After researched for better monitor, Finally I made my decision to get NEC LCD2690WUXi to replace my previous DELL 2407WPF.
Today I got a huge parcel- new monitor arrived! I was so excited to see what it can improve in my current situation.
Unfortunately, After I tested for bad pixel(there is no bad/dead pixel on it fortunately) and basic function and calibrated with SpectraViewII and Eye-one D2 colorimeter(SV package comes with these), honestly, I feel a little bit disappointed with LCD2690WUXi...
because I didn't see any better than my previous DELL 2407WPF....
1.It looks a pile of Black plastic! the stand looks cheap and made of plastic( DELL's looks better and can turn 90 degree without moving stand on table).
2.Banding still there! I checked the banding issue which I experienced on www.bluenile.com with DELL2407, there is no any improvement on NEC LCD2690WUXi after I calibrated twice with SpectraViewII and i1 d2 colorimeter(it can automatically completed, the only thing you have to do is, put colorimeter on the position and click "continue")...
3.wider gamut maybe is true, but How can I see with my naked eyes ?
4.12 bits built-in LUT and 16 bits processing, but for what? how can I see it?
the question is, I asked myself right now,why I need this 1566 bucks(1374 plus tax) monitor anyway? Could anyone offer me some constructional suggestion on that? thanks in advance.
Sorry to hear of your issues with the NEC. I just ordered one today after reading so much positive on it. Macworld gave it a product of the year rating. PC magazine raved about it as well. A lot of internet searches turned up similar reviews. Any chance you got a bum unit and can it be returned?
I've made a couple preliminary calls to NEC tech support and found them to be quite helpful in answering my questions. Perhaps a call to them can solve your issues?
I bought from www.cdw.ca, the rep was quite nice, and my unit is brand new with original package and can be returned. I will try to call tech support for that next Monday.
When I got my lcd2690 it was a major improvement over anything that I had or that I was able to find in stores, so I am surprised with your experience.
2407 definitely is not super good monitor otherwise I won't bother to get LCD2690wuxi. Maybe I just expect too much on LCD2690WUXi..... but at least in www.bluenile.com the banding background has no any improvement on it.
This is unfortunate to hear given that I also have one of these on order. What kind of work do you do? Are you sending to a home printer or lab where you could test the accuracy as it relates to prints? I am purchasing this monitor after reading several great reviews as well and am particularly interested in matching my colors from the screen to final print as I do lots of large landscape work that requires color accuracy. I'd be curious to know what your results are when it comes to this. Otherwise, you are right, no need to spend money on a wider gamut when strictly viewing on the web. In fact, this monitor is a poor choice for sRGB work in general.
Keep us posted on what you decide. I've strongly debated between this monitor and a 30" apple for quite some time.
winzphoto, honestly, your portfolio makes me wow! Congratulations on that! you must earn a lot on ur photography. I bought this particular monitor just because I want everything I have is perfect(actually it won't be able to do that due to budget or other factors). I don't have lots of print work to do currently, but maybe in near future I will have... I will continue to figure out what's going on here and will like to hear from yours too. thanks!
aaron liu wrote:
After researched for better monitor, Finally I made my decision to get NEC LCD2690WUXi to replace my previous DELL 2407WPF.
Today I got a huge parcel- new monitor arrived! I was so excited to see what it can improve in my current situation.
Unfortunately, After I tested for bad pixel(there is no bad/dead pixel on it fortunately) and basic function and calibrated with SpectraViewII and Eye-one D2 colorimeter(SV package comes with these), honestly, I feel a little bit disappointed with LCD2690WUXi...
because I didn't see any better than my previous DELL 2407WPF....
1.It looks a pile of Black plastic! the stand looks cheap and made of plastic( DELL's looks better and can turn 90 degree without moving stand on table)....Show more →
The black bezel is designed to visually disappear when you are working ... it is a great design ... give it a litte more time and report back.
2.Banding still there! I checked the banding issue which I experienced on www.bluenile.com with DELL2407, there is no any improvement on NEC LCD2690WUXi after I calibrated twice with SpectraViewII and i1 d2 colorimeter(it can automatically completed, the only thing you have to do is, put colorimeter on the position and click "continue")...
If you want to test gradient ramps, I would recommend using the many test partterns in the supplied NEC software and not some web site. You should get smooth color ramps. There are many useful test patterns in the supplied software.
3.wider gamut maybe is true, but How can I see with my naked eyes ?
Just compare some greens to greens on the Dell or better yet set the Dell up next to the 2690. I think you will see in this example that the greens on the Dell will look yellow-green. If you are looking for examples, make sure that you are using aRGB. You can view your monitors color space in Spectraview II and compare it to sRGB. This will tell you exactly what additional color range the 2690 has. When I purchased my 2690 I had the opportunity to run a dual monitor setup with a 2490 (sRGB monitor) next to it for two weeks. The color on the 2690 is much nicer than on a sRGB monitor. Try to compare color between your Dell and the 2690 (or even viewing angle color stability).
4.12 bits built-in LUT and 16 bits processing, but for what? how can I see it?
the question is, I asked myself right now,why I need this 1566 bucks(1374 plus tax) monitor anyway? Could anyone offer me some constructional suggestion on that? thanks in advance.
It takes some knowledge and experience to understand a monitor like the 2690. You might want to give yourself a little more time.
When I got my lcd2690 it was a major improvement over anything that I had or that I was able to find in stores, so I am surprised with your experience.
Banding? By banding do you mean quantization? That happens when you put two code values up and they get translated to the same output. That *can* happen if you put a LUT in the video card and a LUT in the monitor, or the monitor's LUT isn't being calculated correctly.
