Eizo Foris FG2421: 120hz VA Panel

Q-BZ said:
Everything I'm taking so far from this thread says that there's at least early "panel roulette" situation at play here with what's otherwise a very promising product overall. Am I reading things correctly?
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Seems so. I've never seen a LCD monitor without panel roulette though.
I've got 3 great ones out of 4 purchased, and the 4th was okish still.

I suspect at least some of the people with huge problems might just have got it into the same bugged ultra-bleedmode I did once on one of mine (and/or watches video without full rgb range set in nvida panel (which retardedly is the default), etc - then everything will look terrible).

This monitor seems sensitive to having correct refreshrate/driver or something else odd that can bug it. It also managed to make video look really really pixely when it was "bugged" (it looked like huge pixel dithering, or so).

Overall, after having owned the model for a week now, i still think it is the best overall LCD by a huge margin. Great blacks/contrast, good/great colors, good viewing angles (far from perfect), and something like 5-10 times better quality in motion than any IPS.

IPS/PLS can really only beat this eizo for stills or very slow moving content, if the user is additionally only using it in an illuminated room.

3x FG2421 + VT60 plasma.

MyOLKDKl.jpg


For comparison, the bottom left monitor is the IPS on the macbook pro retina trying to display black (same position, same camera, minus the illumination from the displays themselves. That display looks really good in an illuminated room, however (when not displaying fast motion..).

mSVFg1Ul.jpg
 
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I am tempted to bring one of these bad boys in here and put it against my NEC 2490wuxi and see what's what. I forgot his name but I saw someone in this thread about 10 pages ago with that same NEC monitor saying he was getting one of these. I'm eager to hear from him again.
 
Input latency in Turbo 240 is a little higher than I'd like from the tftcentral review but I think I'm okay with it (and want to see what prad measures since they usually come in lower). Latency is still lower than the S27A850D that I am trying to sell off so I can justify purchasing this monitor :p. Thanks for posting the link to the review.
 
Q-BZ said:
I am tempted to bring one of these bad boys in here and put it against my NEC 2490wuxi and see what's what. I forgot his name but I saw someone in this thread about 10 pages ago with that same NEC monitor saying he was getting one of these. I'm eager to hear from him again.
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Well, for motion, gaming and black levels, it should destroy the 2490. I have the 2490, and to be honest, it's pretty terrible with blacks even with A-TW. The 2490 should be much better with angles and color accuracy though.

The calibrated 83% color coverage stated by TFT Central would scare me a bit. I wonder if any of the preset uncalibrated modes do a bit better than that?
 
Well, some tested and got 89%...but still, this is gaming monitor...
Very good review on tftcentral.
I guess must sell my dell, and go for this eizo anyway, maybe i get good panel
 
HonoredShadow said:
So with me saying previously that something looks like it has been dripped down the screen from the top down, in lines or so. Is that something else to what you guys are on about? Should I also send this monitor back?

I only really see it in dark scenes in games. But one of the reasons why I bought this monitor was for great dark scenes in games!
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Give it a week and you will probably forget about that.

I have had this problem before on two monitors, one was a IPS Dell back in 2007 and the other was two high end NEC IPS panels. In fact I had more grief with shitty panels with the NEC (2080UXi) monitors than I did from everything else I owned.

If your panel is perfect in everything else I would consider holding onto it but at the end of the day you have to be happy with it as its your investment. If you decide to do nothing please let Native Digital know of the problem, that would be the 4th person to complain about a defect, that's 40% of their sales of this monitor so far with defects and they can feed this back to Eizo. They are listening.

Now those kind enough to post pictures, can you check for uniformity and anomalies around the edges? Also scrutinize for cross hatching. Look closely, its on the whites and grays. You will know it if you see it.
 
Added reviews to the first post. 89% refers to the absolute sRGB color space or total sRGB coverage in color managed programs. The monitors native gamut is actually slighter larger and mismatched compared to the sRGB gamut.
 
Mine is sitting at home, being recently delivered by Fedex. One hour to go at work...
 
