christakis Posted January 26, 2011 Share #1 Posted January 26, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I did my research and I'll be pulling the trigger on the 27" Dell Ultrasharp U2711 tomorrow. Seems good value for money especially with the discounts that Amazon has. So, apart from Eizo ColorEdge which costs a small fortune (or about 3/4 of an M9), is there any other one you use, like and I should consider before my purchase? Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 26, 2011 Posted January 26, 2011 Hi christakis, Take a look here New monitor!. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
d2mini Posted January 26, 2011 Share #2 Posted January 26, 2011 NEC MultiSync PA241W-BK 24" Widescreen LCD PA241W-BK B&H Has the widest RGB gamut. Toss in the SpectraViewII Colorimeter and Software Kit and you have a complete solution for accurate color for about $1k. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
christakis Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share #3 Posted January 26, 2011 NEC MultiSync PA241W-BK 24" Widescreen LCD PA241W-BK B&H Has the widest RGB gamut. Toss in the SpectraViewII Colorimeter and Software Kit and you have a complete solution for accurate color for about $1k. Thanks for your reply. To be honest, the driving factor behind upgrading the monitor is resolution so I would need to go for the 27" NEC. Slightly more expensive than the Dell (£350) and doesn't seem to offer much more advantage, even in colours. I accept the NEC might be better than the Dell, but at which areas? I can't find any real proper reviews of the two. I've got the Spyder 3 calibrator so I can use that to calibrate all screens. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walt Calahan Posted January 26, 2011 Share #4 Posted January 26, 2011 Acreage is king. I use the same 27" Dell, along with a pivoting 24" Dell in "Portrait" configuration. Put my image on the 27" monitor, and all the Photoshop pallets on the 24" monitor. Enjoy the new monitor. I'd like to buy an NEC, too, but don't have the funds. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
christakis Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share #5 Posted January 26, 2011 Acreage is king. I use the same 27" Dell, along with a pivoting 24" Dell in "Portrait" configuration. Put my image on the 27" monitor, and all the Photoshop pallets on the 24" monitor. Enjoy the new monitor. I'd like to buy an NEC, too, but don't have the funds. :-) Thanks. To be honest, NEC is not so much more expensive than the Dell. Well ok it's about 50% more expensive but in numbers it's not so bad. But comparing specs: Both have 2560x1440px resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 1.07bn colours, Zero-Dead pixel warranty (6months Nec, 3yrs Dell), response about the same. Just trying to see what the difference is. And to top it all, ignoring that there's no reviews out there, there's also no-where I can go and check the two in person. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted January 27, 2011 Share #6 Posted January 27, 2011 Sean Reid favorably reviewed an earlier NEC 24" monitor...Welcome to ReidReviews I bought it and have been delighted. The newer models are probably even better, including the 27". The Eizo monitors are exceptional, and perhaps better in some respects, but are more expensive. Mine does all I need, especially with the built-in SpectraView, which Sean recommends, that provides easy calibration. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEB Posted January 27, 2011 Share #7 Posted January 27, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) NEC MultiSync PA241W-BK 24" Widescreen LCD PA241W-BK B&H Has the widest RGB gamut. Toss in the SpectraViewII Colorimeter and Software Kit and you have a complete solution for accurate color for about $1k. +1 I love mine! Mark Blumer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d2mini Posted January 27, 2011 Share #8 Posted January 27, 2011 The following is taken from another forum when I was doing my research. ------------------ IMHO you want a display specifically targeted towards graphics and photo editing, as opposed to the "cinema" or consumer-oriented displays. For serious graphics/photo work things like wide gamut, hardware LUT, even illumination, manageable contrast, etc are all important. The NEC also has some other nice features such as a highly accurate sRGB emulation/profile, and display-port input supporting 10-bit color in Photoshop CS5. And while the cheaper panels may claim super-high contrast ratios, they usually achieve it by having a super-bright white point; but it's the black point you care more about, because you're going to calibrate the white point in the 100-150 cd/m2 range anyway. The fact that a display can achieve 2000:1 or higher contrast ratio at 350 cd/m2 is absolutely meaningless. In fact a lot of those less expensive displays claiming high contrast ratios are difficult or even impossible to calibrate to a more reasonable white point without the image quality looking terrible. And yes you do want the SpectraView II kit, because the SV software is the only way to calibrate using the display's advanced hardware calibration features such as the 14-bit 3D LUT, which will provide for a much smoother image without the banding you would get using a 3rd party profiler such as Spyder3 or i1match. Those other programs will ignore the NEC's LUT and use the 8-bit LUT on the video card; the difference is significant. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
christakis Posted January 27, 2011 Author Share #9 Posted January 27, 2011 Thank you all for your replies. I dug deeper and found the differences between the NEC and the Dell. At first view they look absolutely the same but behind the scenes, the NEC comes out as a much more professional product. Partly because NEC doesn't advertise the merits enough and partly because Dell hides its downfalls. What I absolutely love about the NEC is the hood and hardware calibration. NECs price is a lot more expensive than my initial thought. The preliminary research I did on it, and the one my previous comment was based on, was for the an older model. So it falls out of my budget; which I'm gutted. If I was a professional photographer, I wouldn't even hesitate, I would go for the NEC but it seems that I'm leaning towards the Dell and keeping the difference for the next lens. Thanks again for all your input. NEC is now up there on the wish list, right under the Eizo ;-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerhardB Posted January 27, 2011 Share #10 Posted January 27, 2011 Well, three weeks ago I changed from PC to iMac 27``. To me it is the best choice regarding the quality of the picture, the handling and the price. