NEC 2490WUXi - The Full Story

I would be very interested in such comparison!

I am afraid the dark tones not to be very consistent on the whole surface of the monitor without the A-TW polarizer.

I'm buying one of the two but I hate to buy either without being fully informed. It's A LOT of money for me to be spending right now and I won't be able to upgrade the screen for quite some time.
 
I'm buying one of the two but I hate to buy either without being fully informed. It's A LOT of money for me to be spending right now and I won't be able to upgrade the screen for quite some time.

If you still have a choice. Get the old one with the A-TW it is a unique feature that gives a superior viewing angle experience with no white glow. IMO you lose next to nothing going this route.
 
If you still have a choice. Get the old one with the A-TW it is a unique feature that gives a superior viewing angle experience with no white glow. IMO you lose next to nothing going this route.
Do you know where I could get it for a good price?

I live in France (Europe), but international orders are no problem.
You just have to take the potential additional charge - we have a 19.6% VAT here - into account.
 
Do you know where I could get it for a good price?

No. I am in Canada. I just ordered at my local shop and waited a month for it to come in. It's an item that almost no one stocks. That's why I think the chances of getting the old model are shrinking fast.
 
The old model is still available - but barely. I know one of their major distributors in Canada is already claiming it's discontinued (and won't be convinced otherwise), but another still seems happy to order them - I'm hoping they actually come in for me.
 
I got my 2490wuxi (not wuxi2l) from bhvideo.com for $995 plus tax (free shipping at least to NYC). They have a great return policy and seem to still stock the old version. Highly recommended.
 
I got my 2490wuxi (not wuxi2l) from bhvideo.com for $995 plus tax (free shipping at least to NYC). They have a great return policy and seem to still stock the old version. Highly recommended.
  • Monitor: $999.95
  • Shipping to France (min.): $203.25
  • VAT (19.6%): $235.83
  • Currency change (2.5%): $39.98
  • Custom fee: ?
TOTAL: $1479.01, i.e. €1040.46 (plus potential custom fee)

Too expensive for me...:(
 
I can sympathize. We recently moved back to the US from London. Technology is so much more expensive in Europe. On the positive, there seems to be a greater acceptance of high end stuff (eg IPS) in Europe than in the US. So you see more of the high end displays there, except for the NECs though.
 
@webzeb - would you be interested in a 26" screen. novatech.co.uk have the Hazro HZ26Wi in stock at the moment for £460 (don't know the Euro conversion at the moment) and that has a polarizer as far as I'm aware. Also H-IPS and excellent connectivity. Black levels aren't fantastic though with most uses able to get them down to about .42.

Cheers

Danny B
 
Are there any professional reviews around of the WUXi2 monitors? After all the WUXi hype I've read on this forum recently I finally decided to buy a couple of those, only to realize I cant find any.. :| Only WUXi2's seem available now.. (In Norway atleast..)
 
Are there any professional reviews around of the WUXi2 monitors? After all the WUXi hype I've read on this forum recently I finally decided to buy a couple of those, only to realize I cant find any.. :| Only WUXi2's seem available now.. (In Norway atleast..)

I haven't seen any reviews. But, on a wave of enthusiasm fuelled by Snowdog, albovin, Psyside etc, I've ordered a WUXi2. It should be with me tomorrow, I'll be back to complain loudly if I don't like it.

Really if you're in the market for a good quality, IPS based, non-glossy, standard gamut, non-1080 monitor you're looking at a pretty small list. The NEC WMGMXGMRM3 (whatever it was) looked good as a PVA screen, but it's no longer available and I would have had problems buying it for aesthetic reasons.

I'm in the UK and the model with the polariser is prohibitively expensive, if it is even available, so I'll give the WUXi2 a try.

Fingers crossed.
 
Heh if someone is not pleased with NEC 90 series he won't be with any monitor in the world.

I wish you both to get a perfect units ;) Also as already said by now the NEC2490wuxi2
Is the same monitor with NEC2490 just lacks A-TV polarizer and has slightly better contrast.