Just got one of these. My old monitor is a 120 Hz Acer HN274H. Motion is obviously amazing in games, especially at high fps. Honestly the thing I like more than anything are the great black levels compared to TN and IPS displays. Color is better than my calibrated Acer, but not dramatically so. Backlight bleed not too bad on my model (I know others have had issues).

One stuck pixel unfortunately, although it's off too the side and only visible on a blue background, which means in practice I will likely never notice it. Honestly my only major complaint is no VESA. I knew that buying it but still super annoying. $600 and they could add four measly screw holes?

Also the coating is almost halfway between matte and glossy. Kind of interesting, and probably a good compromise.
 
Just got done reading the great TFTCentral review. They really liked it. Can't wait to get mine tomorrow!
 
Hope you get a good one Vega. Minus the cross hatching and bleed on the edges (I think mine is just f**cked though) its decent, best gaming screen out there.
 
For those worried about crosshatching, I can add that i examined all 4 of mine closely for dead pixels on multiple color backgrounds, there was none.

I have also found a curious issue - i was surprised that the tftcentral review said that the contrast enhancer does nothing (i do not use it, but it clearly had a strong effect on the monitor i tried it on), so i tried it on all 3... on one it really seems to do nothing, on one it has a strong darkening effect, the third a mild effect...
 
Morkai said:
For those worried about crosshatching, I can add that i examined all 4 of mine closely for dead pixels on multiple color backgrounds, there was none.

I have also found a curious issue - i was surprised that the tftcentral review said that the contrast enhancer does nothing (i do not use it, but it clearly had a strong effect on the monitor i tried it on), so i tried it on all 3... on one it really seems to do nothing, on one it has a strong darkening effect, the third a mild effect...
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Weird. The contrast enhancer did nothing for me initially. Just tried it again now and it's clearly working! I'm not sure if I changed some other setting or if it just randomly started working.

Also can't see cross-hatching on mine. I could have sworn I saw it once, but can't seem to find it again.

Edit: The contrast enhancer switcher stopped working again, but then randomly started working once again. There must be some bug in the menu software.
 
lockdown571 said:
Weird. The contrast enhancer did nothing for me initially. Just tried it again now and it's clearly working! I'm not sure if I changed some other setting or if it just randomly started working.

Also can't see cross-hatching on mine. I could have sworn I saw it once, but can't seem to find it again.

Edit: The contrast enhancer switcher stopped working again, but then randomly started working once again. There must be some bug in the menu software.
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It must be a bug in the monitor software/hardware. I also think two of the other problems some people report are bugs with the software/hardware as they can come and go, its definitely worth messing with the monitor to see if they go away if you experience any of these:
*Video playback looks like it has heavy pixel dithering (but games and stills doesn't), i had this briefly on and managed to get rid of it.
*Backlight looks absolutely terrible all around and colors look completely wrong (had this briefly on displayport on one of the monitors).
*Contrast enhancer acts weird/does not work.

Try any or all of the following: reset the display (did nothing for me), power off so it resets completely, try a different connector (i had the issue with displayport, but not with DVI when flipping back and forth between them), try to reset all displays and reboot if you have CRU (especially the virtual display created by nvidia surround - my computer believed that the virtual 5760*1080 screen was an asus, probably with the lightboost hack added - first time I've seen the nvidia panel bluescreen the nvidia driver :) ).
 
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Damn it's nice to see good black levels again. I have a plasma TV as well, so it wasn't entirely missed ;)
 
Alright, I uploaded unboxing pictures and "on" pictures here. Note that I have my bias lighting turned on in these pics... if you need pics without let me know and I can throw some of those on instead:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phillyboy82/sets/72157637428376765/

Here is a pick of a white background w/ Turbo 240 off (click for the original):


FG2421 White Bgd by phillyboy82, on Flickr

And a black background w/ Turbo 240 off (click for original). Note that the reflectance on the right-hand side is a small lamp behind me in the living room.


FG2421 Black Bgd by phillyboy82, on Flickr
 
I see faint vertical lines on the all-white image. Not sure if that is cross-hatching or not. It is harder to tell looking at it in real-life.

Overall things are positive so far. I don't see any nagging issues yet. Screen reflectance is fine, the coating doesn't look too grainy to me. Gotta go try and play some Quake Live though for the real test :). I have an X-Rite CMUNDIS coming tomorrow so I can calibrate the thing... I'm using the ICC profile that Eizo has on their website for now.
 
