NEC 23" IPS EA231WMi

Originally Posted by ToastyX

This would be a great monitor if LG would just get their act together and fix the color uniformity problems that have been plaguing their panels lately.


Powerstrip, or with NVIDIA cards, you can add a custom resolution in the driver control panel.

Did you try using a colorimeter to measure the color temp. difference left and right? My 2209WA (from memory) showed 400K difference on white point with the left being 400K colder than the right. The middle was closer to the left by a slight amount. I notice it, but it's definitely on the mild side.

Thanks.

Significant price reduction on these as I predicted.

$318.50 now from Provantage. Like $330ish shipped to my area.

Provantage has 81 now in stock.

Will pass on this monitor due to color uniformity issues however.

"$330ish with coupon isn't a steal. Remember $379 is list price. $369 is the preorder price. Prices will drop further when stock comes in."

Bingo! I was right. $318.50 + shipping now from Provantage. Other vendors will drop in price as well. I could have bought at the beginning way early for $330ish with coupon. And now I can buy for $330ish without coupon today. No bargain here. Just shows that the monitor is hitting normal pricing levels finally.

By waiting I got to see all the reviews on this monitor and get the same price as before and it will likely go lower in price in the coming days/weeks.

IT WORKS! I just got a DisplayPort video card. This monitor can do up to 83 Hz at 1080p without skipping frames!



However, the response time does it no justice. You still benefit from the smoothness and responsiveness, but the motion blur makes the difference less significant than it would have been with overdrive. The Dell 2209WA still has a slight edge here.

Here are the timing parameters I used:

Horizontal active: 1920
Horizontal front porch: 88
Horizontal sync width: 44
Horizontal back porch: 148
Horizontal total: 2200

Vertical active: 1080
Vertical front porch: 4
Vertical sync width: 5
Vertical back porch: 11
Vertical total: 1100

It will report anywhere from 82.5 Hz to 83.0 Hz:


That probably works over VGA also, but I haven't tested it. (Edit: Just tested it, doesn't work for VGA.)

Do not use those timing parameters for 72 Hz. Use the settings I gave earlier:

Horizontal active: 1920
Horizontal front porch: 25
Horizontal sync width: 35
Horizontal back porch: 45
Horizontal total: 2025

Vertical active: 1080
Vertical front porch: 3
Vertical sync width: 4
Vertical back porch: 5
Vertical total: 1092


As for the uniformity, NEC will be sending a replacement, but they're out of stock at the moment, so it might be a while. Hopefully, this means I'll get one from a better batch.

Originally Posted by 10e

Did you try using a colorimeter to measure the color temp. difference left and right? My 2209WA (from memory) showed 400K difference on white point with the left being 400K colder than the right. The middle was closer to the left by a slight amount. I notice it, but it's definitely on the mild side.

Kelvin values don't tell the whole story. Two different white points can have the same correlated color temperature, especially with fluorescent lighting. The difference is only around 500K across different parts of the screen, but the color balance changes significantly. That's a bigger problem than a simple color temperature shift.

For instance, Eye-One Match thinks this is 6500K even though it's obviously too purple:


What can I do when one part of the screen looks like that and another part of the screen looks like this:


I'm also getting inconsistent color temperature readings, so it's hard to quantify this. I can only go by what the camera picks up and what I see with my own eyes, both of which pick up an obnoxious color shift across the screen. The uniformity doesn't have to be perfect. Most monitors don't have perfect uniformity. I just want tolerable uniformity without obnoxious color shifts.

83Hz?

So what's the input lag and response time like, if any?

What do you think? It's a little blue on the right side with the white image. This has more grain than my 2405 fpw, but is sharper.

I don't know if it's noticeable in these pics but the right side of the monitor is def. darker than the left. Which is a problem my other monitor does not have. It's a big enough issue that I prob. will return it.

Ok, so even at 75Hz the Dell beats out the NEC at 83Hz because of the lack of overdrive?

Hi, I bought this monitor and while it seems like a decent enough unit I did notice two issues.

1) The MacBook fights with it at 1920x1080's 60 hz resolution..it seems to want to run at 50 hz more.. and then you can't switch back to 60 hz without video garble.. you have to delete the windowserver.plist in order to get 60 hz back for that resolution. Just be aware of that.

2) This item concerns me more. In the upper left corner of my screen there's a faint but visible cloud.. backlight bleed.. and it's visible even with other stuff on the screen. It looks like a faint bluish fog when the background is dark coming out of the corner. Now, as an experiment I touched the corner of the panel with a lint free cloth and I was surprised to actually feel it wobble slightly. Both the upper left and right corners have this wobble on the screen panel itself. The bottom left and right corners do not. Could someone please touch their upper corner and tell me if it moves in and out? You should not need to apply pressure, just a gentle touch to see if there is resistance. This sucks. Getting a new unit is not going to be easy.

I don't have colour uniformity issues that I noticed btw. But the bleed is annoying.