Once again good luck ;)
 
Well I would really like to see some new reviews tbh.. As I am particularly interested in the input lag on these monitors. Which seem to sometimes even vary between different revisions of the same monitors.. Plus is kinda bums me out to order a monitor that most people (on this forum atleast) seem to think is inferior to its predecessor.

PLUS there's another new NEC as well called LCD2490W instead of WUXi.. Where does that one fit in? Seems more expensive but the specs are the same? :p


Man I miss the days of the CRT where I could just buy the biggest Eizo and be good to go.
 
I think the LCD2940W is the new SpectraViewII model. I.e. it includes the spectrometer.

I know what you mean about the inferior display, but as I've never seen a display with the polarizer I probably won't miss it. I've spent a lot of time looking sideways at the 24" iMac display which uses a very similar panel and I don't really the glow there. It doesn't seem to be too much of an issue in the LCD2690WUXi2 thats been out for several months.
 
Well, I just received a pair of LCD2490WUXi's today... a regular and a -SV (figured I didn't need two calibrators). December 08 build date. Just have them off to the side right now for analysis.

I'm a bit disappointed to see a couple [dim] stuck subpixels on both units, but they're off to the side and hard to see unless I have my nose pressed to the screen. No full-on dead pixels and I don't see anything wrong with the panels otherwise.
 
Gratz on the monitors you can be sure that every day that babis will look better and better i remember
how did this forum look on my old PVA monitor the difference is quite big imho.And i'm not just thinking
there is difference only cause i got expensive monitor IPS panel etc,i'm sure i can see it my bro also noticed this couldn't be happier.
 
I've been thinking of running one landscape and one portrait... man, a 24" 16x10 screen really looks BIG when rotated that way!
 
Well to be honest i got no guts to run the monitor like that its quite heavy and i'm kinda convinced that ill brake the stand it if i try.Way to scarry for me :p
 
I've got them configured and calibrated now... the stock stands seems sturdy enough, but when I read about the "quick release lever" to remove the panel from the arm I started to wonder about how well they were attached. At any rate I *do* plan on getting proper monitor arms in the future (so I can clear some table space for my center channel which I'm not happy with BEHIND the monitors).

I find D65 looks rather different here than it did on my prior Philips 23" IPS set to the same (although that was non-calibrated). Somewhat reddier... while on the Philips it was much yellowier. I have a professionally calibrated plasma for TV viewing, so I guess the NECs do look similar.

Having fun trying to figure out what brightness level I want. I've always run my monitors fairly bright. But now there's TWO of them aimed at me, it's a bit too much (especially with the stock brightness of 440 cd/m2). A calibration at the "official" 140 cd/m2 just seemed too... well, dim.

So I tried a calibration to 300 - way too bright. 250 still a bit too bright. I thought I was settled on 220, but now that I've used it for a few hours I'm thinking it could stand to be a bit dimmer. Maybe I'll try 200 or 180 next...
 
Having fun trying to figure out what brightness level I want. I've always run my monitors fairly bright. But now there's TWO of them aimed at me, it's a bit too much (especially with the stock brightness of 440 cd/m2). A calibration at the "official" 140 cd/m2 just seemed too... well, dim.

So I tried a calibration to 300 - way too bright. 250 still a bit too bright. I thought I was settled on 220, but now that I've used it for a few hours I'm thinking it could stand to be a bit dimmer. Maybe I'll try 200 or 180 next...

My eyes are hurting in sympathy.
 
I'm looking for feedback about the brightness distribution of units owned by users in this thread. My 2209WA has a highly noticeable reduction in brightness from top to bottom, pictures here, that is fairly consistent with the measurements of the unit in the Prad review, here:

2209WA_helligk_thumb.jpg


My response to this was to consider returning the unit and purchasing a 2490 instead. However, both the units reviewed by Prad and TFTCentral show an even more severe uniformity problem, even with Colorcomp on 3:

nec-2490-ausleuchtung1-thumbnail.jpg


uniformity_cc_on.jpg


Albovin's use of Colorcomp is much more successful, here:

209+ColorComp.jpg


If these hotlinks are broken, let me know.

