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I'm sure that this is an excellent pro monitor. In this time of tight budgets, it can be hard to come up with the 12-13 hundred bucks. If you (like me) have to watch your pennies, take a serious look at Viewsonic's VP2365wb. At around $300, this 23" IPS monitor is truly impressive. The color (after calibration) is accurate, the stand has every kind of adjustment you could ask for, it has a matte finish on the screen and it does a neat trick - it pivots so you can look at you work in vertical mode - fantastic if you do lots of posters. If you have plenty of cash, the NEC is probably a better monitor. If you don't, the Viewsonic will do just fine.

A pro monitor for color professionals? Not with a fluorescent bulb it isn't. Fluorescents have entire parts of the color spectrum missing -- I don't mean low, I mean missing. The gasses in he tbulb produce spikes at their characteristic colors. There is no way to compensate for that or balance it out. You wouldn't view a painting by fluorescent lighting; don't buy an expensive monitor with such lighting.

>For many, the displays Apple offers in its iMacs and the 27-inch LED Cinema Display () are absolutely fine—better than fine, really.

They may be “better than fine” but there’s nothing really special with them and they don’t hold a candle to a display like the SpectraView line that are designed for those who not only want to calibrate and profile their displays easily, effectively and to differing targets, but do so with the capabilities built into the panel (namely the high bits). The iMac’s are difficult to calibrate in terms of setting appropriate luminance for one. They are not high bit so if you decide you want to calibrate past a native white point or gamma, you are going to introduce banding without the high bit support. The SpectraView’s are designed from the ground up such that you tell it want calibration target values you want, put the instrument on the display (ideally the one they supply for their wide gamut units because its filter matrix is designed for this display) and walk away. No pushing OSD buttons (crude), it controls the hardware with its host software.

If you care about precise soft proofing for imaging work, you simply can’t compare any other unit except the more costly Eizo to these kinds of “smart monitors”. Using a 3rd party software/instrument will work, but not to this level of control.

>Not with a fluorescent bulb it isn't. Fluorescents have entire parts of the color spectrum missing

They have a spiky spectrum true but that’s not really a big issue here (it can be when viewing prints with OBAs). A white LED isn’t really any better for this kind of work. NECC did have a very expensive RGB LED unit a few years back but it was small and very costly. Far better to have a Fluorescent IPS with great software driving a high bit panel than a non IPS, 8-bit panel without the kind of software and mated colorimeter found in a unit like the SpectraView.

"They have a spiky spectrum true but that’s not really a big issue here (it can be when viewing prints with OBAs). A white LED isn’t really any better for this kind of work. NECC did have a very expensive RGB LED unit a few years back but it was small and very costly. Far better to have a Fluorescent IPS with great software driving a high bit panel than a non IPS, 8-bit panel without the kind of software and mated colorimeter found in a unit like the SpectraView"

Uh, could I ask you to expand on that? I would say that spikes matter a lot. I would also say that the missing spectrum part (mainly the red end) can't be balanced out. My own experience suggests that even an economy LED screen can be used to get something closer to natural balance. If your experience tells you differently, i'm all ears.

I don’t know what you mean by missing spectrum. There are usually two very large spikes in the spectrum from Fluorescent due to the mercury used. Look at the differences is the SPD’s from a Fluorescent light I measured and daylight in this article (figure 1): http://www.ppmag.com...04_rodneycm.pdf

Getting a really good screen to print match with Fluorescent backlight is quite doable and lots and lots of users do this every day.

I read your article in ppmag.com with considerable interest. Two observations:
1) The fluorescent spectrograms I have seen have far taller spikes than the ones you show. How do we account for this? Can it be that your method does excessive averaging to minimize peaks? (Such averaging is commonly done for loudspeaker response curves, the only way to make them look decent.)
2) Your own spectrogram shows that a good part of the red spectrum is so low as to be pretty much absent, and your own text refers to "spectral dead spots" in the light from a fluorescent tube. Doesn't that make accurate balance pretty well impossible?
What's the hope for the future? You mention RGB LED's. Thanks for your insights.

Both Dell & HP offers displays with same quality, but also with TRUE 10-bit colors and HDCP.
And they are cheaper...

