Just ordered the NEC 2490

L

Liight

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 23, 2008
Messages
72
Well, after months of reading countless thread, and wasting a sizable portion of life... I just ordered the NEC 2490 SV from Provantage. As it is special order it looks like it is gonna take a couple of weeks but :) The price was about 1220 after shipping.

I decided against the 2690 as it seems that wide gamut is poorly implemented at this point. The issues (like increased banding when working SRGb,... etc. etc.) seem like they are worth avoiding until they get it straight. The advantages seem to be minimal except for very specific actions. Only about 10% of my work would benefit from it, the other 90% would suffer.


I just wanted to thank all of you who took the time to answer my posts. Anyone who feeling like making me feel better about my purchase (I am a bit nervous), feel free to do so :)
 
Congrats for the nice monitor!

It is unfortunate that this model is so expensive.
BTW, are you aware that you can find a Dell 30" for about the same cost?
 
RadXge said:
Congrats for the nice monitor!

It is unfortunate that this model is so expensive.
BTW, are you aware that you can find a Dell 30" for about the same cost?
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He said make him feel better about his purchase! :p Haha anyways congrats. You're buying a great monitor.
 
It should be a very nice monitor.
If you can get your hands on the spectraview software along with an i1display you'll be floored.

BTW, I wish I would have gone with the dell. I got into bluray so bigger=better.
 
i got mine last week. the thing is freakning amazing. The color is awesome. went from a 2405 to the 2490. the superior quality is evident the moment you turn the monitor on.
 
gersson said:
It should be a very nice monitor.
If you can get your hands on the spectraview software along with an i1display you'll be floored.
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I got the SV (spectraveiw) Package so :D

As for the dell, The anti-glare coating would make me angry. I am also in need of really good uniformity and maximum view angle(a-tw). Movies are nice, but the monitor is for photo editing. Need as close to reference monitor as I can afford, and I think this is it.
:rolleyes: :D
 
Liight said:
I got the SV (spectraveiw) Package so :D

As for the dell, The anti-glare coating would make me angry. I am also in need of really good uniformity and maximum view angle(a-tw). Movies are nice, but the monitor is for photo editing. Need as close to reference monitor as I can afford, and I think this is it.
:rolleyes: :D
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For your usage pattern you've chosen the only sensible option, enjoy it when it arrives - and spare a thought for us poor europeans who NEC think don't need decent monitors :rolleyes:
 
congrats you got the stunning monitor i have few of them and can't fine anything on par with yet
 
RadXge said:
Congrats for the nice monitor!

It is unfortunate that this model is so expensive.
BTW, are you aware that you can find a Dell 30" for about the same cost?
Click to expand...



As someone who first made the mistake of getting the Dell 3007-HC and wasted a lot of time and aggravation on it, until Dell finally took it back, let me say: Haha. Good one.

He is starting in the right place. After getting rid of the Dell, I also picked up the NEC 2490 and it is a much higher quality monitor across the board. Not for one moment would I ever consider going back to the Dell. It is so inferior to the NEC it is not even funny.

The 2490 is the perfect monitor to use while they straighten out the wide gamut issue and possibly move to a better display technology like OLED. Meantime you have essentially the best quality panel on the market with color that just works right.
 
Snowdog said:
As someone who first made the mistake of getting the Dell 3007-HC and wasted a lot of time and aggravation on it, until Dell finally took it back, let me say: Haha. Good one.

He is starting in the right place. After getting rid of the Dell, I also picked up the NEC 2490 and it is a much higher quality monitor across the board. Not for one moment would I ever consider going back to the Dell. It is so inferior to the NEC it is not even funny.

The 2490 is the perfect monitor to use while they straighten out the wide gamut issue and possibly move to a better display technology like OLED. Meantime you have essentially the best quality panel on the market with color that just works right.
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How is the motion lag for you? Do you notice it at all on the desktop or light gaming? Its the only thing keeping me from this monitor as I have heard such mixed reviews in this area.
 
Just chiming in. I've got a 2490 as well. It really is all that, but it's overkill for me. I wish there was a slightly cheaper 24" H-IPS on the market without all the internal calibration stuff I don't need.
 
So how is this good for graphic artists if it's not wide gamut? Can some one explain this to me? PLease?
 
Brashen, here is what I have gathered over the past couple of months, and a more detailed explanation of the factors that influenced my decision.

