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I have been lurking on this forum for months while I tried to educate myself about monitors. I am writing this now to thank others who have posted here and to share some things I learned.
I own two identical, side-by-side Windows desktop computers, one that is connected to the web and one that is not. Until last September, the Internet machine was still using an old 17-inch CRT and the other machine had a 19-inch Gateway FPD1975W widescreen, which is a TN monitor. During the late summer and fall, I found myself spending more time doing research on the web, and noticed that my arm hurt because I had to keep my hand on the mouse in order to read across the full width of many web sites. So I replaced the CRT with a 22-inch Hanns-G Hi221D TN display, which does a nice job for Internet work but was too bright, had a distinctly bluish cast, and has a lot of variation in image darkness as you move your head vertically. Nonetheless, 22 inches permitted me to keep my Internet Explorer favorites listed on the left hand side and still read the full width of most web sites on the rest of the screen, without risking carpal tunnel.
During the fall I reorganized my digital photos and bought a used Olympus E-500 to compare its image quality with a Nikon D40 I own. The D40 is a great camera, but in looking through my old digital photos, I realized that another Olympus that I once owned (an E-300) compared quite well to it. The E-500 uses a similar sensor. I made dozens of side-by-side test shots with the E-500 and the D40, and reviewed them on my off-web computer. Meanwhile, I replaced the Gateway monitor with a 21-inch Samsung 215tw, my first S-PVA monitor. I was quite impressed with the image quality, which is rich and contrasty, but I distrusted whether these colors were for real vs. what I had just seen in the field. I also observed the side-to-side variations in image darkness or black crush that others have noted here. In landscape photos, for instance, leaves in shadow would disappear and then reappear depending on my lateral viewing anglenot good if youre trying to evaluate whether cameras are correctly exposing the scene.
So, between the TN and S-PVA displays, the Samsungs black crush seemed to be a little more difficult to anticipate than the Hanns-Gs vertical variations, although I still found its image quality quite seductive.
I began to look for a monitor that would avoid the compromises. Separately, in connection with an illustrated history book I plan to write, I began to investigate what it would take to display a two-page spread at full size or larger. I bought a used 24-inch SONY GDM-FW900 CRT monitor. It displayed colors accuratelyyou could see the difference vs. the more vivid colors of the 215twbut it was unable to display two-page spreads at full size and it was a 93-pound beast that took a long time to warm up. Perhaps I was persuaded by the guy who stated on another forum that once you compare a properly calibrated LCD display to the best of the older CRT technology, you will never go back. Perhaps the grass is simply greener on the other side. At any rate I sold the SONY.
After a lot of research and dithering over the cost, I then sprung for an NEC LCD2490WUXi. Along the way, I seriously considered the Samsung 245t and 275t, the HP LP2475w, and the NEC 2690. I bought the 2490 with Spectraview, and I am very pleased with it.
Thank You
To all who have dwelled at length upon the pros and cons of standard gamut vs. wide gamut, calibration, quality issues with various screens, and so on. It has been complex, frustrating, and fascinating. I would like to single out a couple of people in particular, for reasons that may be peculiar to me. Snowdogs thorough reports and advice were especially valuable to me because my objectives were similar to his. I wanted to use the monitor for working with my digital photos (which I do not expect to publish), and for writing the book mentioned above. I did not need or want to become a commercial artist, and until more software is color-aware, wide gamut might prove to be more hassle than it was worth for me, although a 2690 with a calibratable sRGB mode would have been a contender.
Second, the presence of Monitor Guy on this forum has been helpful and reassuring to me as a potential customer. His confidence in the product is well deserved. I could see that just in the way it was packed, and its design easily surpasses that of my other two monitors, with one possible exception that I will note below. To name just a couple of examples: His quashing the rumor that the 2490 was to be replaced with a wide gamut display helped me decide to buy it, as did his information that the NEC/Gretag Spectraview colorimeter could be used with the Gretag software to calibrate other monitors. No doubt NEC, like most other companies, has some people who would exaggerate the risks and minimize the value of getting involved. Yet when I read articles about new trends in marketing, one thing they stress is the value of participating in so-called affinity groups like this forum. Such articles talk about the sense of community and a kind of trust that develops in such groups. I think it speaks well of Monitor Guy and his company that they are in the mix. For me, it helped make the sale.
