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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2012-06-26, 16:21

My EIZO is a small and "cheap" version, Matsu, nothing like the top-of-the-range EIZOs or NECs. However, the image quality is really excellent. Uniformity is perfect, the gamut covers 95% of Adobe RGB, and most importantly, it has hardware calibration. This last feature is pretty much essential for wide-gamut displays, since our GPUs still output just 8 bits (you need to use the full 8 bits to avoid banding with a wide-gamut image, and that's only achievable by calibrating in the display rather than the GPU).

The other big deal with the EIZO is that you can build multiple calibration targets and ICC profiles and then switch between them on the fly in the bundled ColorNavigator software. This can be useful in unexpected ways. For example, since I can't practically control my room's brightness during the day, I cycle through a range of brightness targets (from about 30 cd/m2 to 100 cd/m2 for photo work; my room is pretty dim) as the ambient light varies.

I first tried a NEC MultiSync P221W, but the uniformity was hopelessly bad so I sent it back. The build quality was also dubious on that one; the EIZO is much better, though frankly, still a far cry from the absolute solidity of a Cinema Display. If your table moves when you type this display will nod its head!

Would I buy it again? I probably would, since I really like knowing my colour can be trusted no matter what I'm doing. But it's definitely a bit of a luxury for me. The rest of my setup isn't overly expensive (and I "only" paid about 700 euros for the EIZO; I know it's more expensive in the US, where I'd probably go for a NEC).
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