Depends on if all your work is argb for specific print operations, or if you print Srgb/design for the web. Wide is better for the first and srgb for the latter. Unless you know you need wide for a specific reason, srgb is likely going to be better until they get the whole color management/bit depth/gamut issues solved. They are currently a mess as non of the technologies are matched or standardized. 14 bit image capture, 8 bit cable, 8 bit graphics, 16 or 8 bit editing, 12 bit luts, srgb, argb, prophoto etc. My hope hope is that by the time I buy my next monitor, they will have color management mostly fixed. :: prays for oleds to come soon::::

I chose a srgb gamut screen because while I do some stuff that would benefit from wide gamut, most of my work (srgb) would suffer due to gradient loss etc. not to mention the extra color management hassle. I sometimes process over 500 photos from a shoot. If a magazine I shoot for want's argb, I can still output argb for them. I just wont be able to see the highest saturation colors, which I can live with as I won't be doing serious over-saturation for them. They only time Wide gamut would be nice is when I do high saturation sunset landscapes. It doesn't make sense for me to buy based on this because my money is not made off of high saturation landscapes, they are personal works. This is a business monitor for me. I need something that is accurate and provides for the simplest workflow.

On a side note, I do some work for a magazine where I live, and the graphic designer/art people didn't even know the difference between wide and srgb gamut screens. Everyone I talked to at the magazine was recommending the ACDs which are srgb. . Wide gamut seems to be a VERY task specific tech atm. (imo)

Also, as an added bonus movies and the web will not look all screwed up.

With that said, many people seem to like their wide gamut screens a lot, and there are some benefits to working with them. You have to do the research and make a decision based off of what your personal needs are.

Just be prepared to read a LOT of conflicting opinions and information.... like I said... The whole subject is a mess. This has been the most frustrating purchase I have ever researched.. even my camera gear was a lot easier to buy. The silver lining is that I now have OK grasp of color management... a challenging subject. :D
 
mikecoscia said:
How is the motion lag for you? Do you notice it at all on the desktop or light gaming? Its the only thing keeping me from this monitor as I have heard such mixed reviews in this area.
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I go into great detail on that here:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032929430&postcount=2

But the short answer is I have zero issues with the amount of lag on this monitor for general use and light gaming. And I am someone who freaked when I first hooked up a Dell 2405 because of the hideous lag it had. This was something I also worried about but was relieved to discover it a non issue.
 
Snowdog said:
I go into great detail on that here:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032929430&postcount=2

But the short answer is I have zero issues with the amount of lag on this monitor for general use and light gaming. And I am someone who freaked when I first hooked up a Dell 2405 because of the hideous lag it had. This was something I also worried about but was relieved to discover it a non issue.
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Yah I ran across that thread not to long ago. I think I might just go ahead and take the plunge on this monitor in the next month or to. Mine as well go all out with my i7 upgrade this year, haven't built a new PC for myself in 4 years....=). Thanks for the response.

-Mike
 
Well, I hope your special order from Provantage works out better than mine has. I was a little short on cash when I bought my 2690 from another vendor so I bought it without the SV-II kit. A couple weeks later I looked around and found the best price for the kit at Provantage. I ordered it on 9/3, didn't see any change in order status by 9/5 so I called. I was told it was set to be shipped on 9/12. Today is 9/30 and I haven't heard a peep out of them since. Starting to piss me off because I had heard good things about them.
 
I hope provantage has a decent return policy. I was shopping for this same monitor, but I made the mistake of purchasing it from buy.com. Stuck red pixel smack dab in the middle of the screen. Called NEC - they wouldn't RMA it, although I heard other people managed to get a RMA if they mentioned panel looseness. Sent it back to buy.com and ate the 15% restock fee - for a $1200 monitor, that's not insubstantial. Gambled on another NEC from amazon.com - this time, no dead pixels. Amazon's return policy is much better too. Besides the bad pixel issue, the monitor's great. I have it side by side with my old Dell 2405 and it's quite obvious which one is better. The NEC actually has white whites whereas the Dell has this yellowish tint I couldn't get rid of no matter how i tweaked the color settings. Before this I got the Doublesight 26 incher, but the lack of the polarizer and the wide gamut crap drove me nuts, so i returned that one too. Bottom line, I think the NEC is the best LCD you can get right now, although it's damn expensive. My friends think I'm insane on spending that much on a LCD, but I'm pretty picky about image quality. For everyone else, a shitty TN or a Dell suffices...
 