Inage quality and calibration
The NEC 2490s image quality is superb. It is more neutral than the Samsungmore like the actual scene in front of the camera. Below, I have reproduced the results from the first calibration using Spectraview.
Software Version 1.0.42
Calibration Priority Highest Contrast Ratio
Display Name LCD2490WUXi
Monitor Hours Usage at last calibration 3
Current Monitor Hours Usage 47.1
Calibration Date 01/01/09
Target Name Photo Editing.tgt
Target Intensity 140.0
Target White Point K 6506 K
Target White Point x 0.313
Target White Point y 0.329
Target Black Level
Target Contrast Ratio
Target Gamma Type Value
Target Gamma Value 2.20
Calibrated Intensity 135.7
Calibrated White Point K 6577 K
Calibrated White Point x 0.312
Calibrated White Point y 0.328
Calibrated Black Level 0.19
Calibrated Contrast Ratio 709.6:1
Calibrated Gamma Value
Calibrated White Point Delta E 1.31
Calibrated Greyscale Delta E Average 0.98
I sold the Olympus E-500 in November, having failed to find the happy median between it and the D40. This decision was made based on what I saw on the Samsung 215tw. There were two dimensions to it. Image optimization: Using landscapes taken in sunlight as the example, the D40s natural setting is a bit dull, while vivid is slightly garish. The E-500s vivid setting is right on the money, while its natural setting is quite dull. But the E-500, like other Olympus cameras I have owned, seemed to have a pronounced tendency toward underexposure (too dark and contrasty) while the Nikon leans the opther way. Yet exposure compensation didnt seem to fix the problem on either camera.
Reviewing these photos again on the NEC, I realize that the 215tw somewhat led me astray. Most of all, I now realize that I can set the Nikon to vivid with one step down in exposure compensation, and get good results. Photos I had taken this way, which look too dark in the shadow areas on the 215tw, look fine on the NEC. Also, I now realize that the 215tw probably made the E-500 seem more contrasty than it really was.
Calibrating the other two monitors
Now that I owned an Eye-One Display 2, I downloaded the Gretag-Macbeth software to see what good it might do on my other monitors. Here, my experience parallels Snowdogs. After some trial and error, the colorimeter produced a very nice calibration of the Hanns-G monitor, removing the bluish cast and resulting in color accuracy that isnt too far off from the NEC, although the vertical variations in darkness remain.
The NEC and the Samsung are connected to the same computer, which has a dual port ATI Radeon 3650 video card that I had installed during the fall to be able to toggle between the two monitors. I still use the 215tw for spreadsheets and other work, but I can toggle over to the NEC with a simple hotkey. I havent attempted to calibrate the 215tw using the Gretag software because I am afraid it may screw up the NECs Spectraview calibration somehow. Instead, I installed Samsungs MagicTune software on this machine and have used it to calibrate the 215tw, with decent results. However, I found that MagicTune and Spectraview did not coexist peaceably, so I disabled MagicTune and things have worked fine ever since.
Want to see your two-page spread full size?
I am working on an illustrated history book, where the relative quantity and position of the illustrations and the text is important. I want to be able to see it in tentative form before turning it over to my book designer. To really appreciate the illustrations and read the text, you need to be looking at something close to actual sizeand if youre close, why compromise?
Theres a couple of ways to view a two-page spread in Word 2003: Print Layout or Reading Layout. In Print Layout with a single row of icons at the top and no lateral scrollbar at the bottom, the largest zoom you can use that still displays two full pages side by side on a 22-inch monitor is 68%, which makes 12-point type quite hard to read. These pages will be about 10 inches high by 7 ¾ inches wide. (This is the actual, as measured with a ruler.) On the NEC 2490 the zoom can be 80% and the pages measure 11 ¼ inches high by 8 11/16ths inches wide. Words Reading Layout removes the row of icons at the top of the screen and the information bar at the bottom. On a 22-inch monitor using this view, the pages will be 10 ¾ inches high and 8 3/8 inches wide, while on the NEC 2490 they will be 12 inches high by 10 inches wide.