So, does your unit perform well in this regard? Is the homogeneity perceptibly good? Have you enabled Colorcomp?

Thanks.
 
By perception, my 2490 is nearly perfect. Far better than any other LCD I've ever seen.

I run ColorComp at 3. IMO only crazy people (*waves* to Snowdog ;) ) perhaps with obsessions about numerical contrast measurements don't run Colorcomp. I ran with Colorcomp off and I could clearly see the slight blotching and tinting across the screen that I see on average LCDs. Also, the calibration/profiling correction curve was "typical".

With CC set to 3 no more blotches, no more faint pink hue in some areas, and the correction curve is nearly non-existant. What you should read from this is that ColorComp is virtually like free calibration without buying Spectraview.

Since Colorcomp uses panel blocking to accomplish its goal, there's a reduction in contrast since "white" isn't as luminous. In my experience it was a reduction of 50:1 - well worth it for the perfect uniformity in white (Word, Excel, web browsers) and grey (Photoshop, Lightroom, ACR) backgrounds.
 
Are you using color comp with already calibrated monitor or you aint got sv kit ?
 
You use colorcomp before calibration otherwise if you turn it on later, you will mess up your calibration.

When you do that you will discover that calibration does almost nothing as colorcomp 3 seems to have a full calibration curve built in as well, which pretty much makes calibration all but unnecessary.

I don't use it because my monitor has less contrast to start with (700:1) and I don't want to sacrifice any of it and I don't notice any uniformity issues.
 
Are you using color comp with already calibrated monitor or you aint got sv kit ?

I have CC on for reasons of uniformity, calibration is a side effect.

I also have the SV kit for calibration/profiling, which is how I know that the correction curve applied after already using CC is very slight.

I think I have a thread around here somewhere which shows the correction curves applied to my screen by profiling/calibration with CC at 3 and CC off.
 
Well, I finally broke down and ordered the NEC 2490WUXi with the SV package off Provantage.
Arrived a few days ago (1 day shipping ftw) and it seems to be working well.
Turned on colorcomp 1 and then just hit calibrate with D65/2.2/140/max contrast set.

I'm quite impressed by the display. I don't see much of any backlight bleed, and although the screen is not completely uniform, it's good enough for me that I barely notice it. It seems I can't avoid the panel blocking though, even at 0% brightness I was getting 192cd/m2 which was way too bright. I had to enable color comp just to get the brightness down a bit more, and then while calibrating to 140cd/m2 I assume it did some more panel blocking to get it down. I toyed around with the grayscale tracking, but it completely killed my contrast ratio. I only get a black level of 0.24, although at 0% brightness without panel blocking (192cd/m2) that worked out to exactly 800:1 contrast ratio. After that it went down because I wanted to lower my brightness, and grayscale tracking boosted the blacks up to 0.41cd/m2.

The only issue I have is 2 seemingly stuck(?) pixels. They're off-center and to the left; one is about 2.5" from the bottom and 8" from the left, the other is about 4" from the bottom and 5" from the left.
The lower one appears whitish (actually I can see traces of all 3 colors in it, almost as if it's transparent) on black, but looks fine (or at least I can't see it) on any other color (tried red, green, blue, white and yellow.) The other one looks red on white and yellow, blue (or black) on green, and completely fine on black and blue (and red of course.)

I'm not sure if I want to bother sending it back for this though. I'm a bit bummed about getting 2 pixel issues after spending $1k, but it's also a hassle having to send it back, and I don't even know about provantage's policy; just that a lot of people recommend them.
 
Well, I finally broke down and ordered the NEC 2490WUXi with the SV package off Provantage.
Arrived a few days ago (1 day shipping ftw) and it seems to be working well.
Turned on colorcomp 1 and then just hit calibrate with D65/2.2/140/max contrast set.