Liight said:
Well, after months of reading countless thread, and wasting a sizable portion of life... I just ordered the NEC 2490 SV from Provantage. As it is special order it looks like it is gonna take a couple of weeks but :) The price was about 1220 after shipping.

I decided against the 2690 as it seems that wide gamut is poorly implemented at this point. The issues (like increased banding when working SRGb,... etc. etc.) seem like they are worth avoiding until they get it straight. The advantages seem to be minimal except for very specific actions. Only about 10% of my work would benefit from it, the other 90% would suffer.


I just wanted to thank all of you who took the time to answer my posts. Anyone who feeling like making me feel better about my purchase (I am a bit nervous), feel free to do so :)
Click to expand...

Actually, you are making me feel better about making the exact same purchase from the same company. I also have wasted a tremendous amount of time on this. I hope we are both thrilled with the choice. Thank you very much for posting this.
 
@Liight: Thanks man for the explanantion but for me I think I would rather go for wide gamut as I'm a digital painter!!
 
My 2490 review is here for anyone interested:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1032929426#post1032929426

If anyone wants to see something else, I will do what I can to add it.

IMO if you are not doing any serious color editing work, most people would be very happy with the capability here without the calibrator. I did not see a big before and after difference. It looked great out of the box and it looked great after calibration. That could help bring the price closer to $1000.

Other than that. Welcome to the club. The A-TW IPS LCDs have unmatched LCD image as far as I am concerned. If you can't be happy with one of these, you can't be happy with LCD. I hope OLEDs are ready when this one dies.
 
Snowdog said:
I hope OLEDs are ready when this one dies.
Click to expand...

They're ready, but they'll always be expensive, plus they haven't yet sorted out (and I don't see how that CAN sort out) the dimming issue with prolonged usage.

Roll on SED I say, especially now that all the lawsuits have been settled.
 
dawgies said:
Actually, you are making me feel better about making the exact same purchase from the same company. I also have wasted a tremendous amount of time on this. I hope we are both thrilled with the choice. Thank you very much for posting this.
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hehe. I am glad I could help. I am very excited about it. I wonder how long it is gonna take Provantage to get it to me.
 
Snowdog said:
My 2490 review is here for anyone interested:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1032929426#post1032929426

If anyone wants to see something else, I will do what I can to add it.

IMO if you are not doing any serious color editing work, most people would be very happy with the capability here without the calibrator. I did not see a big before and after difference. It looked great out of the box and it looked great after calibration. That could help bring the price closer to $1000.

Other than that. Welcome to the club. The A-TW IPS LCDs have unmatched LCD image as far as I am concerned. If you can't be happy with one of these, you can't be happy with LCD. I hope OLEDs are ready when this one dies.
Click to expand...

Thanks Snowdog for this post, the posts to my original thread and your thread on the 2490. All have helped me make the decision to buy the 2490. I went ahead and bought the version with the Spectraview, because it was only $130 higher than without. That's a bargain for that addition, IMO. May be overkill, but the whole monitor is probably overkill for me. Still, I think I'm going to be tickled!
 
You are out of luck if you ordered from Provantage. I just solved my RMA with provantage for my NEC LCD2690, its got 8 problem pixels... They received my return and didn't give me back my money for over 30 days, till I threatened them for legal action and personal damage.

Make sure the monitor you got does not say "Manufactor's Warranty", if it says that you are screwed, you cant return the monitor unless the manufacture says there is something wrong with the monitor. If it says "30 Day return" then you'll run into problem I described above...

alamone said:
I hope provantage has a decent return policy. I was shopping for this same monitor, but I made the mistake of purchasing it from buy.com. Stuck red pixel smack dab in the middle of the screen. Called NEC - they wouldn't RMA it, although I heard other people managed to get a RMA if they mentioned panel looseness. Sent it back to buy.com and ate the 15% restock fee - for a $1200 monitor, that's not insubstantial. Gambled on another NEC from amazon.com - this time, no dead pixels. Amazon's return policy is much better too. Besides the bad pixel issue, the monitor's great. I have it side by side with my old Dell 2405 and it's quite obvious which one is better. The NEC actually has white whites whereas the Dell has this yellowish tint I couldn't get rid of no matter how i tweaked the color settings. Before this I got the Doublesight 26 incher, but the lack of the polarizer and the wide gamut crap drove me nuts, so i returned that one too. Bottom line, I think the NEC is the best LCD you can get right now, although it's damn expensive. My friends think I'm insane on spending that much on a LCD, but I'm pretty picky about image quality. For everyone else, a shitty TN or a Dell suffices...
Click to expand...
 