In actuality, even for my tentative layout I needed something with more capabilities than Word, and to be consistent with my designer, I am using Quark Xpress 8. A two-page spread in Quark will be 11 3/16 inches high by 8 5/8 inches widenice! The zoom percentage will be 80% although the image on the screen ever so slightly exceeds actual.
I did not find this information anywhere on the web so perhaps it will be of use to someone.
A possible design issue
When plugged into the bottom of the monitor, the DVI-D cable extends down toward the base. Yet the instructions call for this cable to be fed to the top of the monitor stand. From there it is supposed to run downward again, inside a plastic cover, to make its exit out the bottom. I bought a well-shielded 15-foot cable for this monitor. Like an idiot I first attached it to the DVI female connection, then began trying to horse it up to the top of the monitor stand as instructed. Little did I realize that this wasnt going to work, and that the DVI connection wasnt mounted all that securely in the bottom of the monitor. The end result was that one of the little gold pins in the cable snapped off about 3 millimeters from the end. Lucky methe rest of the pin was intact, and the part that broke off did not stick up inside the female DVI connection on the monitor, which would have really made my day. I plugged the injured end of my heavily shielded $50 cable into the back of the computer, where it hopefully will have a quiet life, and gave up trying to make it do a tight S-turn, letting it run straight out of the bottom of the monitor toward the desk. Its working fine.
I do appreciate that the intended design has the advantage that the cable is secured within the plastic housing, and thus if it is yanked or stepped on, it would not transmit that force to the DVI connection on the monitor, although it would probably disturb the monitor as a whole. I also appreciate that this may have something to do with the ability to adjust the monitor to display sideways. None of that changes the fact that were asking a lot of the cable and the DVI connection to twist and turn as instructed.
Other than that, I love this monitor.
I own two identical, side-by-side Windows desktop computers, one that is connected to the web and one that is not. Until last September, the Internet machine was still using an old 17-inch CRT and the other machine had a 19-inch Gateway FPD1975W widescreen, which is a TN monitor. During the late summer and fall, I found myself spending more time doing research on the web, and noticed that my arm hurt because I had to keep my hand on the mouse in order to read across the full width of many web sites. So I replaced the CRT with a 22-inch Hanns-G Hi221D TN display, which does a nice job for Internet work but was too bright, had a distinctly bluish cast, and has a lot of variation in image darkness as you move your head vertically. Nonetheless, 22 inches permitted me to keep my Internet Explorer favorites listed on the left hand side and still read the full width of most web sites on the rest of the screen, without risking carpal tunnel.
During the fall I reorganized my digital photos and bought a used Olympus E-500 to compare its image quality with a Nikon D40 I own. The D40 is a great camera, but in looking through my old digital photos, I realized that another Olympus that I once owned (an E-300) compared quite well to it. The E-500 uses a similar sensor. I made dozens of side-by-side test shots with the E-500 and the D40, and reviewed them on my off-web computer. Meanwhile, I replaced the Gateway monitor with a 21-inch Samsung 215tw, my first S-PVA monitor. I was quite impressed with the image quality, which is rich and contrasty, but I distrusted whether these colors were for real vs. what I had just seen in the field. I also observed the side-to-side variations in image darkness or black crush that others have noted here. In landscape photos, for instance, leaves in shadow would disappear and then reappear depending on my lateral viewing anglenot good if youre trying to evaluate whether cameras are correctly exposing the scene.
So, between the TN and S-PVA displays, the Samsungs black crush seemed to be a little more difficult to anticipate than the Hanns-Gs vertical variations, although I still found its image quality quite seductive.
