Eizo Foris FG2421: 120hz VA Panel

Sailor_Moon said:

Of course - the calibration - but I was referring to an inconsistent measurement.

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yea, it would be interesting to see some raw measurements taken with the i1 pro vs the i1 display pro on that display, to see how the inconsistencies, if any, evolve across the neutral axis.

Monarch, do you have that data?

I am conflicted because this monitor doesn't seem as bad as others (at least to me), but it restarts once every 24hrs for some 3-4 seconds before screen is fully restored. It freaking does it exactly every 24hrs on the spot! It feels more like some feature than anything else... It does it no more than once every 24hrs and hasn't ruin any gaming experience. I do not complete, so if I get shot 10 times in BF4 during 4 seconds - don't care... Maybe this monitor is not supposed to be on all the time? It does have the Eco thing that Japan truly cares about.

I actually have high standards for everything, but I also learned to compromise because there is no perfect monitor or monitor without any significant faults:
1. IPS/PLS may have good angles, colors, uniformity, but they have glow, low CR, some overclock but they don't do backlight strobing, which is very important to gamers. The best ones seem to be 1440p, which is overkill for my GTX 770 and my needs for 4x AA in games. I actually play BF4 with Ultra settings, 4x AA, and it plays just fine!
2. TN panels are just no good for SP game experience - they SUCK in terms of colors, and LightBoost panels cannot reproduce proper grays, leaving the picture purple!!! Color gamut is worthless if your grays are purple. They are impossible to calibrate accurately due to dithering and have CR of 500:1 or less after calibrations. That is just
3. VA panels is my choice, even though they do not have accurate colors, but do not use dithering and can easily reproduce accurate grays. They have bad angles, but its not really noticeable in games either. They also have more backlight bleeding than other types for whatever reason... But CR is their big advantage. CR is arguably, the most important factor in display device performance. It controls the immersion factor for any game and movie and the higher it gets - the more 3D the picture gets. IMHO, CR trumps most of VA faults.

Other thoughts on this monitor:
I think that the backlight bleed isn't even a backlight but just a defect, the very reason why this monitor costs $600 and not $6000, like the industrial version of it. Its barely visible in games, and is obvious with specific grayscale level patterns of different colors. It doesn't exist in 0 black level and several levels up, then it gets visible, and then the patterns become bright enough for the issue to not be seen at all. It is exacerbated by VA angles that make it seem as if that bleed extends further, like an inch and a half into the screen, but as soon as you move your head perpendicular to that location - all you see is a 3-5mm defect. Not sure how big it is for others.

I also see several blobs that are a bit lighter than others, but its mild, visible only in complete darkness - one in the center, one in upper right corner, and a smaller one in lower right corner. Those places measure about 3300-3700:1 CR, but the rest of the screen is much blacker and measures about 4200:1 to 5100:1 CR. 3300:1 CR is still really awesome for a VA screen with 120Hz light strobing! It is higher than almost any LCD HDTV, even with local/micro dimming enabled.

Crosshatching... you need to be way too close to the monitor to see it. It is NOT an issue - I have 20/15 vision with my contacts and I cannot see it on any pattern. Its just an obsession IMHO...

The monitor is tilter to the right a bit... This kind of pisses me off, but again, Eizo simply placed advanced technologies into it, but it didn't bother perfecting it like the industrial version. Tilting can be easily fixed.

With all of its faults, Eizo Nanao Foris FG2421 has awesome immersive motion & very deep blacks, provides better gaming experience than any non-CRT LCD out there. It also comes with bias lighting that hopefully uses 6500K (will measure soon!) and makes black seem blacker in the dark.

I just wonder if my issues are milder than those in other sets. People reported identical issues!!! I can live with them, but I am curious because a few others reported 0 issues. I can hardly believe that 3 of these in a row were perfect unless it was a special batch of some kind. I just think the person who got them does not obsess over such things and just games & watches movies.

To those who got a perfect unit:
1. Does it ever restart?
2. Where was it made and when?
3. Is there no obvious light bleed 3-5mm in size on both sides?
4. Are there no blobs in the upper right and lower right corners?
5. Was the screen tilted to the right?

On the calibration note:

First of all, I noticed redness in my grays on my CCFL screen before I ever got i1Pro. I thought that maybe since 6500K is warm, then there should be some redness in it... Then I noticed another issue - my i1D3 (i1Display Pro is too long to type!) would produce LUTs with obviously red/brown blacks - undeniably non-neutral. That is why people are told to manually use TV offsets to adjust blacks, but due to reasons I am not going to get into - I had to use LUTs in addition to TV controls. I did adjust offsets anyway to make my blacks neutral and i1D3 was reading those areas as having too much blue.