I'm quite impressed by the display. I don't see much of any backlight bleed, and although the screen is not completely uniform, it's good enough for me that I barely notice it. It seems I can't avoid the panel blocking though, even at 0% brightness I was getting 192cd/m2 which was way too bright. I had to enable color comp just to get the brightness down a bit more, and then while calibrating to 140cd/m2 I assume it did some more panel blocking to get it down. I toyed around with the grayscale tracking, but it completely killed my contrast ratio. I only get a black level of 0.24, although at 0% brightness without panel blocking (192cd/m2) that worked out to exactly 800:1 contrast ratio. After that it went down because I wanted to lower my brightness, and grayscale tracking boosted the blacks up to 0.41cd/m2.

The only issue I have is 2 seemingly stuck(?) pixels. They're off-center and to the left; one is about 2.5" from the bottom and 8" from the left, the other is about 4" from the bottom and 5" from the left.
The lower one appears whitish (actually I can see traces of all 3 colors in it, almost as if it's transparent) on black, but looks fine (or at least I can't see it) on any other color (tried red, green, blue, white and yellow.) The other one looks red on white and yellow, blue (or black) on green, and completely fine on black and blue (and red of course.)

I'm not sure if I want to bother sending it back for this though. I'm a bit bummed about getting 2 pixel issues after spending $1k, but it's also a hassle having to send it back, and I don't even know about provantage's policy; just that a lot of people recommend them.

You would have to contact NEC support for a return, though if you are trying to get a perfect version of the same monitor then that is your best bet anyway.
 
@Darkscythe:

You definitely want to turn off the "best greyscale" and go with "maximum contrast" unless you're doing medical imaging or something life-or-death at very low grey levels. Best greyscale is a contrast killer and elevates your blacks to make sure that they are perfectly grey.

I went through a lot of this, and there's a thread all about it from last December :) Snowdog and a couple of other folks taught me a lot about what goes on inside these monitors that they don't tell you in the manual.

I'm surprised you can only achieve 192 cd/m2 at backlight=0. Perhaps that will improve greatly with a little bit of CCFL break-in. Older versions of SV (like what was current when I got my 2490) didn't magically enable "lowbright" (panel blocking) without asking you and they have presets for 140.
 
....
The only issue I have is 2 seemingly stuck(?) pixels. They're off-center and to the left; one is about 2.5" from the bottom and 8" from the left, the other is about 4" from the bottom and 5" from the left.
The lower one appears whitish (actually I can see traces of all 3 colors in it, almost as if it's transparent) on black, but looks fine (or at least I can't see it) on any other color (tried red, green, blue, white and yellow.) The other one looks red on white and yellow, blue (or black) on green, and completely fine on black and blue (and red of course.)
....

The first one, all the 3 sub-pixels are stuck on, but probably intermediately and not at fully on (90 degrees pixel twist)

The 2nd, it may be a dead green sub-pixel
 
Thanks for the responses guys.

nomu, does Provantage not handle these types of issues first?

Jonte, I did try that program actually, and was what I used to find the pixels in the first place. To fix them, I used something that was a bit faster (Jscreenfix.) I left it on over the 2 pixels for about an hour, but no change.

Surly, I did do that in the end, although I'm sure there could be times when I would want better grayscale tracking; although in those cases, I can simply recalibrate it for whatever work I needed to do.

I'm not sure about "only" 192cd/m2; at the backlight's lowest output, that also pits my black level at 0.24cd/m2 which gives me exactly the 800:1 contrast ratio the 2490 is rated for. I'm not sure about lowbright - my friend has the 2690v2 and says the OSD turns purple when it starts using panel blocking, but mine didn't change at all when I was adjusting brightness. I never knew what eco mode or lowbright were, but I left them off, and after the SV calibration, lowbright mode simply displays '---' and does not allow me to change it.