there are really only two places you should be buying a 2490 from, CDW or the Monitor outlet.
 
ikarinokami said:
there are really only two places you should be buying a 2490 from, CDW or the Monitor outlet.
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Being in the market for a 2690, I've been monitoring similar threads. May I ask why you recommend Monitor Outlet? Their prices don't appear to be better and their return policy on LCDs seems to be useless:

Please note: Due to restrictions placed upon us by manufacturers, Plasma TV’s, LCD TVs, LCD/DLP projectors, mounts, LCD Monitors, projections screens, custom items, accessory items, Monovision displays and Home Entertainment products are not returnable for exchange, replacment or credit. Additional products may be added to this list as manufacturer’s policies change or as new product categories become available.

All non-defective returns authorized by Monitor Outlet, Inc. are subject to a 25% restocking fee and must be returned within 30 days from date of purchase. They must be returned in the original packaging with all components and information enclosed. UPC Code serial numbers must be on the box. Products missing these are NOT returnable. Failure to return a product within the applicable return period will be deemed to be acceptance of the product.
Click to expand...
 
Snowdog said:
Because that is the not the SV package that other people are pricing here.
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Now, I'm questioning where to buy. If I can do without the SV package, what do y'all recommend? B&H is higher, but has a good return policy (though you lose shipping both ways). I wrote Amazon and they have a restocking fee.
 
dawgies said:
Now, I'm questioning where to buy. If I can do without the SV package, what do y'all recommend? B&H is higher, but has a good return policy (though you lose shipping both ways). I wrote Amazon and they have a restocking fee.
Click to expand...

I'll be watching this closely to see if anybody has any recommendations. I called CDW and the rep told me that they will accept a monitor back as defective with a little as one dead/stuck pixel or any other problems. He couldn't provide me with a written reference to this info though. Not sure I should take him at his word. They also don't have the SV versions available.

It seems as if everyone else is deferring to the manufacturers warranty and charge restocking fees.

It's a very large monetary investment but since none of the B&M's seem to carry this, I may have no choice but to simply order one and cross my fingers.
 
smithkt said:
I'll be watching this closely to see if anybody has any recommendations. I called CDW and the rep told me that they will accept a monitor back as defective with a little as one dead/stuck pixel or any other problems. He couldn't provide me with a written reference to this info though. Not sure I should take him at his word. They also don't have the SV versions available.

It seems as if everyone else is deferring to the manufacturers warranty and charge restocking fees.

It's a very large monetary investment but since none of the B&M's seem to carry this, I may have no choice but to simply order one and cross my fingers.
Click to expand...

I didn't see either 2490 version for sale at CDW. I had ordered from Provantage, but cancelled after the above recommendation. It is a huge monetary investment....like you, the best may be just crossing my fingers.
 
I ordered my 2690 from a place I had never heard of before, The Nerds.net. Silly ass name, but great service. Florida to Calif in one day with regular Fedex ground. I have one stuck or dead pixel, but I decided to just live with it, I rarely see it. I do love this monitor so )
 
Just don't order a expensive monitor in ground package, they abuse package so much you don't ever want to know... I was trying to find a part time job at UPS facility, while I was doing the tour of the facility, I saw they throw package up and down like there is no tomorrow... Some company might ship heavy ground orders through less than truck load freight services (like darn Provantage) which is really bad, because my returned lcd2690 monitor's package got damaged so badly I start to think maybe that's why it's got 8 dead pixels and pressure marks when it got to me...

Spend a little more on a 2 day or next day, You'll save your future monitor from been dropped even before you see it in your hand. My honest suggestion from my very own experience...
 
dawgies said:
Now, I'm questioning where to buy. If I can do without the SV package, what do y'all recommend? B&H is higher, but has a good return policy (though you lose shipping both ways). I wrote Amazon and they have a restocking fee.
Click to expand...

Order it through a local shop. This is what I did. Special order, but they deal with the shipping hassles and call you when it is ready.
 
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