I began to look for a monitor that would avoid the compromises. Separately, in connection with an illustrated history book I plan to write, I began to investigate what it would take to display a two-page spread at full size or larger. I bought a used 24-inch SONY GDM-FW900 CRT monitor. It displayed colors accuratelyyou could see the difference vs. the more vivid colors of the 215twbut it was unable to display two-page spreads at full size and it was a 93-pound beast that took a long time to warm up. Perhaps I was persuaded by the guy who stated on another forum that once you compare a properly calibrated LCD display to the best of the older CRT technology, you will never go back. Perhaps the grass is simply greener on the other side. At any rate I sold the SONY.
After a lot of research and dithering over the cost, I then sprung for an NEC LCD2490WUXi. Along the way, I seriously considered the Samsung 245t and 275t, the HP LP2475w, and the NEC 2690. I bought the 2490 with Spectraview, and I am very pleased with it.
Thank You
To all who have dwelled at length upon the pros and cons of standard gamut vs. wide gamut, calibration, quality issues with various screens, and so on. It has been complex, frustrating, and fascinating. I would like to single out a couple of people in particular, for reasons that may be peculiar to me. Snowdogs thorough reports and advice were especially valuable to me because my objectives were similar to his. I wanted to use the monitor for working with my digital photos (which I do not expect to publish), and for writing the book mentioned above. I did not need or want to become a commercial artist, and until more software is color-aware, wide gamut might prove to be more hassle than it was worth for me, although a 2690 with a calibratable sRGB mode would have been a contender.
Second, the presence of Monitor Guy on this forum has been helpful and reassuring to me as a potential customer. His confidence in the product is well deserved. I could see that just in the way it was packed, and its design easily surpasses that of my other two monitors, with one possible exception that I will note below. To name just a couple of examples: His quashing the rumor that the 2490 was to be replaced with a wide gamut display helped me decide to buy it, as did his information that the NEC/Gretag Spectraview colorimeter could be used with the Gretag software to calibrate other monitors. No doubt NEC, like most other companies, has some people who would exaggerate the risks and minimize the value of getting involved. Yet when I read articles about new trends in marketing, one thing they stress is the value of participating in so-called affinity groups like this forum. Such articles talk about the sense of community and a kind of trust that develops in such groups. I think it speaks well of Monitor Guy and his company that they are in the mix. For me, it helped make the sale.
Inage quality and calibration
The NEC 2490s image quality is superb. It is more neutral than the Samsungmore like the actual scene in front of the camera. Below, I have reproduced the results from the first calibration using Spectraview.
Software Version 1.0.42
Calibration Priority Highest Contrast Ratio
Display Name LCD2490WUXi
Monitor Hours Usage at last calibration 3
Current Monitor Hours Usage 47.1
Calibration Date 01/01/09
Target Name Photo Editing.tgt
Target Intensity 140.0
Target White Point K 6506 K
Target White Point x 0.313
Target White Point y 0.329
Target Black Level
Target Contrast Ratio
Target Gamma Type Value
Target Gamma Value 2.20
Calibrated Intensity 135.7
Calibrated White Point K 6577 K
Calibrated White Point x 0.312
Calibrated White Point y 0.328
Calibrated Black Level 0.19
Calibrated Contrast Ratio 709.6:1
Calibrated Gamma Value
Calibrated White Point Delta E 1.31
Calibrated Greyscale Delta E Average 0.98
I sold the Olympus E-500 in November, having failed to find the happy median between it and the D40. This decision was made based on what I saw on the Samsung 215tw. There were two dimensions to it. Image optimization: Using landscapes taken in sunlight as the example, the D40s natural setting is a bit dull, while vivid is slightly garish. The E-500s vivid setting is right on the money, while its natural setting is quite dull. But the E-500, like other Olympus cameras I have owned, seemed to have a pronounced tendency toward underexposure (too dark and contrasty) while the Nikon leans the opther way. Yet exposure compensation didnt seem to fix the problem on either camera.
Reviewing these photos again on the NEC, I realize that the 215tw somewhat led me astray. Most of all, I now realize that I can set the Nikon to vivid with one step down in exposure compensation, and get good results. Photos I had taken this way, which look too dark in the shadow areas on the 215tw, look fine on the NEC. Also, I now realize that the 215tw probably made the E-500 seem more contrasty than it really was.
