Which is preferred now for manual calibration, the Spyders or CaliBrite? I don't need printer calibration, excessive luminaires, or HDR or any funky stuff, just for normally viewed computers with displays, laptops, and occasional projectors would be nice. Ideally there is ability to use any computer and no activation or online nonsense. Thanks.
As long as you get a colorimeter adequate for your output device(s), I don't think there's any meaningful differences. Both brands have multiple price point options that just add more features like HDR brightness support. I keep using Calibrite mostly due to momentum and experience with X-rite. If someone swapped my Calibrite for a Datacolor I'd probably be annoyed for 5 minutes while installing the new software and then never notice again.
My Calibrite Display Plus HL does all the things you're asking for and I have no complaints.
All X-rite/Calibrite devices I have used act as the licensing dongle. No network connection is required. My understanding is that Datacolor requires you to enter their device serial numbers manually to activate software and requires an internet connection. Perhaps a current Spyder owner can confirm this?
jeffbuzz wrote:
As long as you get a colorimeter adequate for your output device(s), I don't think there's any meaningful differences. Both brands have multiple price point options that just add more features like HDR brightness support. I keep using Calibrite mostly due to momentum and experience with X-rite. If someone swapped my Calibrite for a Datacolor I'd probably be annoyed for 5 minutes while installing the new software and then never notice again.
My Calibrite Display Plus HL does all the things you're asking for and I have no complaints.
All X-rite/Calibrite devices I have used act as the licensing dongle. No network connection is required. My understanding is that Datacolor requires you to enter their device serial numbers manually to activate software and requires an internet connection. Perhaps a current Spyder owner can confirm this?...Show more →
I had an old ColorMunki system that calibrated monitors nicely and also let me create custom profiles for papers. Unfortunately, due to software/OS issues it stopped working, so we moved to the Calibrite Display Plus HL. It works well, too, though it does not do printer profiling. (I see that doesn’t interest you anyway.)
Ironically, a recent update to the Calibrite software now allows my old ColorMunki unit to work with it again! (To set it up I had up upgrade my software license — for a pretty low cost — and log in to some Calibrite web site.)
I have both, an X-Rite (purchased some five years ago) and a Datacolor Spyder (purchased about two years ago). I have used both, and the calibration results were noticeably different, with the Spyder giving a perceptually warmer calibration. Needless to say, when the color profile obtained with the X-Rite calibration is verified using the Spyder, the Calibrite software tells that the calibration is off. I like the colors obtained with the X-Rite device, as they seem to be more neutral/natural. The monitor is BenQ SW271C.
I use a Datacolor SpyderPro 2024. At first glance it felt a little warm. Uncalibrated my displays leaned towards blue/green. Could just be my eyes were so used to the blue/green for the longest time.
I only have experience with Datacolor Spyder Calibrators.
This past Black Friday, I bought a new Spyder Pro, along with a new BenQ PD3225U.
Though the BenQ is calibrated from the factory, past experiences guided me that Factory does not always give me the best color to match what I am trying to output.
I put the Spyder Pro to the task, and the BenQ is now showing a much more natural color tone whereas factory was quite a bit cooler/ flatter.
Next up for Calibration is my I7 iMac and M4 MB Air,
I’ve used Calibrite since the product was Gretag-Macbeth. It’s worked well but they are horrible with keeping up with support for Mac and constantly sunsetting software/devices and pushing customers to new versions. Specifically not updating software and obsoleting it (and the device) when rosetta was end of life despite having years to recompile for the new binaries
It looks like the current Spyders are not supported with the ColorEdges, so I'll probably go with the Calibrite for best compatibility. I don't use Apple products so that's not an issue. The main thing it to get the profile into the monitor's LUT permanently so that is stays there for any other computer whether it has software or not. I only need two computers to have the profile at most on one display. Another 2-3 just need to look good.
Picked up a Calibrite ColorChecker Studio a few months ago. It's just a rebranded X-Rite/ColorMunki device so not new tech and sort of clunky in operation, but it's worked well for calibrating all my monitors to match, as well as being relatively straightforward to create ICC profiles for specific papers I have lying around.
