Sometime during the last year or so, I came to the conclusion that it was time to buy a new display for my desktop computer. Monitor technology has moved on since I bought my 23" Cinema Display 4 or 5 years ago and as I've become more serious about both my photography and color management, I've wanted something a bit more capable. Something with a wider color gamut. A few years ago when we were stuck with 8-bit color in Photoshop, it didn't make sense to step outside the sRGB box. Now that we're working with more bits from RAW files with tools like Aperture and Lightroom, not to mention 16-bit mode in Photoshop, it makes sense to start working with monitors that can represent a larger gamut.

I didn't jump quickly, however. My trusty 23" Cinema Display was still getting the job done. As well, when you get into the realm of really good displays, the price point moves up a bit. So, I bid my time doing a bit of research here and there. And I spent way too much time reading through Internet forums.

The NEC LCD2690WUXi on my desk.

After reading as much as I could online and checking out the displays where I could—they don't tend to carry wide-gamut displays at Fry's—I narrowed down the possibilities to the Eizo ColorEdge CG241W and the NEC LCD2690WUXi. Both are very capable displays with the Eizo specifying that it can reproduce 96% of the Adobe RGB color space and the NEC specifying 93%. They both feature programmable LUTs, allowing adjustments for calibration to be made in hardware rather than only in the video card. And they both feature calibration software that knows how to set these LUTs and which can be used with the iOne Display 2 calibration tool I already owned. The Eizo includes the software in the box, while the NEC's is an additional purchase.

The biggest difference between these displays (other than a bit of a size difference) is that the Eizo display uses a S-PVA panel and the NEC uses and IPS. In short, IPS panels generally provide for a wider viewing angle than a S-PVA panel does. The panel in the Eizo, however, looks to be outstanding and I didn't see any viewing angle issues that were bothersome. Both panels, in fact, are pretty amazing. I finally came to the conclusion that either display would be a good addition to the stable.

In the end, I ordered the NEC to try out. There were two reasons for this choice. First, the NEC is quite a bit less expensive, even factoring in the extra bit for the SpectraView II calibration software. Second, I found myself liking the "look" of the NEC a bit better. This was a bit hard to characterize as I never was able to put them side by side and compare them directly. But, based on what I'd seen of each display, I placed my order and crossed my fingers for the best.

Display Quality and Ease of Use

Out of the box, the display quality is outstanding. I'm pretty impressed. I'm seeing outstanding matches between prints I've made in the past and the monitor. As well, in a few test prints, I'm seeing extremely good matching between soft proofing an image on the display and how the finished result looks out of the printer.

Maybe the nicest thing about this display is the process of calibrating it. Using the SpectraView II software makes the process about as drop dead simple as I've ever seen. Pick your white point, gamma, and intensity and the software does the rest, adjusting brightness automatically by using the calibration hardware. Some other software packages approach this level of ease of use, but most leave you having to twiddle brightness of your display to reach the target level. The NEC software communicates with the display and takes care of everything.

The user interface of the calibration software is clean and, while not as sexy as it could be, it's certainly a lot nicer to look at than the user interfaces of several other calibration packages I've used.

The real beauty of the SpectraView II software goes beyond simple one-shot calibrations. You can calibrate multiple settings—all set to different intensities and what not—and then switch between them on demand. For example, you can have one group of settings with a luminance set to 190cd/m2 for when there's daylight streaming in through a window, and another for nighttime conditions when you want your display to run at a lower brightness. When you switch to a different setting, the monitor spends a bit of time changing its LUTs and brightness to the new settings and then you're ready to go. In the past, when I've tried to do this, I've had to manually adjust the monitor to about the setting I remember it being at and then switch profiles. Now, it's point and click and looks to be quite accurate. Very cool.

Speaking of calibration, here's the gamut plot of my profiled display as reported by SpectraView II:

The rainbow filled triangle is the display gamut. The yellow triangle outline is the Adobe RGB color space. And the barely visible light blue triangle outline is the sRGB color space. All things being equal, I'd love to be working somewhere on the outside of that yellow line. But, this monitor is definitely a step up from my 23" Apple Cinema Display which just barely eeked out the sRGB gamut on a good day.

Other Niceties

A nice feature in use that I hadn't expected would matter is the adjustable stand the display comes with. The Apple displays which I've long used let you just adjust the tilt of the screen, but not the height. The NEC, on the other hand, lets you drop the height of the screen almost to desk level, or raise it up 8".

Also nice for a change from the Cinema display is that there are a set of input ports on the back, one DVI-I, one DVI-D, and one VGA. Why anybody would need VGA these days is beyond me, but I appreciate having the option of hooking another computer up to the display on an as-needed basis without disconnecting it from my primary system.