There are 2 reasons why this could happen:
1. i1D3 does not do a good job reading dark levels, even though they were not that dark - 0.05 cd/m^2 should pose to problems for i1D3 and many pros on AVS forums have supported that statement.
2. i1D3 CCFL EDR correction table was not accurate enough for my display.

Then same happened with my VG248QE TN panel that has blacks as high as 0.3 cd/m^2! They were dark red and brown after using the right White LED EDR or for that matter - ANY correction file. In both cases I saw redness before ever using i1Pro, while HCFR reported a perfectly balanced grayscale.

It was then when I decided to get i1Pro and use it to get better results. I got them! i1Pro was reading B much lower than i1D3 and the resulting calibration was very neutral for both devices. Profiled i1D3 was also reading those manually adjusted blacks as being neutral, not with excess of Blue.

What does seem weird is that in all cases and on each of 3 devices, i1Pro consistently finds Blue to be about 10% below of where i1D3 measures it. However, if we are to trust ChromaPure, which specifically state that i1D3 has the biggest issues with LCD, both CCFL and LED! It is why they offer a special upgrade of i1D3 to i1D3 Pro version that has more specific tables - Samsung LED, Sony LED, LG LED, etc! They also claim that i1D3 is usually off by dE 4-9, which was the case for me.

I am 100% convinced that my i1Pro produces more accurate results not because of my personal preference but because it is simply so. I do believe that there is some general error when it reads darker grays though. My Eizo calibration using profiled i1D3 and display gain controls resulted in a perfect grayscale, but there was NO WAY to set perfect gamma as it would be either too high or too low. I was forced to use a LUT. The resulting LUT looks a wee-bit blue on the darker grays and blacks, but there are many reasons for that - from interpolation to the fact that Eizo has much deeper blacks, etc. All in all I would prefer not to use a LUT, but I can't stand any gamma other than BT.1886. Games do not look right with other types...

Also, I have a big white flat cloth behind my monitor and whichever color Eizo bias lighting logo produces shines on it. Its far from perfect, but its good enough for me. My perception of gray neutrality does not change in daytime, with a regular lamp behind it, or no light behind it...

As far as Bluesun311 goes - if you want a good and accurate calibration then do rent i1Pro or ColorMunki Photo since again, i1D3 will NOT provide a good enough calibration to have neutral grays. If you plan to adjust for i1D3 error, then there is no point in buying it - just adjust how you like it, but don't call that a calibration...

MonarchX said:

As far as Bluesun311 goes - if you want a good and accurate calibration then do rent i1Pro or ColorMunki Photo since again, i1D3 will NOT provide a good enough calibration to have neutral grays. If you plan to adjust for i1D3 error, then there is no point in buying it - just adjust how you like it, but don't call that a calibration...

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This issue has been done to death in this thread and it's totally off topic. This thread gets longer and longer over all this conjecture and egotistic hyperbole / jargon with calibration.

MonarchX said:

...it restarts once every 24hrs for some 3-4 seconds before screen is fully restored. It freaking does it exactly every 24hrs on the spot! It feels more like some feature than anything else... It does it no more than once every 24hrs and hasn't ruin any gaming experience. I do not complete, so if I get shot 10 times in BF4 during 4 seconds - don't care... Maybe this monitor is not supposed to be on all the time? It does have the Eco thing that Japan truly cares about.

To those who got a perfect unit:
1. Does it ever restart?
2. Where was it made and when?
3. Is there no obvious light bleed 3-5mm in size on both sides?
4. Are there no blobs in the upper right and lower right corners?
5. Was the screen tilted to the right?

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You asked people about their "perfect" units? You aren't going to get any responses. There aren't any perfect fg2421's as far as I'm concerned. Vega has freely admitted that not a single of his are "perfect". The restarting every 24 hours thing sounds like BS.

Mine all literally randomly restarted. Except for the one I have now. I've seen it happen back to back within the span of a minute or 2 before, and if you'd read this thread instead of writing in it so much you'd know that, and you'd know about all the other people with the same fucking complaint. Personally, I am not paying that kinda money for a display that might and does turn itself off and back on again at any time. If you have it timed to exactly every 24 hours on the dot and you wanna just take a coffee break when you know your once a day restart is coming, that makes sense.

Who owns all the calibration equipment you're using? This isn't an insult, I'm just reading into this situation because you seem really concerned to be without a display to use while you wait for the beautiful fg2421 you lucked out to 1 shot gets fixed, yet you have all this really expensive calibration equipment you are telling people they need to be using. Seriously? Tone it down, man.

