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Monitor recommendations?

Ed Hurst

Well-known member
Hello all,

The time has come for me to get a new monitor - which I have not done for years. I am keen to get something really good that will last me a long time, though am hoping that it will fall in the 'expensive but not quite ridiculous' category.

My criteria are:
Size (27 inches or more)
Resolution (ppi) much as possible of course- I believe 109 or more is available?
Pixel dimensions (2560 x 1440 or more)
Colour reproduction
Colour space (Adobe RGB or better?)
Contrast ratio / quality of blacks
LED backlighting
IPS (or PLS if Samsung)
USB hub - nice to have
Inputs (I guess this means HDMI or DVI - though I'm not sure what my next machine will have!)
Swivel capability and easy adjustability
Portrait rotation (nice to have - not really concerned about this)
Supplied with light shade

Does anyone have any recommendations that meet these requirements? I suspect, as always, that Dante will want me to sell a kidney, but interested in options!

Many thanks in advance :)

Ed
 

triangle

Member
If you are willing, take a look at the Eizo range. Expensive (what a surprise) but fantastic colour reproduction and the dearer models have built in calibration. I have a 24" without a self-calibrator that I just plug my Spyder or ColorMunki into and it is the best monitor I've ever owned. Can't comment on other brands but I'm very happy with the Eizo. Cost me $AUS1650 I think and I did not opt for the shade.
 

jerome_m

Member
I would rather wait a year or so. Now is not the best moment to buy a monitor, as we are witnessing a generation change. 4K monitors are out, but the first models adapted to the special needs of photographers have just been released. Interfaces capable of running 4K monitors are still a bit of a problem for high bit depth monitors.
 

Jay Emm

Member
And LG just "outed" Apple as having an 8k monitor later this year. Hardly confirmation, but nevertheless may be some truth in this..
 

bdp

Member
Hi Ed,

The Eizo self-calibrating monitors are so convenient but expensive. The NEC Pro monitors are generally considered as good, but cheaper. There is some great information at Just Monitors in Melbourne: Just Monitors

The NEC is still $1950 for a 27" model but the Eizo is $2750 for the LED and $3520 for the LCD version. The Eizo Flexscan range is cheaper at $1249 and I use one of those as a secondary monitor which is just as accurate as my ColorEdge. You just need to factor in a calibrator with the latter which you may already have.

I find Apple monitors are so bright and contrasty that images that look great on the monitor are disappointing when printed but you can get used to it to some degree and compensate by processing images brighter and more contrasty so they look good when printed. Of course the problem is these days that images have to look good for BOTH print and screen, because so many images are used across several media. So a compromise sometimes has to be made when processing so it looks good everywhere.

Ben
 

Paul2660

Well-known member
The NEC current lineup is a good one to consider. They have a 27 and 30 inch both with spectravision. They don't ship with the cover as rhe Ezio ones do but you purchase it separately.

Paul
 

jagsiva

Active member
The NEC PA 27x is a great monitor with hardware calibration. For $950, I'm not sure it can be beat. I have two of these and they have all the other features (IPS, swivel etc.) you are looking for as well.

4K - I have a couple of Dell UP3214Q monitors. They have hardware calibration and have OEM X-rite software as well. The are stunning to look at .....beware of growing pains on 4K.

- DP1.2 barely has enough bandwidth to get 60Hz out.
- DP1.3 is be out in the next year or so
- GPU vendors are just getting to a point where drivers are stabilizing

5K - there is of course the new iMAC and Dell monitor. Same issues as 4K.

Having said this, after editing on these 32" screens, it is hard to go back and look at 2500x1400.

Again, the NEC PA series is hard to beat for performance/price. I think there are a few other guys around here with them.
 
Last year I bought an NEC PA272W plus calibration tool and a shade, which ended up around $1,300 with tax. I thought I really wanted an Eizo, but the salesman convinced me there there is very little practical difference and I'd be paying considerably more.

The PA272 is a massive and solid chunk of a device since it's built over a metal frame, which I take as a sign of quality, and it pretty much ticks all of your boxes minus the hood, which is sold separately. Eizo is pretty much the only company that packs a nice hood into the box... the Asus Proart series does have them in the box, but it glues to the display rather than snapping on into place. The Eizo hood is better in one aspect in that it can be mounted on the display in either landscape or portrait, while the NEC one is only landscape.

With regards to 30" 1600p monitors - after browsing many display review sites while looking for a display, I've learned that they are on the whole technically worse than 27" displays. Everything people don't like about IPS displays is more apparent, like IPS glow, much slower response times and other such issues.