Edit: Added picture, looks a bit worse in the photo than it does in real life, but you get the idea.. it's the upper left corner that is worst.. I don't actually notice the bottom left one surprisingly.

UPDATE: Well, I got a call from NEC who said that (surprise surprise) they "can't see that there is a "fault"". So I asked the woman if she had seen the pic I sent with the middle cut out to emphasise the difference between left and right and she called me back after checking to say that yes she could see the difference (would have been moronic for her to deny it) but that the "background of the picture" i.e. the wall was also uneven and so she couldn't accept the difference in colour uniformity on the monitor was due to a "fault", It really is true that sometimes people cannot see what they dont WANT to see and consequently just end up being VERY difficult to deal with. I kept cool and calm though (getting irate would have made her dig her heels in even more - basic psychology) although I have to say, her reply to seeing the pic with the middle cut out made me want to go "AAAAARRRRRRGGGH!!!" down the phone.

I then sent her another pic with an "even background" i.e. lighting and with the middle cut out and the same very clear difference in colour from left to right on the monitor. She said she'd send the pic onto an "technician", and it's now been 2 days and I haven't heard from them since.

At the moment then, with NEC, it simply comes down to what they are willing to label as a "fault". To my mind, the difference in colour from left to right, although relatively subtle and more obvious to some than others, is a fault, since as far as I and others here can see, it's pretty distinct and quite obvious. The thing that frustrates me is that I can't help but feel that were it not down to the costs of owning up to a fault, NEC would be much more open to accepting the problem and working towards resolving it. They are no different than any other company and I CAN understand their wish to make sure that unnecessary costs are kept to a minimum. It does, however, make the customers experience when dealing with them, much, much more difficult.

All I really want is for them to:

a) Take the problem seriously - who's to say that the issue can't be remedied in future revisions by something relatively simple - IF they take the issue seriously, accept it, and acknowledge it and feed back to info to the factory/manufacturing plant/LG

b) Send me a replacement monitor when batch 2 is made and available. It may be exactly the same, but I doubt it could be any worse.

I'll e-mail them now to see what they have to say but I still think that it would make a huge difference to ALL OF US here if all of us with the problems so many seem to be having get in touch with NEC and report the problem. You'll be doing yourself, and everyone else a big favour by not just ignoring and "living with" these defects.

UPDATE #2:

NEC have said that they have sent the unit to Head Office for further technical testing. Promising, and I must admit I'm appreciative of them taking the problem seriously. Hopefully something good will come of this....... Stay tuned.

I have been looking for a monitor for some time, and I singled out this NEC EA231WMi, as well as the Samsung F2380M (a f2380 but with hdmi and built-in-speakers).
I'm leaning towards this NEC, because it has displayport functionality, and I use a Macbook with dp out. I also heard that this IPS panel performs better dan the samsung's cPVA.

Would this be a good choice? I can get it shipped to me for about 350 euros.
I will be mainly using it for basic web design (photoshop), a lot of programming, a bit of gaming, and I plan to buy a bluray player in the future to watch movies on it too (using a hdmi to dvi adapter).

Also, can someone who has this monitor measure the space between the table etc it's on and the bottom of the screen when the monitor is on it's highest position?

Thanks!

You mentioned the DP functionality and speakers as a feature you like.

I don't think Macbook DP supports audio out at this time, so if that is true you will see no gains with DP over HDMI (which the Samsung has but NEC lacks), except for perhaps slightly more bandwidth in the cable and thus up to 83hz refresh rate if you wish to fool around with that (see above).

Can't comment on the panel compare, but I haven't heard great things about that cPVA panel, but for your needs it might be fine.

Thanks for your reply.
I only mentioned the dp connection as a feature I like. I don't care at all about the speakers because I already have a really nice 2.1 Syrincs M3-220 setup.

Gee,

I've already got my EA231WMi on an aftermarket arm, so I'll let someone else give you their accurate measurement. But I will mention that the NEC stand is very good. It actually has two 4-point mounting positions for the stand or a VESA 100 mount, which enables the display to be raised pretty high and also quite low to the desktop.

Yes, Apple doesn't yet enable audio over its mini-DP or any other video cable, but the 3.5 mm audio cable that is included does enable the speakers; you just select that function in the display Menu. I'm using this display with a 2009 Mac Mini over the DP, with the audio out of the Mac over an Optical cable to a Dolby system. I watch EyeTV on it (which now supports Dolby Sound with Snow Leopard) while websurfing and some HD content via iTunes.

It does look like Apple will, for the most part, skip over the HDMI standard. And that's not a problem with the EA231WMi (as you seem to know), as it has the DVI port, too, which is perfectly adaptable to a HDMI Blu-Ray player, which you'll probably want to have its audio going out to a 5.1 Dolby system, anyway, but may also be able to use the display speakers via the Mac Audio Input port or with a thumb-sized USB audio card.