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d2mini Posted January 27, 2011 Share #11 Posted January 27, 2011 Well, three weeks ago I changed from PC to iMac 27``. To me it is the best choice regarding the quality of the picture, the handling and the price. I'm not sure what pc to mac has to do with anything. I only use macs. But my NEC that I linked to above is a superior monitor compared to anything Apple makes. Bright and sharp does not a good monitor make. Like christakis found out, the NEC is for professional photographers. And at only $800 for the 24" widescreen, it's a no-brainer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblitz Posted January 27, 2011 Share #12 Posted January 27, 2011 nec, eizo, all great monitors. i have an eizo and couldn't be happier -- except remember that the monitor only gets you half way home. presuming you want to print, calibrating monitor to printer is yet one more step ... discussed in numerous threads throughout. point is, while you are budgeting, budget a bit more for the final calibration that will get you from camera to print. who said digital is easier than film? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
christakis Posted January 27, 2011 Author Share #13 Posted January 27, 2011 nec, eizo, all great monitors. i have an eizo and couldn't be happier -- except remember that the monitor only gets you half way home. presuming you want to print, calibrating monitor to printer is yet one more step ... discussed in numerous threads throughout. point is, while you are budgeting, budget a bit more for the final calibration that will get you from camera to print. who said digital is easier than film? :-) I know all that but don't worry about it. I don't own a printer, as I don't print often. When I do, I use an external company which provide me with their printer profiles. Job done. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoySmith Posted January 28, 2011 Share #14 Posted January 28, 2011 Sean Reid favorably reviewed an earlier NEC 24" monitor...Welcome to ReidReviews I bought it and have been delighted. The newer models are probably even better, including the 27". The Eizo monitors are exceptional, and perhaps better in some respects, but are more expensive. Mine does all I need, especially with the built-in SpectraView, which Sean recommends, that provides easy calibration. Jeff I have the 24” NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi2 with Spectraview II color calibration sensor and software - works great. It is 2 years old. It was advertised as having a wide color gamut 2 years ago, but NEC does not call it that now. As far as color gamut coverage goes, these are the published stats: NEC LCD2490WUXi2 : 96.7% sRGB / 75.2% AdobeRGB* NEC PA241W-BK 24" : 100% sRGB / 99.3% AdobeRGB / 92 % NTSC Dell UltraSharpTM U2711 27”W : 100% sRGB / 96% AdobeRGB Eizo ColorEdge CG245W 24" : 97% AdobeRGB Eizo ColorEdge CG243W 24" : 97% AdobeRGB So all of the newer monitors cover the AdobeRGB better than my older monitor. Roy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted January 28, 2011 Share #15 Posted January 28, 2011 I have the LCD2490WUXi with SpectraView and it works just fine. All I care about is being able to get from screen to print in an enjoyable, consistent and reliable fashion. The rest may be statistically accurate, but is useless for my practical purposes. It's all about the print for me. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
christakis Posted January 28, 2011 Author Share #16 Posted January 28, 2011 Well... I got the Dell U2711. I would love to say I'm happy with it, but I absolutely hate it. There's something very very wrong. I don't think it's the monitor as such, it's probably the calibration but whatever it is... It's driving me crazy! Here's the details: I calibrated it using a Spyder3 Pro, the same calibrator I used to calibrate my previous monitor. Everything looks perfect, until I start Lightroom. The images in Lightroom look dull AND the red channel changes to a crazy vivid blown red. The same applies to old images, images I processed using my old monitor. I didn't change any settings yet they looks dull and miserable. Ironically, processed jpgs of the exact same pictures, exported when I had my old monitor, look lovely and vivid! ANY ideas on what is going on?! Edit: AND, here's where it get's totally weird: When I have a picture with an extreme blown red channel and Print Screen, paste in Photoshop, the extreme red cast does not show in the pasted picture! Puzzled... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
christakis Posted January 29, 2011 Author Share #17 Posted January 29, 2011 Well... I got the Dell U2711. I would love to say I'm happy with it, but I absolutely hate it. There's something very very wrong. I don't think it's the monitor as such, it's probably the calibration but whatever it is... It's driving me crazy! Here's the details: I calibrated it using a Spyder3 Pro, the same calibrator I used to calibrate my previous monitor. Everything looks perfect, until I start Lightroom. The images in Lightroom look dull AND the red channel changes to a crazy vivid blown red. The same applies to old images, images I processed using my old monitor. I didn't change any settings yet they looks dull and miserable. Ironically, processed jpgs of the exact same pictures, exported when I had my old monitor, look lovely and vivid! ANY ideas on what is going on?! Edit: AND, here's where it get's totally weird: When I have a picture with an extreme blown red channel and Print Screen, paste in Photoshop, the extreme red cast does not show in the pasted picture! Puzzled... Nevermind... I sort of figured it out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotoism Posted February 6, 2011 Share #18 Posted February 6, 2011 Christakis: How did you find the anti-glare coating? Some users mentioned that it affects text due to some "sparkling". Also, did you notice any tinting (e.g.pink gradually turning to blue from left to right) at all? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted February 7, 2011 Share #19 Posted February 7, 2011 Nevermind... I sort of figured it out. Please expand on "I sort of figured it out". Please. Or is it a secret? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgray Posted February 8, 2011 Share #20 Posted February 8, 2011 I know you already got a monitor, but just wanted to say I recently got an NEC PA241. I sprung for SpectraView and the color sensor too since I didn't have one of these already. It's a fantastic monitor. I have a wide-gamut calibration for photo editing and an sRGB calibration for general use. It's very easy to switch back and forth between the two. I also really like the uniformity correction feature too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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