For 4K and 5K I'd wait for a while until professional displays come down in price, and after seeing and using the 5K iMac, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about the technology. Having used 27" 1440p for years now, I'm used to the level of magnification it offers when looking at images, and to me it's a nice blend between having a high PPI and the pixels being too small to properly pixel-peep. For a computer that is also 4-5 years newer than mine, I was also disappointed by how sluggish it was, the resolution really takes it's toll.
Apple has the advantage of being able to tailor the OS scaling to their displays, and experience with the retina display on the macbooks means they have a head start over Windows users with regards to scaling support, but I still think that both Windows and OS X need more work done before being ready for UHD.
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
I've used NEC monitors for critical imaging work in the past. Can't recommend them highly enough for durability and relative low cost to high performance value. It's usually where I start and end and I think you'd have to buy a much more expensive Eizo to barely surpass (in tangible results) the NEC's.
 

thomas

New member
When you use such a monitor the calibration software should also be a decisive part.
Too, the monitor should be able to emulate color spaces.
With this is mind you are pretty much down to Eizo, NEC (or Quato, if at all available in Australia).
Personally I do like the top of the line Eizos ("CG" and "CX" lines) in conjunction with their "Color Navigator" software ... but NEC basically provides the same functionality (and the NEC software is also really good... and even more versatile than Eizos software). Display-wise the somewhat "crystal" looking panels of the "PA"- and "Spectraview" NECs confuse me a bit. The Eizos are a bit more matte... or "cleaner" if you want so. Mind you this a very personal perception and the difference is not that large. Still there is a difference. On the ohter hand there are users that favor the NEC panels precisely because of the "crystal" look.
Also to take into account: due to its LED backlight the Eizo CG277 has a builtin fan. It's not loud but it may play a role for you (personally I would never buy a display with a builtin fan ... but I also have no reservations to use a display without LED-backlight).

edit... BTW: I still use an "old" Eizo CG241W. It's 7.5 years old and ran for 17300 hours. The gamut lost a bit in volume (blue chanel dies faster ... but RGB Gain and luminance compensate this loss). It's still something like 90% of AdobeRGB. The uniformity is still almost as "new" (very, very low drift in color temperatur and luminance over the panel's plane). So this is really a trusty device and of course this is also why I am a bit biased towards the Eizos.
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
I recently bought the 4K Dell P2715Q for my Mac nMP for $600. Works fine.
Stunning display. That will tie me over until Apple has a monitor I like.
 

jotloob

Subscriber Member
Has anyone of you guys ever thought of a square monitor ?

Here is one . The EIZO EV2730Q . That gives you the best for landscape and portrait oriented images . Not cheap , but surely good .
Has anyone that monitor ? ? ? If so , what are your experiences ? ? ?
That monitor is on my wishlist top .
 

Pradeep

Member
I've been using two NEC 30" monitors for at least 5 yrs now, had Samsung before that. The NEC are superb, wonderful to work with, the calibration is tricky because you have to use the Spectraview software something that you don't realize initially. NEC monitors do not allow third party software to control the display.

A friend of mine bought two 32" 4K Sharp monitors. These are amazingly clear and sharp (perhaps a bit too much). The problem is that he cannot read the text especially in browsers without a magnifying glass or squinting significantly. This is a problem and though can be adjusted perhaps through a change in the font size, it did not seem to be an easy fix.

The monitors do look gorgeous though, and the panoramic display suits images very well, since it gives them a 1.77 ratio instead of the typical 1.6 with the current monitors.

The Sharp 4K 32" currently go for around $2499 at B&H. Waiting for something from NEC or Eizo and probably a bit affordable to come through. Until then I am happy to carry on with my current displays.

Pradeep

Pradeep
 

tcdeveau

Well-known member
+1 for NEC. I bought an NEC PA272-SV last year and I'm perfectly happy with it. Had my heart set on the Eizo CG277, but decided to go with the NEC and buy more storage/RAM instead. No regrets. The only annoying thing is that the hood is sold separately. The -SV designation means it comes with the spectra view software as well as a calibration tool (NEC branded xrite I think), the NEC monitors can be purchased with or without these tools so watch out for that when purchasing. I'm running that alongside an Apple Thunderbolt Display and often view on both displays when making adjustments.

This being the inferno and all, Pemihan above linked to the Eizo 31" CG318-4k....that just became available here in the states so you could also go that route too and test it out for us. Nevermind the fact you could get two CG277's with cash to spare for the price haha.
 
The -SV designation means it comes with the spectra view software as well as a calibration tool (NEC branded xrite I think), the NEC monitors can be purchased with or without these tools so watch out for that when purchasing.
Due to a discount that was going on at the time it was actually cheaper for me to buy the display and calibration tool separately, since they're "different products" and the SV version was not discounted. Something to keep in mind.

This being the inferno and all, Pemihan above linked to the Eizo 31" CG318-4k....that just became available here in the states so you could also go that route too and test it out for us. Nevermind the fact you could get two CG277's with cash to spare for the price haha.
Heh, Eizo never fails to find ways to make sure their displays are the most expensive, but that 9ms response rating though - one thing's for sure that display is meant for looking at images and not moving them around.
 
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