This issue has been done to death in this thread and it's totally off topic.

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I will provide you with meaningful data as soon as possible - based on some probes and reference data - but don't expect worse results than the validation of the DCCS calibrated DELL screen. So nothing to worry. You will be able to work with high accuracy.

I am 100% convinced that my i1Pro produces more accurate results not because of my personal preference but because it is simply so.

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As I said, the absolute error will be lower in most cases when using the i1 Pro. I won't repeat the impacts again because Bluesun311 is of course absolutely right - we are way offtopic and the readers should be able to draw their own conclusion based on the different postings.

Bluesun311 said:

This issue has been done to death in this thread and it's totally off topic. This thread gets longer and longer over all this conjecture and egotistic hyperbole / jargon with calibration.



You asked people about their "perfect" units? You aren't going to get any responses. There aren't any perfect fg2421's as far as I'm concerned. Vega has freely admitted that not a single of his are "perfect". The restarting every 24 hours thing sounds like BS.

Mine all literally randomly restarted. Except for the one I have now. I've seen it happen back to back within the span of a minute or 2 before, and if you'd read this thread instead of writing in it so much you'd know that, and you'd know about all the other people with the same fucking complaint. Personally, I am not paying that kinda money for a display that might and does turn itself off and back on again at any time. If you have it timed to exactly every 24 hours on the dot and you wanna just take a coffee break when you know your once a day restart is coming, that makes sense.

Who owns all the calibration equipment you're using? This isn't an insult, I'm just reading into this situation because you seem really concerned to be without a display to use while you wait for the beautiful fg2421 you lucked out to 1 shot gets fixed, yet you have all this really expensive calibration equipment you are telling people they need to be using. Seriously? Tone it down, man.

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Anyone who actually knows what calibration does and what is needed to achieve it. Total price of equipment, including spectrometer rent is about $230. That is NOTHING in comparison to real accurate equipment that costs $11K...

While accuracy of i1Pro and i1Display Pro can be disputed in theory, the application of ICC profiles to other monitors and sources has a higher chance of making things worse than better. There is about a 4% chance that a calibration performed on another display device is going to improve accuracy of yours. To reach any kind of accuracy, you would at least need ColorMunki Display or i1Pro and perform calibration on your exact display. Downloading ICC profiles is a really bad idea, but most people do not know it...

There is a huge amount of misinformation and myths out there that surround calibration. If you do not believe me - check out a real forum that deals with all aspects of calibration - AVS Forums -> Display Calibration.

Crosshairs said:

keep the petty arguing out of the thread.

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Thank you!

Sailor_Moon said:

I will provide you with meaningful data as soon as possible - based on some probes and reference data - but don't expect worse results than the validation of the DCCS calibrated DELL screen. So nothing to worry. You will be able to work with high accuracy.


As I said, the absolute error will be lower in most cases when using the i1 Pro. I won't repeat the impacts again because Bluesun311 is of course absolutely right - we are way offtopic and the readers should be able to draw their own conclusion based on the different postings.

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End of debate since that is all that matters. Consistency also matters, but why not get both - absolute error as low as possible and get the consistency there too? You are not alone in disliking poor LUT consistency and LUT/ICC grayscale banding caused by interpolation and probe inaccuracies, but ArgyllCMS does an exceptional job. It is not like other LUT-making software, such as CalMAN RGB. It makes takes about 200 measurements for a single high-quality LUT over a period of up to an hour to achieve great results. I always make a LUT in pure darkness with display being the only source of light. Sometimes I make 5-6 LUTs before I get a near-perfect one that shows almost no banding at all. You do not need to sacrifice consistency for low absolute error. LUTs made with i1Display Pro will have just as much banding as LUTs made with profiled i1Display Pro, so you might as well have an accurate D65 LUT.
I do not see ICCs because they suck and only the "vcgt" portion of them is applied to games and ONLY if you use a special Windowed Borderless Mode from within a game or utilizing a special utility called Windows Borderless Gaming. There are some games that do not reset LUTs though, but they are few. The second utility needed to lock the LUT is Monitor Calibration Wizard, a much better LUT forcer than CPKeeper.

Here is what you need to calibrate your monitor for games accurately for least amount of $$$:
-ColorMunki Display colorimeter - $175
-ColorMunki Photo spectrometer - $60 to rent
-HCFR 3.1.0.5 because 3.1.0.7 has a glitch with CCMX profiles
-dispcalGUI latest snapshot
-ArgyllCMS binaries
-Monitor Calibration Wizard
-Windowed Borderless Gaming utility
-Patience, about 1 day worth of learning, trying, practicing, and reaping the good results!
-***optional*** - madVR for 3DLUTs and awesome playback!

