dust down at that level.

Tips for Installing

When they say a dust free environment, they mean it. However, few of us really have that so the best bet is to get up high as dust likes to fall. If you do this and follow the directions carefully you can get pretty good results. If you end up with the spot like I have and it bugs you, then their tip of using tape to clean the surface is a great one. This gets rid of the remaining dust that the included microfiber might miss. If you screw up you can also apply the tape to the shield to clean it and try again.

In the end, diligence and patience will get perfect results. The instructions are well written and helpful even in the case if something doesn’t go perfect with your installation. Here’s also a decent installation video that I found on YouTube from MeAndMyAperture:

The final part of the video makes it seem like there's some discoloration or something on the LCD with the screen protector applied, but I suspect that is video compression artifacts as no such issues existed on my devices during my testing.

Tips for Removal

Once this shield has been applied it feels like it’s become a part of the LCD. This made me very nervous as I was afraid it might damage my LCD if I ever had to remove it. Today, months after I installed it, I was able to remove it by simply getting my finger nail under a corner and lifting. It came off super easy, despite previously feeling like it would never come off. Here’s a video that shows the removal after I already worked the corner loose:

Conclusion

I tried this product with my phone and Canon 5D Mark III and it worked great even after months of use and abuse. It’s available for a wide variety of cameras and other devices for under $11 (at the time of this writing), so I have no reservations about highly recommending it. With no loss of LCD image quality and extra protection it’s a no brainer for this price!

Where to order

Click here to order the Expert Shield - THE Screen Protector at Amazon.

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Things You Need AFTER You Buy Your New Camera - Must Have Photography Accessories
• Hoodman Hood Loupe 3.0 and Cinema Kits
• Rogue Gels (Color Correction Only Version)
• Camera Insurance - Don't leave home without it
• Recommended Camera Bags
• Black Rapid RS-7 & RS-Sport
• BlackRapid SnapR Camera Bag + Sling Strap

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

REVIEW: Eizo ColorEdge CG243W 24” IPS 1.07 billion color LCD Display

*** This display has been replaced by the Eizo CG246-BK ***

The Eizo ColorEdge CG243W is a high quality display that is made in Japan by Eizo employees. It is not outsourced to China like the competition, and built to the highest standards. Eizo is so confident that this differentiation results in a superior build quality that this display comes with a 5-year warranty.

Eizo is so committed to superior quality that each unit is inspected and measured at 25 intersection points to ensure perfect uniformity from edge to edge before it leaves the factory. Here’s the report that came with my evaluation display:

From this report you can quickly see how meticulous they are in their quality control, but read on to realize that there’s so much more when you dive into the details.

Features Deep Dive

In this section I’ll dig into some of the advanced features that make this a fantastic monitor, but I’ll try to break the geeky terminology down into concepts that most people can understand. Hopefully I can help you to see why these things make a difference. 

Go Beyond TrueColor with 10-bit Color (1.07 billion simultaneous colors)

You can get 10-bit per color channel via the DisplayPort (when paired with a 10-bit per channel video card). What this means is that you get over 1 billion colors shown simultaneously (versus 16.7 million with traditional 8-bit per channel, 24-bit displays).

In plain English this means that instead of 256 shades of Red, Green and Blue you typically sein in Photoshop, you now get 1021 shades of Red, Green and Blue each. The practical application of this is that you won’t see any banding of any type when viewing even the most complex gradients on the screen.

It should also be noted that few PC’s and currently no Apple computers (as of 3/22/2011) come with 10-bit per channel (30-bits total) video cards. What this means is that it will require most users to get a new video card for the best possible results.

I didn’t have access to a 30-bit video card so I used a DisplayPort to my MacBook Pro and DVI for my PC for 24-bit color (8 bits per channel). I have seen 30-bit video and it is amazing, so I wish I could have tested this. I can say that despite this fact, I was still very impressed with what I saw with only 8-bits. The banding was non-existent in practical applications and very difficult to notice on the most complex test patterns.

My advice is that if you can get a 10-bit video card (shipping with some computers and Lenovo laptops these days), then do it. You can find some of the available choices in this whitepaper, but I’m sure there are more by now. Ironically, some can be found for as little as $100, but I won’t list any here as I can not comment on the quality of the cards available.

It is confusing when searching for these cards because they are 10-bit per channel but referenced typically as 30-bits (10-bits each for the Red, Green & Blue channels). ATI calls this technology 30-bit Display Pipeline and nVidia calls it 30-bit Color Technology. Geeks can learn more about this technology in this whitepaper from nVidia.

Brightness & Color Uniformity

Eizo has a technology they call Digital Uniformity Equalizer (DUE) (whitepaper) that was introduced back in 2006 with the CG221 and is present in the CG243W. Put simply, this technology ensures edge to edge color uniformity and based on my experience with Eizo and other monitors, I can tell you that this is one feature that I couldn’t live without now.