Calibrating the other two monitors
Now that I owned an Eye-One Display 2, I downloaded the Gretag-Macbeth software to see what good it might do on my other monitors. Here, my experience parallels Snowdogs. After some trial and error, the colorimeter produced a very nice calibration of the Hanns-G monitor, removing the bluish cast and resulting in color accuracy that isnt too far off from the NEC, although the vertical variations in darkness remain.
The NEC and the Samsung are connected to the same computer, which has a dual port ATI Radeon 3650 video card that I had installed during the fall to be able to toggle between the two monitors. I still use the 215tw for spreadsheets and other work, but I can toggle over to the NEC with a simple hotkey. I havent attempted to calibrate the 215tw using the Gretag software because I am afraid it may screw up the NECs Spectraview calibration somehow. Instead, I installed Samsungs MagicTune software on this machine and have used it to calibrate the 215tw, with decent results. However, I found that MagicTune and Spectraview did not coexist peaceably, so I disabled MagicTune and things have worked fine ever since.
Want to see your two-page spread full size?
I am working on an illustrated history book, where the relative quantity and position of the illustrations and the text is important. I want to be able to see it in tentative form before turning it over to my book designer. To really appreciate the illustrations and read the text, you need to be looking at something close to actual sizeand if youre close, why compromise?
Theres a couple of ways to view a two-page spread in Word 2003: Print Layout or Reading Layout. In Print Layout with a single row of icons at the top and no lateral scrollbar at the bottom, the largest zoom you can use that still displays two full pages side by side on a 22-inch monitor is 68%, which makes 12-point type quite hard to read. These pages will be about 10 inches high by 7 ¾ inches wide. (This is the actual, as measured with a ruler.) On the NEC 2490 the zoom can be 80% and the pages measure 11 ¼ inches high by 8 11/16ths inches wide. Words Reading Layout removes the row of icons at the top of the screen and the information bar at the bottom. On a 22-inch monitor using this view, the pages will be 10 ¾ inches high and 8 3/8 inches wide, while on the NEC 2490 they will be 12 inches high by 10 inches wide.
In actuality, even for my tentative layout I needed something with more capabilities than Word, and to be consistent with my designer, I am using Quark Xpress 8. A two-page spread in Quark will be 11 3/16 inches high by 8 5/8 inches widenice! The zoom percentage will be 80% although the image on the screen ever so slightly exceeds actual.
I did not find this information anywhere on the web so perhaps it will be of use to someone.
A possible design issue
When plugged into the bottom of the monitor, the DVI-D cable extends down toward the base. Yet the instructions call for this cable to be fed to the top of the monitor stand. From there it is supposed to run downward again, inside a plastic cover, to make its exit out the bottom. I bought a well-shielded 15-foot cable for this monitor. Like an idiot I first attached it to the DVI female connection, then began trying to horse it up to the top of the monitor stand as instructed. Little did I realize that this wasnt going to work, and that the DVI connection wasnt mounted all that securely in the bottom of the monitor. The end result was that one of the little gold pins in the cable snapped off about 3 millimeters from the end. Lucky methe rest of the pin was intact, and the part that broke off did not stick up inside the female DVI connection on the monitor, which would have really made my day. I plugged the injured end of my heavily shielded $50 cable into the back of the computer, where it hopefully will have a quiet life, and gave up trying to make it do a tight S-turn, letting it run straight out of the bottom of the monitor toward the desk. Its working fine.
I do appreciate that the intended design has the advantage that the cable is secured within the plastic housing, and thus if it is yanked or stepped on, it would not transmit that force to the DVI connection on the monitor, although it would probably disturb the monitor as a whole. I also appreciate that this may have something to do with the ability to adjust the monitor to display sideways. None of that changes the fact that were asking a lot of the cable and the DVI connection to twist and turn as instructed.
Other than that, I love this monitor.
) are all PVA. How does this monitor render blacks? Can you still see detail in them? I changed my gamma from 1.8 to 2.2 (as the poster here has done too) and it improved a little bit, but it's still not very good.