That it - no more calibration talk - I PROMISE, but I just had to inform people of one of the best, if not THE best way to get that awesome calibration and get it to work in games.

You do not need to sacrifice consistency for low absolute error

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Never said that. I'm just pointing out that single usage of the i1 Display Pro doesn't lead to unfeasible reproduction characteristics - even from a professional point of view which I can claim for myself (both as developer and user). Therefore my attempt to give some insight into colorimetric processes and constraints. I apologize for the high off-topic portion.

Sailor_Moon said:

Never said that. I'm just pointing out that single usage of the i1 Display Pro doesn't lead to unfeasible reproduction characteristics - even from a professional point of view which I can claim for myself (both as developer and user). Therefore my attempt to give some insight into colorimetric processes and constraints. I apologize for the high off-topic portion.

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Slightly off-topic:
Me too, but considering that just about every single knowledgeable experienced and non-experienced pro calibrator out there would choose i1Pro over i1D3, including Graeme, a highly knowledgeable color-science specialist/guru who developed the most accurate and precise display-profiling and 3DLUT-generating software that beats industry-standard software packages like CalMAN and LightSpace in a wide variety of ways, is overwhelming evidence off epic proportions that you are dead-wrong.

For software LUTs that are more than likely needed to profile this and most monitors, neither i1Pro nor i1D3 is enough because there are no offset controls to correct black/dark-gray levels manually. i1Pro won't give you accurate black/dark-gray level measurement results, nor will i1D3 without profiling performed by a spectrometer such as i1Pro. Even with profiling, you will have to turn up the brightness to the very highest setting to make it easier for profiled i1D3 to read lower black/dark gray levels and you will have to do it all in absolute darkness, probably several times, if you want that really nice LUT, because i1D3 does have somewhat of a hard time reading low-level grays and blacks regardless of profiling (IMO, some disagree). Is it "OCD" to be seeking a nice LUT? Nope, not even close, nowhere close - not with this hardware and software. If you were to buy an $11K probe - then yes, it would be over-kill because this monitor is not made to be like the $30K+ pro reference monitors built for mastering and similar functions.

Oh and by the way - BT.1886 gamma is the only gamma to be used on any display, but I'm sure you're going to argue against that, which will lead me into backing up my claims and once again providing overwhelming evidence that will result in a come-back where you are more understanding of the aspect, but still not very agreeable. Then I'll provide but a single or a series simple questions, to which I will also provide simple answers that make sense and defeat your point fair-and-square, kind of like I just did with our other argument. This isn't a place for that though - let's not continue this! Wonna do this naughty thing in private, perhaps? I'm open-minded about such things ...

On-topic:
What also sucks about this monitor is that Turbo240 mode increases gamma value by 0.1 or close to that. In regular 120hz mode you can achieve an acceptable power-law-like gamma of 2.2 with a slight BT.1886-like curve on the darker-end without needing any software LUTs, if you set gamma to 2.0 in monitor OSD menu settings. However, the same exact setting will yield a 2.3-2.35-ish gamma curve in Turbeo240 mode. If you lower the gamma setting from 2.0 to 1.8, which is the only lower option in OSD menu settings, then you'll end up with a flat power-law gamma of 2.1... That means that in Turbo240 mode, without a software LUT/ICC, you will not be able to get that excellent level of detail, but you will either have an overly dark image with loss of dark detail or overly light image with loss of image depth. All this means that if you want to truly experience Turbo240 and a great image - at least get ColorMunki Display colorimeter, and rent ColorMunki Photo spectrometer to create an accurate LUT with BT.1886 gamma.

P.S. I apologize for run-on sentences, using different tenses in the same sentence, and bad grammar - English is not my first language. <--- should I make this my signature?

Me too, but considering that just about every single knowledgeable experienced and non-experienced pro calibrator out there would choose i1Pro over i1D3, including Graeme, a highly knowledgeable color-science specialist/guru who developed the most accurate and precise display-profiling and 3DLUT-generating software that beats industry-standard software packages like CalMAN and LightSpace in a wide variety of ways, is overwhelming evidence off epic proportions that you are dead-wrong.