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What you want to check is dark but not completely black images and check if it's bleeding badly from the edges (mine was really bad on the right side, almost green tinted)
 
I also see lot of vertical white lines all over the screen in your pictures phillyboy, both on the one diplaying plain white and the one with your flower desktop (on the half right for this one).

If you see the same thing in real than on those pictures I'd ask for a replacement directly if it was my purchase. Looks terrible unfortunately.
 
Well, that's the thing. If I can see them they are faint, and I have to try to see them. Maybe it's my phone camera bringing something out on the screen.
 
Oh. If you don't see it irl then don't worry it's an artifact brought in by your phone camera indeed (but wouldn't mean your sample doesn't suffer cross hatching. But if you see nothing obvious irl then don't worry :) ).
 
Got my FG2421 today and I love it! I still like my FW900 better, but for an all around modern display that does not break your back I have to give it to the Eizo.

For all around value I still have to give it to the mighty Asus VG248QE.....but with that said, I am selling my two pristine Asus VG248QE "Glossy" displays :)
 
XoR said:
it is normal because intended viewing gamma is not 2.2 or sRGB but flat 2.4
BT.601, BT.709 and even sRGB define 2.4 as target viewing gamma. Average 2.2 sRGB gamma is for 'content creation' and using it for content viewing just doesn't have any sense most of the time, especially on not-professional IPSes

and VA monitors show calibrated gamma only on small area of screen while most have slightly lower gamma
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So, do we have to calibrate our monitors to 2.4 target gamma? I've always used 2.2 till now and tried sRGB (with basicColor) a few times, but it turned out too bright/ grayish.
 
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HonoredShadow said:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/eizo_fg2421.htm
Review is up.
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Hmm. So given the Motion Blur Test images, I'd rather leave TURBO mode switched off, or what? And why doing all monitor comparisons with TURBO / 2D LightBoost disabled? Was it because 2D LightBoost "was not nearly as easy to operate"? Did they ever hear about ToastyX's utility? Sure, it is a hack, but still.
Then, what about the 60Hz luminance modulation seen in the photodiode measurements (50-200-50_turbo_2.png)? How long does it take to stabelize (turbo_240.png)? Nobody curious?
And did they mention anywhere that this monitor is useless with a 100Hz input signal (for dynamic image content at least)?
BTW, all these questions are meant to be rhetorical.

Although I can see the positive sides of this monitor (deep black levels, high brightness even in TURBO mode, and low color shift across viewing angles), I am a bit surprised about all the positive bias here and elsewhere. Maybe I just have to try harder in seeing the glass half full instead of half empty.
 
Hmm. So given the Motion Blur Test images, I'd rather leave TURBO mode switched off, or what?
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While the pictures show that, if you read the detail underneath they do so those are the fairest representation of what you see, but that Turbo 240 on, at least at 120Hz makes a significant improvement to motion blur. I guess the problem is that it is something the user sees, and not something you can pick up with a stationary camera.

And why doing all monitor comparisons with TURBO / 2D LightBoost disabled?
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again i imagine because it makes no difference in those test images, as the motion blur reduction is perceived by the user

Did they ever hear about ToastyX's utility? Sure, it is a hack, but still.
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pretty sure they have as it's included in their motion blur article

Then, what about the 60Hz luminance modulation seen in the photodiode measurements (50-200-50_turbo_2.png)? How long does it take to stabelize (turbo_240.png)? Nobody curious?
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what do you mean? can you elaborate?
 
Drags said:
Turbo 240 on, at least at 120Hz makes a significant improvement to motion blur. I guess the problem is that it is something the user sees, and not something you can pick up with a stationary camera.
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Yes, because motion blur doesn't exist (not something displayed, excepting the ghost image part of it if there is one) but is created by the brain due to sample and hold (pictures staying illuminated the whole frames duration) vs strobbing (pictures only briefly lit, the brain filling the black gaps like when doing framerate interpolation).

I wonder if this improvement regarding motion blur with stobbing could be shared with others by making a video showing an "articifial blur" (=really present in the images this time) representing what the user perceives, and that should be played on a CRT screen.
 