 

If you are looking for reasons to justify Eizo’s premium price, this is certainly one of them. Just like you would pay more for a lens with great edge to edge sharpness, this feature is valuable in your photo editing to have edge to edge color uniformity.

16-bit 3D LUT (Advanced Print Soft Proofing Support)

This display features a programmable 16-bit 3D LUT (whitepaper) which put simply means it is suitable for highly accurate soft proofing for prints. These 3D LUT’s do hardware calibration instead of software calibration (which is what X-Rite or DataColor software does). This calibration process bypass the software calibration in the operating system (i.e., the color curves in your graphics card are just zeroed out via the ICC profile) and the actual calibration occurs in the display itself. The advantage to this is that you can calibrate it on one system (i.e., a Windows 7 system like my desktop) and use it on another system (like my MacBook Pro) and the display is still calibrated perfectly for both systems.

It should be noted that to properly calibrate a display like this you must have a compatible calibration device plugged into the display and a cable going from your computer to the display during calibration. Some other products have this feature, but require software purchased separately – Eizo’s come with ColorNavigator at no extra charge to do this for you.

Paper Mode

Eizo feature a technology called Paper Mode (whitepaper) which sounded really cool when I read about it because it is suppose to help you do more accurate soft proofing. When I tested it out (which wasn’t easy as it expects you to have three hands), I found it to be less than useful. I tried it with both Epson Exhibition Fiber and Hot Press Natural papers and both times it came back suggesting I use 4000 K as my white point and 30 cd/m² as my brightness which would result in a horrible viewing experience. While cool in theory, I didn’t find this feature to be useful at all, but read about it and decide for yourself. Perhaps there was user error on my part since I am not an octopus or perhaps my Solux lights caused the results to be skewed.

On-Screen Button Guide

It’s funny how sometimes the little things make a big difference, but what really surprised me is how easy and intuitive I found the Eizo On-Screen Button Guide to be in every day use. While the other displays I have owned have power buttons that are hard to find in the dark and are easily mistaken for other buttons, the Eizo lights up a guide on the display when you push a button that makes it easy to find the button of your choice. Since I used this display with a MacBook Pro I found the location and easy of use of the Signal button (shown as S above on the left) to be exceptionally helpful).

Hood Design

This display comes with a very high quality hood that has a thick felt interior lining to prevent reflections or light contamination. It attaches securely to the display, but has two limitations that were very disappointing to me:

1. When calibrating you can’t close the top hatch which introduces light contamination. To remedy this I would put a piece of cardboard over the hatch. I prefer other designs which have a trap door much better.
2. This model only supports the hood in landscape orientation, and I was using it portrait orientation for the first half of my review. I much prefer the CG245W hood design which works in either orientation.

Calibrating with ColorNavigator 5.4.2

ColorNavigator is the free calibration software included with this display that is free for life. Unlike most free software that comes with hardware, this is a good one that is excellent for getting the best results from your display. It not only helps with calibration and validation, but it also monitors your system so if something changes the video card gamma it will (based on your preferences) change the settings back to ensure that your display stays calibrated. I found little touches like this and the fact that it played nice with other calibration software on the system to be a welcome surprise!

At first I found the calibration process to be a little confusing because the default target in the software for printing is for a brightness of 80 cd/m², a white point of 5000 K and a gamma of 1.8.  While that may be good for some people, for my eyes it sucks, so I created a target for 100 cd/m², a white point of 6500 K and a gamma of 2.2 (all of which are pretty common defaults for most).  Once I got a target suitable for my preferences I was in business, and this is where the Eizo displays really shine.

I’ve calibrated with my ColorMunki and i1XTreme (an i1Pro) and both worked without any problems with ColorNavigator 5.4.2.

Validation

Honestly, I didn’t know jack about validation before I got this display to review. However, after speaking with the gurus at Eizo I was able to learn that other models of this caliber have this feature. Validation allows you to compare your current monitor settings against its calibrated settings to see how much your monitors colors have shifted since you last calibrated. This is pretty cool because it goes beyond that annoying reminder you get from calibration software that mindlessly tells you to calibrate your display every X weeks.

This feature actually measures the colors against the last calibration to come up with a delta-E of all of the measured colors for a quick report to see if your display is holding its color accurately over time. You can also use it to measure what your display is doing right after you turn it on like I did in the 2nd test above that shows an uncharacteristic (for Eizo) 4.1 Max delta-E. This anomaly occurred because I ran the validation on a cold display after it had been turned on for only one minute, but despite this fact those values aren’t too bad compared to others I’ve tested at even up to 40 minutes after startup!