I'm using this monitor for some of the things you're intending to do, and I'm enjoying it very well. But it may be somewhat of a gamble, as a good number of people seem to be having a color shift problem, which I'm not having at all, especially after having broken it in, so to speak. My color and backlight uniformity seem very good, and even better than my former IPS Dell 2005WFP display, which was great. But, I lived in Las Vegas for about 20 years, and maybe I have a bit of a non-casino gambling streak.

The 16:9 aspect ratio is great for Photoshop palettes and other windows kept out of the way.

So, I say, go for it. But, do have an exit strategy via a good return policy, as needed. And if you do get an EA231WMi that you are satisfied with, like I did, you will have a great IPS panel at an equally great value. I mean, four or five years ago my 20.1" Dell IPS panel did cost as much or more than the 23" NEC IPS panel, which is HDCP compliant for HD content viewing.

Please let us all hear how it goes with your display decision and final impression of whatever you do buy.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone

I would guess that the "purple" 6500K with the red and blue values being far too high is from the left side, and the other, closer to the right?

That's a big difference in color values. Good luck with the replacement. Frickin' LG.

Thanks for all your hard work.

Originally Posted by ToastyX

Kelvin values don't tell the whole story. Two different white points can have the same correlated color temperature, especially with fluorescent lighting. The difference is only around 500K across different parts of the screen, but the color balance changes significantly. That's a bigger problem than a simple color temperature shift.

<snip>

I'm also getting inconsistent color temperature readings, so it's hard to quantify this. I can only go by what the camera picks up and what I see with my own eyes, both of which pick up an obnoxious color shift across the screen. The uniformity doesn't have to be perfect. Most monitors don't have perfect uniformity. I just want tolerable uniformity without obnoxious color shifts.

Originally Posted by chrisliv

It actually has two 4-point mounting positions for the stand or a VESA 100 mount

So you can mount the stand to the screen at two different positions? Then where are those two mounting positions located? One at the bottom center and one at the top center?

And that's not a problem with the EA231WMi (as you seem to know), as it has the DVI port, too, which is perfectly adaptable to a HDMI Blu-Ray player, which you'll probably want to have its audio going out to a 5.1 Dolby system, anyway, but may also be able to use the display speakers via the Mac Audio Input port or with a thumb-sized USB audio card.

I'll probably stick with my active 2.1 set (which actually has a 2.0 input) for a pretty long time, and most bluray players have an analog 2.0 out along with a hdmi out, so that's perfect for me.

But it may be somewhat of a gamble, as a good number of people seem to be having a color shift problem, which I'm not having at all, especially after having broken it in, so to speak.

Yeah, I've read about that. Question is: you don't have the problem or you just don't notice it. It could be that people complaining about the shift are used to much better screens, and notice even a small color shift. The only screens I have ever worked on are my led-backlit macbook screen, and a cheap ag/neovo 17" screen, so I think I wouldn't notice, or could live with a small color shift.

Yeah,

The mounting points are at the center and also at another upper section, about 1.5" higher, i.e., which allows the monitor to go lower.

Interestingly, if you really want to exploit the vertical height potential of the monitor and stand, you could easily do so by fabricating a simple flat steel plate with two sets of four hole that probably don't even need to be threaded/tapped. This is possible because the backside of the monitor and a mounting facia of the stand are both perfectly flat. So, the typical screws would mount the plate to the display and some small bolts/screws with nuts could fasten the stand to the flat plate.

I mean, that would probably be an elegant solution if you want to gain up to about 6" in height. Any more than that would undoubtedly show the plate.

I used three Apple laptops before going, primarily, to a Mac Mini (G4 and Intel C2Duo) with the Dell panel, and now the NEC panel. So, you'll undoubtedly enjoy the size and definition upgrade with the EA231WMi, and unlike the 24" Apple display (ACD), it has a port for a Blu-Ray player or another computer, etc., which was one of the reasons I preferred it over the ACD.

So, I don't know if my monitor viewing standards are lower than others here, or if I just got lucky.

Also, since you're an Apple user and code guy (I don't do code), you may know that the Snow Leopard OS has reduced the four degrees of text smoothing that Plain Leopard offered in the System Preferences. I'm guessing that Apple will return those Preferences in an Update, though. But there are Terminal commands that allow for numerical values to gain back the same text smoothing selections that Plain Leopard offered. Currently, Snow Leopard only allows On or OFF in the System Preferences, and ON is reported to sometimes misidentify ANY monitor besides an Apple one as a CRT, which may be less than optimum. So, I've got text smoothing turned OFF, but text looked about as good at the ON default. But I may experiment with some of the Terminal commands to try some of the other settings (Light, Medium, Heavy).

Peace to you,
C. Livingstone

Thanks for all the info! I appreciate it.
Only question left for anyone else out there with this screen:

Also, can someone who has this monitor measure the space between the table etc it's on and the bottom of the screen when the monitor is on it's highest position?

I have approx. 6.5 inches from table to bottom of the screen when it is extended to highest position on the built in stand.

Just to clarify, is that bottom of the screen or bottom of the bezel?

Bottom of the bezel.