Yes, there are cheaper displays with impressive hardware specs. However, I'm equally concerned about 'viewing angle.' My $200 LG 22" widescreen has wonderful color (once calibrated) that unfortunately shifts between the top and bottom of the screen because of the limited viewing angle. I have yet to see a 'budget' display that doesn't suffer from this problem, in varying degrees, which is more prominent with the larger widescreen displays. This is not good if you NEED consistency across the display for professional work.

My 2007 NEC has virtually NO color shifts at ANY angle. It's also a FL backlit display and I have no problem with color accuracy. Apparently they have improved this type of backlighting since my model was produced, and I'm just not sure what all of the concern is about.

IMHO, NEC makes great displays. Perfect in every way? Perhaps not. Professional grade? Yes. Cheap? No. But that's the price you typically pay when your display is for more than recreational use.

Hi guys,
I’m new here on the forum as this is my very first post! I actually ran across this venue while I was researching monitors to replace my aging Apple 22-inch Cinema Display. Yes, the original clear plastic bezel, flat panel display of nearly 15-years ago. Back then it cost me $5k and I’m still using it with my 2009 MacPro. Anyway, I’ve read soOoo many reviews in the past few weeks and narrowed it down to the LaCie 324i, Dell U2711 and the NEC PA271W-BK-SV. As fate would have it, the price on the NEC recently dropped 300-bucks and they’re tossing in the hood with extra cables to boot. That pretty much took away any reservations concerning price vs. value and features.

Having owned a Nanao and then a newer EIZO FlexScan, I have at least some knowledge of the whole high-end offerings. In the end, the old Apple CD served me the best and it certainly lasted the longest! In fact, I’m using it right now as I type this post. Granted, the brightness has diminished over time, but it’s easier on the eyes than the new Apple LED variants of today. I can’t remember how many times I visited the stores and played with them while I admired the sleek exterior appearance. As I’m sure you folks already know, the glare isn’t for everyone.

Moreover, I dabble in photography and other disciplines that involve several hours each day in front of my screen. When I remodeled my office I incorporated indirect lighting so as to avoid or minimize reflections. However, when I use my son’s MacBook I’m distracted by my own reflections. I guess it’s good for viewing animated content, but for everything else it truly sucks. Anyway, I’ll post my own review of the NEC once I have it up and running.

Regards,
Dan

This post has been edited by Daniel: 19 January 2011 - 02:41 PM

** FOLLOW UP **
I recently purchased this monitor from B&H Photo and I went through the various growing pains to a pro-level display. After about 2-weeks of trial and error I finally called tech support to sort things out. ‘Plug n’ Play’ it is not! Fantastic once you get it, it certainly is!

What’s not explained?

• Matching USB uplink port(s)
• Where does the calibrator weight go
• The purpose and use of those suction cup looking things’ on the calibrator
• What’s considered a good Delta e and why I need to know?
• Seemingly random and short text instructions on the On Screen Display

The user guide doesn’t explain many issues that I encountered so cable swapping and ‘trial and error’. Ultimately, I required help from a Level-2 NEC techno’ type. BTW: You must be patient and polite to the Level-1 tech BEFORE you get to the L2 Tech. You know what mom said… ‘you get more flies with honey than vinegar’.

Matching the USB ‘uplink’ connection is crucial to getting things to work correctly. The reason for this is that the monitor is designed to support two computers. If there is a miss-match you’ll go crazy trying to track down the culprit.

If you opt for the Display Port to Mini Display Port, you should that not every cable combination works. I ended up two and lost about 50-bucks in the process. Adapter method didn’t work but the ‘direct’ connect cable ‘DP to Mini DP’ cable did. Got mine from ‘Other World Computing’ (MacSales).

All-in-all a worth while ordeal when you consider the current price is $1349 and NEC sends you a free Hood and cables. Ok, the cables will useless once they arrive since you’ll want the cables when the monitor arrives. NEC states, the hood/cable perk arrives 6-12 weeks after they process the proof of purchase of your monitor/display. Oh well…

Dan

This post has been edited by Daniel: 02 February 2011 - 12:56 PM