The last bit of niceness that I've run into so far is that the unit comes with an internal power supply. You hook it up directly to AC with the same standard cable that your Mac or PC uses. This means that there's one less thing tucked away under your desk. If you take the display with you to some other location, you have one less thing to carry or to forget. I can tell you from experience that trying to scare up a power supply for an Apple Cinema Display isn't the quickest thing to do. You can't just walk into an Apple Store and walk back out with one 5 minutes later.

Downsides and a Big Suprise

One downside of this display compared to the Apple Cinema Display is the lack of built in USB and Firewire hubs. Having two Firewire and two USB ports on the screen is handy for plugging in a keyboard and mouse, attaching a colorimeter, and hooking up card readers. When setting up this display, I had to go hunt down both USB and Firewire hubs to have these ports nearby and handy.

Another feature of this display that may (or may not) be considered a downside is its resolution. At a max resolution of 1900x1200—the same as the 23" Cinema display—the NEC sports a resolution of 89dpi. I've personally gotten used to 100dpi displays and it feels a bit odd to roll this backward. On the other hand, the sheer size of the display is big enough that I have to sit a bit further back from it than the 23" Cinema in order to see the entire image comfortably which means that perceptual resolution probably works out to be about the same. It remains to be seen if I like working with editing long text documents on this screen.

The big suprise about this display is related to its huge color gamut. Anything that has a ICC profile attached to it renders beautifully. But items that don't have a profile, such as application icons and quite a bit of web content, display very, very vibrantly. For example, the unread message count on the Mail icon in the dock is a screaming red that is seemingly twice as punchy as the same icon on my MacBook Pro sitting next to it. When an application says "Give me pure red", this display definitely complies and gives a very bright and pure red like you've never seen before on an sRGB display.

I knew that this was going to be a side effect of using a wider-gamut display, but the sheer punch of the greens and reds on the display is quite amazing. It's something that I hadn't noticed while playing with the monitors at stores and on trade show floors, possibly because I was paying more attention to the photographs displayed on them than anything else. I'm getting used to it, and I am more than willing to exchange this for the extra headroom with which to edit images with, but it definitely will throw you for a loop the first time you see this effect in action.

Buy the Software

I noted above that the SpectraView II calibration software doesn't ship with the display. Well, that's not totally true. There is a version of this display that comes with an NEC-branded iOne Display2 colorimeter and the SpectraView II software, but it's very hard to find in stock, at least it is right now in March, 2008. Search for LCD2690BKSV to find all the places where it's out of stock. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to find the version of the display that doesn't contain the SpectraView II software.

The thing is, you want the SpectraView II software to go with this display for two reasons. The first is the wonderful integration with the display. This is the best monitor calibration experience I've ever had. And being able to switch profile settings on the fly is quite nice. The second reason is that while you can use other calibration software to make a profile for this display, third party software can't access the hardware LUTs and therefore has to make all of its adjustments on the video card.

To get the software, or to get the complete kit with the software and calibrator, go to NEC's online store and dig into the Accessories section. I ordered the software from them at the same time I ordered the display from Amazon and everything arrived at the same time.

I'm going to take NEC to task a bit here on two points. First, it is silly to have to buy the software separately. I can see selling a different monitor SKU with the colorimeter included, but the software disk should just come with every display in the box. Second, it's silly that you can't buy the standalone SpectraView II software as a download. All I got in the box was a CD and a serial number. NEC should save the physical bits and provide an online distribution option.

The Big Brother

As I write this, NEC has a 30" version of this display that's just starting to ship called the LCD3090WQXi. It's rated to cover 97.8% of the Adobe RGB color space and 102% of NTSC. It sports a resolution of 2560 x 1600 giving a 89dpi resolution. In every way, the 30" display looks to be the bigger brother to the 26" version.

Who is it For?

If you're a photographer or designer working with color managed applications, and the best display you've ever used is an Apple Cinema Display, this monitor will rock your world. Its ease of calibration and color quality is outstanding. Most especially, if you are going to print your work on a high-quality printer, you'll appreciate being able to see what you are going to print that much more accurately.

On the other hand, if your main order of business is working with a lot of text and you want to sit with your nose right up to the display, or you spend most of your time surfing the web, then you probably should save the bucks and get a Cinema display.

As for me, I'm happy with it so far. Give it another few weeks and I'll be ready to say whether it should get a recommendation or not. Is the NEC is better or worse than the Eizo? I simply can't say. I do hope to be able to perform a side-by-side comparison sometime just to see what the differences are.

One final note: The state of monitor reviews online is terrible. Most of the information that's not in the forums are rehashed press releases. And the information in the forums is characteristically hard to sort out, especially since places like DPReview and Luminous Landscape don't have a separate set of forums for monitors. I wish there was a site like Printerville for monitors.

Updated 3/29 PM: I added a paragraph to the downsides and surprise section mentioning the lack of USB and Firewire hubs on the display. Also, I pointed out that it's silly that you can't buy the standalone SpectraView II software with online distribution.