We calibrate the NECs and find, on 12 bit LUTs, no banding issues. There was a banding issue when I (software engineer) put a LUT in the video card- it made my calibration numbers look excellent but it messed up the screen (oops), and so as such we now force the video card LUT files to be reset after calibrating with spectraview.
Try resetting your video card to linear and seeing if the banding goes away.
Hi,UCSB, thanks for your information.
After done some further experiment and comparison, finally I feel much better than early before now I just forget about the bluenile website banding issue( the reason I mentioned is, I thought my 2407WFP has inherent banding problem, now it seems not really). I did find pure green(0,255,0) on 2407 looks yellow-green while pure green on NEC LCD2690WUXi. and I re-checked the some print comparing to screen on both monitor. the LCD2690WUXi looks more close to print while 2407WFP seems a little bit washed out.
To purduephotog，how to reset LUT in video card? thanks!
I use custom software; but you (and this works on mine) can reset it by going to the 'color correction' controls of the video card (properties, advanced, Geforce/nvidia properties, color correction) and setting the gamma to 1.0.
I'll keep looking but I don't know of any other reset software. I'm surprised spectraview doesn't offer that.
to purduephotog, thanks, I checked Nvidia driver( 6.14.11.6218), it seems in both monitor 's color correction setting, the gamma are 1.0,color profile is "standard mode",contrast 100%,brightness 100%,digital vibrance off. does this mean my LUT in video card is currently untouched? but I did calibrate 2407 w/ colorimeter( I didn't reinstalled Match3 since I returned i1 d2 and the reason I returned i1 d2 because my monitor comes with i1 d2 colorimeter and SpectraView II software). BTW, in windows color management, I set default monitor profile to LCD2690WUXi 76101259YA which generated by SpectraViewII. Unfortunately I can't assign different monitor profile to DELL2407 and LCD2690. so I guess I could not calibrate/profile these two different monitor connected to same pc(with ASUS 8600GTS Silent video card, two DVI-D output)?
purduephotog wrote:
Banding? By banding do you mean quantization? That happens when you put two code values up and they get translated to the same output. That *can* happen if you put a LUT in the video card and a LUT in the monitor, or the monitor's LUT isn't being calculated correctly.
We calibrate the NECs and find, on 12 bit LUTs, no banding issues. There was a banding issue when I (software engineer) put a LUT in the video card- it made my calibration numbers look excellent but it messed up the screen (oops), and so as such we now force the video card LUT files to be reset after calibrating with spectraview.
Try resetting your video card to linear and seeing if the banding goes away....Show more →
Could you tell me what settings you used with the Spectraview II software? My 2690 is coming in next week and I'd be interested in knowing what settings you used.
aaron, get hold of the free Microsoft WinColor.exe utility and use it to compare your new monitor profile with the Adobe RGB or sRGB colour space profiles or the original monitor profile (as a 3D rotatable chart). Then you'll see where the differences are and then you can choose appropriate images (preferable raw) that highlight those differences. e.g. if the new monitor is only better in the reds then there is little point in looking at images that are predominantly green or blue.
With regard to the LUT, the monitor may have an in-built processor and LUT to handle gamma and screen brightness uniformity but a proper colour profile is still needed for your video card LUT and so your software still has to be aware of that profile. Make sure that the software is using the correct profile. Some programs use whatever profile is set as the system default while others need to be told precisely which profile to use.
Set your video card to default settings for gamma (1.0) and brightness and contrast. Make sure that you do not have a nasty little LUT hacker like Adobe Gamma interfering with things, and profile your new monitor as you did the old one with the same hardware colorimeter but not the same software (use the stuff that came with the monitor).
You still cannot expect web browsers to display correct colours. I thought they would when I read about the monitors built in LUT but had misunderstood the role of that LUT.
I've got a 2690 arriving today and should be receiving the Spectraview II software soon (I hope). I'm assuming that the software will know what the LUT on my Macbook Pro? is set to and adjust accordingly?
I tried to find out the way to reset video card LUT, according to purduephotog's method, I guess SpectraViewII probably disable the Gamma setting automatically after calibration since I can't adjust this value at all. If I am not mistaken, the color profile in windows display setting is something to do with the video card LUT, Should I select the profile which SpectraViewII generated or something else? If so, I think there is no way to profile the two different monitor at same pc. so the comparison will be less meaningful at this point.
The NECs get a LUT put into them. Adobe Gamma may over-ride the video card lut- make sure you aren't running that application or any other app that messes with the gamma of the display.
thanks for reminding, I don't think I ever installed Adobe Gamma application.
I think the profile file which NEC's SpectraViewII generated actually reset the video card's LUT settinig. When I switched these profiles in color management, I can see some difference of color display. Since NEC has built-in LUT and color processing, the windows profile file doesn't make sense to this particular monitor? so I assume the only function of profile SpectraView II generated after calibrating is to reset Video card's LUT. What do you guys think?
anyway, the color displayed in NEC LCD2690WUXi are much better than in DELL 2407WFP, the print from local lab indicated the NEC LCD2690 monitor has pretty much same to it while DELL2407 is less close to the print. For banding issue, the only thing I can say is, DELL2407 doesn't appear to have banding issue, if it does, NEC LCD2690WUXi does too.
thanks to all posters above!
now I just forget about the bluenile website banding issue( the reason I mentioned is, I thought my 2407WFP has inherent banding problem, now it seems not really). I did find pure green(0,255,0) on 2407 looks yellow-green while pure green on NEC LCD2690WUXi. and I re-checked the some print comparing to screen on both monitor. the LCD2690WUXi looks more close to print while 2407WFP seems a little bit washed out.