Drags said:
While the pictures show that, if you read the detail underneath they do ...
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I've read that and that's why I said that my questions were meant to be rhetorical. The pictures do exactly not represent what I see irl, so why having them? It is just confusing for people who do not exactly remember/know, how these pictures were taken and what they might and might not show.

Drags said:
again i imagine because it makes no difference in those test images, as the motion blur reduction is perceived by the user
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Lamp post research: Some night, a guy sees someone searching something close to a lamp post. Apparently he has lost his key, so they search together. After a while the guy asks: "Are you sure you lost the key here?" Answer: "No, I lost it somewhere over there, but since it's so dark there, I thought I'd better search where I can see something." - Sigh!

Drags said:
pretty sure they have as it's included in their motion blur article
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Exactly!

Drags said:
what do you mean? can you elaborate?
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The first picture (50-200-50_turbo_2.png) shows what happens when the monitor switches from dark to bright and after the switch, during the bright phase, the main pulses do not have the same height (do not all touch the red line) but alternate between high and less high (bright, less bright). In the second picture (turbo_240.png), which shows the steady-state behavior, the amplitude of the main pulses is constant. So shortly after a pixel value change there is some 60Hz flicker which, after some time, levels off.
 
I am currently waiting for news regarding the g-sync monitors (supposed to come out in early 2014?) but if the first ones released are really crap and not worth my money I'll definitely grab this Eizo :) Even if I have to return it a few times to get a good panel I'm willing to do it. IPS actually really bothers me on big displays (glow + poor black levels). I just hope I won't be bothered by the small input lag (I might be but then again I can always get a refund)
 
neel said:
Yes, because motion blur doesn't exist (not something displayed, excepting the ghost image part of it if there is one) but is created by the brain due to sample and hold (pictures staying illuminated the whole frames duration) vs strobbing (pictures only briefly lit, the brain filling the black gaps like when doing framerate interpolation).
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This doesn't mean that it cannot be tested, at least in part, like e.g. with a pursuit camera, mimicking at least eye movements. I just say BlurBusters.
But I agree that also pursuit camera pictures do not provide the full picture, as there is also spatio-temporal integration in the brain, i.e. even without eye movements.
 
StrobeMaster said:
I've read that and that's why I said that my questions were meant to be rhetorical. The pictures do exactly not represent what I see irl, so why having them? It is just confusing for people who do not exactly remember/know, how these pictures were taken and what they might and might not show.
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fair enough. they made sense to me as long as they were taken along with the description section and not in their own right. To me it showed that 60Hz/ Turbo off showed low blur. If you enabled Turbo240 in 60Hz you get a weird ghosting/double image issue which is demonstrated in the second image. Then at 120Hz/Turbo off you get a slightly lower blur than 60Hz/Turbo off. Then with Turbo enabled at 120HZ a small pale trail is introduced (again shown in the picture). The picture cant capture the motion blur improvement as we've already said, but the description explains it is there.

Lamp post research: Some night, a guy sees someone searching something close to a lamp post. Apparently he has lost his key, so they search together. After a while the guy asks: "Are you sure you lost the key here?" Answer: "No, I lost it somewhere over there, but since it's so dark there, I thought I'd better search where I can see something." - Sigh!
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lol, you've lost me there! :)
 
Is there any reason to run this display in 60 Hz mode ?

60 fps game should still work better on 120 Hz mode ?
 
Morkai said:
For those worried about crosshatching, I can add that i examined all 4 of mine closely for dead pixels on multiple color backgrounds, there was none.

I have also found a curious issue - i was surprised that the tftcentral review said that the contrast enhancer does nothing (i do not use it, but it clearly had a strong effect on the monitor i tried it on), so i tried it on all 3... on one it really seems to do nothing, on one it has a strong darkening effect, the third a mild effect...
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What about the bleed around the edges dude? I can see some on your photo but it might just be the camera exaggerating it.
 
Michaelius said:
Is there any reason to run this display in 60 Hz mode ?

60 fps game should still work better on 120 Hz mode ?
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Yes, I can't think of any reason to run it in 60hz, other than software/hardware compatibility issue.
 
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