Validation seems to be quicker than calibration, but both require a calibration device and similar process so I found it more useful to validate than calibrate if you want that sanity check that  your monitor really is calibrated accurately.

Here’s a link to my last validation report that was done 35 minutes after the display had been turned on.

Fine Tuning with Manual Adjustments

For those who want the ultimately control you can calibrate and then tweak to your hearts content with the manual adjustments shown in the dialog above.

Performance is where this display shines

One of the things I instantly noticed was the fact that this display turns on and shows an image that looks to be mostly accurate in just 3 seconds (compared to 6 to 7 seconds for competing monitors – and their colors look very bad at that point). However, this display even in as little as 1 minute after being turned on had reasonably good results in its validation report thanks to its patented backlight sensor (see below). Sure it wasn’t perfect after a minute, but shortly after it was spot on. Similar tests done with other monitors even after 35 minutes still had maximum gray scale Delta E’s of over 4 and white points of nearly 2.

What this means in the real world is that when you turn this display on that by the time you can start Photoshop and load your first file your display will be ready to do reasonably accurate complex photo editing, whereas other displays really require 40 minutes or more to get to that same point. Most people don’t realize this so the net result of failing to recognize this issue is that you could end up wasting a lot of time editing your image only to realize the results are oversaturated or the gray scales are off after your display has reached its proper operating temperature. THIS IS SIGNIFICANT!

I don’t know about you, but I typically just come up to my display, turn it on, and get to work. In fact, since I never turn my computer off I typically have Photoshop running and just resume from where I left off. This partially explains how I get myself in trouble with shots like this, because I edited it before my other display was displaying colors as it had been calibrated to do.

If your monitor has a 3D-LUT and your its software supports validation, it can be very useful to do a validation after 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes and an hour just to see how much things can change while your display heats up. Since most displays do not have a technology like Eizo’s DUE, then this I can be extremely problematic at the edges where the color is already inconsistent.

Auto Brightness Stabilization (Patented Backlight Sensor)

A sensor is placed in the backside panel of the monitor with a hole for light transmission which helps to maintain brightness stabilization. More importantly it helps it to stabilize the brightness soon after you turn the display on for consistency over time.

Built-in Thermometer for Temperature Control

Another cool feature that helps the Eizo have an edge uniform color stabilization is its built-in thermometer that measures ambient temperatures. By making adjustments it can prevent unanticipated heat that can impact the color hue.

High temperature and /or brightness can cause the tone curve characteristics of an LCD to change as well as brightness and color stability. The tempo sensor controls the tone curve characteristics  as well as brightness and color. This feature isn’t mentioned on the website for the CG243W, but it exists. It is mentioned on the CG245W web page under the topic Brightness and Color Temperature stability, but the CG243W has this feature too.

UPDATE from Eizo

There is a firmware update for this display that adds support for connecting your HDSLR directly to the display to play 1080i via HDMI to DVI adapter.

Ordering

*** This display has been replaced by the Eizo CG246-BK available at B&H***

Conclusion

The Eizo CG243W is an outstanding display with excellent color depth and superior performance. Its designed to meet the strict standards of medical imaging where accuracy is essential, and the complex requirements of accurate soft proofing.

While there are cheaper alternatives like the NEC PA Series that perform extremely well, there are little details that explain why Eizo’s are still the standard by which all other displays are judged. It isn’t obvious at first and it took me over two months to full appreciate, but they are there and they do make a difference.

I’m a car guy and I like to speak in analogies, so the best one I can think of (for those who know this one) is that this display is like a Porsche 911. Sure statistically there may be others displays that are like the Corvette that stack up well on paper (and even in some cases exceed) the performance of the 911, the devil is in the details. When you use and experience the two you can immediately quantify the difference that is hard to put on paper but is easily experienced in your hands and your butt. For the people who appreciate these types of differences, the Eizo will satisfy your highest standards of quality. For the bargain hunters that would defend the Corvette, then there are other choices which will save you a significant amount of money.

My advice is that if your wallet can handle it, get the Eizo – it’s still the best product on the market when it comes to image quality and performance. It’s build quality and warranty will also ensure that it will be the last display you need to buy for at least the next 5 years and probably much more.

For more information, brochures and videos visit http://www.eizo.com/global/products/coloredge/cg243w/index.html.

P.S. Yes, it is a sad day that I’m boxing this up and sending it back to Eizo. Despite what you might think, the donations to the blog and sales don’t quite cut it to buy nice toys like this so I had to part with this one. I do appreciate your reading this blog though so I can enjoy testing cool products like this for you!

Disclosure

I was provided with a loaner Eizo CG243W for review for about 60 days. I may also get a commission if you make a purchase using the links in this article. Thanks for supporting the blog by using my links!