I also left contrast and black level at 50%, because I didn't know what they did.

Askanison2, thanks for the info.

I'm not sure if it would warrant a return though, I'm not sure about NEC's policies either, and I'd probably have to pay a ton in return shipping costs. And the replacement I get (if any) could have even worse problems, or be a refurb unit... I dunno.
 
Thanks for the responses guys.

Surly, I did do that in the end, although I'm sure there could be times when I would want better grayscale tracking; although in those cases, I can simply recalibrate it for whatever work I needed to do.

If you take a look at the correction curves applied when you do precise greyscale tracking you'll see the difference is only in very, VERY dim greys. On my panel at least it was a total contrast killer as it brought black up to "grey" to create perfect response. I cannot detect any hint of colour tint in very low greys (ie. 1,2 and 3) with my eyes with it set for max contrast but I can sure see the difference in black level if I set the priority to greyscale.

I doubt you'll even really need to use precise greys, but it's a great idea to fully understand the impact and decide for yourself.

I'm not sure about "only" 192cd/m2; at the backlight's lowest output, that also pits my black level at 0.24cd/m2 which gives me exactly the 800:1 contrast ratio the 2490 is rated for. I'm not sure about lowbright - my friend has the 2690v2 and says the OSD turns purple when it starts using panel blocking, but mine didn't change at all when I was adjusting brightness. I never knew what eco mode or lowbright were, but I left them off, and after the SV calibration, lowbright mode simply displays '---' and does not allow me to change it.

I believe this is a difference between the 1s and 2s, and possible some firmware revisions of the different 90 series panels. A 2490WUXi1 gives the user full control to toggle lowbright (panel blocking) while later displays hide the function and build it in to the "brightness" control - using flashing and colours to indicate when it's activating lowbright. It's supposed to be more confusing but I think it becomes more of a risk that a casual calibration/profiling with SV will inadvertently activate lowbright.

I think Snowdog and I both find it a little frustrating that later versions of SV and later panels make it difficult for someone who wants "0% backlight" - whatever cd/m2 that might be, to be calibrated by SV. NEC thinks in terms of absolute cd/m2 values and strives to have the monitor display that by whatever means necessary.

I also left contrast and black level at 50%, because I didn't know what they did.

Yes, leave both them and sharpness alone at the factory default :)
 
Hm, interesting development; It seems the NEC colorimeter I got with my 2490-SV may be defective.
My friend tried using it with his 2690v2 and got some weird results regarding uniformity, but only when he used the colorimeter. He compared with his regular i1d2 and i1pro spectrophotometer and it was reading very differently from them, whereas those two read fairly closely with each other. I gave it a try here as well on my LCD - I used the NEC to calibrate to 140cd/m2 but the regular i1d2 only read 118cd/m2 with a color temp of 300K under the D65 target.

I guess I'll try emailing NEC tech support to see if I can maybe RMA the thing..
 
Well, I RMA'd the sensor and got another one; it seems to exhibit similar quirks.
For whatever reason, it reads quite differently from the Gretag Macbeth i1d2. Does age make a colorimeter less accurate? In any case, while the numbers were all over the place, visually, I couldn't really see too much of a difference.

For now though, I ordered a new 2490 to try to see if I could get a 'better' panel.
It arrived today (fastest delivery ever, I think; took less than 15 hours after order) and I've hooked it up.
It seems good so far though, couldn't see any dead or stuck pixels on a preliminary pass, and uniformity doesn't look too bad. What I've noticed though, comparing the two side by side, is that my "old" one has a magenta tint over it. I'm not sure if this was caused by a calibration error or not, but I'll try recalibrating it and see what happens. The other thing I noticed is that my new one is actually older than my first one. Both seem to have been manufactured in December 2008, but the first one is a Revision 2F with firmware 1.00.09 and my new one is a Revision 2E with firmware 1.00.08.

Does anyone know if there's any major difference between those two?
Outside of that, I think the one I just got may be the better one to keep.
 
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