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I don't understand the "sharpness" you are bringing into the discussion now. While having some problems with the term "Pro calibrator" (at least when having a quick look at different forums in the Anglo-Saxon area), Graeme (who was even invited to speak at fogra symposia her in Germany) is definitively the man to ask. Feel free to start an inquiry about the things and correlations I have mentioned (human perception, colorimetric measurements and inherent constraints, impact of pure filter failures) and maybe even his specific experience with the i1 Display Pro. My didactic approach may have been improvable. To point it out once again: When having to choose between a prosumer spectral photometer (with emissive mode) and colorimeter for display calibration (in each case exclusive usage) I would take the latter one. If you feel better in achieving a higher absolute accuracy by using both probes in an adequate way there is nothing to say against it.

This isn't a place for that though

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Correct. Especially because the original questioner simply wants to build up an ICC based workflow.

Oh and by the way - BT.1886 gamma is the only gamma to be used on any display, but I'm sure you're going to argue against that, which will lead me into backing up my claims and once again providing overwhelming evidence that will result in a come-back where you are more understanding of the aspect, but still not very agreeable

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My roots lie in the graphic and not video industry. That may be the cause for our constant misunderstandings. However: The actual gradation is characterized by the display profile and therefore respected during all transformations in color aware software. So there's not the one gradation (just like the whitepoint) to choose in an ICC workflow. If the current black point is represented a CMM can even perform a black point compensation before gamut mapping to mediate between different dynamic ranges (more important when separating to print profiles). That avoids discontinuities and loss of detail in the shadows. I mention this because you are certainly referring to the impacts of the limited black point of real world LCDs when bringing BT.1886 and its black point consideration into play. How and if the black point is considered during calibration is up to the software.

Regarding video playback - that means outside (ICC) color managed workflows - I'm a friend of a Laissez Faire kind of workflow. BT.1886, pure Gamma gradations, individual curves. The reproduction (ambient) conditions differ so much (and the grading workflows too) that one should just choose what he likes. That's my very personal opinion.

well my monitor arrived early and i've been playing with it all day.


i have to say, either i got very lucky or i'm just not very picky because i've experienced NONE of the issues you guys have been talking about i could understand some might expect perfection in what is advertised for something this expensive but i was expecting SOMETHING to be bad but i just cant find reason to complain, am i just not noticing these so-called problems or what?

there are a few things i have noticed so far though, i've kept an eye open for backlight bleeds on the sides and viewing angle problems and the only bleeding i have noticed is very negligible, if anything i'd say its no more than seen on any lcd monitor extending out about 1/4" and i dont even notice it at all when gaming or watching movies, if at all.

the viewing angles are a little more noticeable but honestly not really a problem unless i wanted to look at it from the side for whatever reason, i did notice the top right corner of the window has less color unless i move my head over there but even then its slightly less colorful than a inch or two from there, if the monitor were any larger i could see that being a problem but at these levels you wouldnt know the difference unless you were to move.

they say this has deeper blacks but the whites stand out the most to me, i dont know if its contrast or what but its a much more noticeable difference and i'm loving it, overall i'm happy with the purchase and was not disappointed, it did not go beyond or below my expectations excluding possible problems and improved kill ratio, i got 8 kills in 10 seconds in cs:go gungame! i did not expect that, i thought i was invincible! the round ended before i was stopped.

i bought mine from newegg and if you would like me to check for the manufacture date/location just explain where to check. anyway, i heard somebody here mention peeling off some plastic protection? there was nothing to peel off from what i can tell, could you elaborate?

I'm curious if the AG coating on the Eizo 2421 isn't grainy. I absolutely hate grainy coatings and prefer glossy screens.. it helps (me) with total immersion factor during gaming. My current Asus has a semi-matte coating but it's not bad. Text and graphics are still shiny (about 70% glossy) and so if this monitor is anything like that then I will like it. Otherwise, I'll need to remove the coating. How difficult would it be to remove on this particular panel? <--assuming it's not aggresive

Zarosath said:

they say this has deeper blacks but the whites stand out the most to me, i dont know if its contrast or what but its a much more noticeable difference and i'm loving it.

i bought mine from newegg and if you would like me to check for the manufacture date/location just explain where to check. anyway, i heard somebody here mention peeling off some plastic protection? there was nothing to peel off from what i can tell, could you elaborate?

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First of all, nice to hear you got a good unit. I agree with you on the whites; they are really punchy and give the picture a vivid look.

The manufacture date is on the back side of the monitor; on the left side, just above the barcode. And regarding the plastic film protection, there is one covering the EIZO logo on the back; you should peel it off just in case it gets warm in there with the light from the logo.

I just got my FG2421 and I have to say I'm loving it, I was worried about input lag while on the desktop but in game it's a non-issue and compared to the lightboost colors I'm used to seeing this is like (if not better IMO than my FW900).

Although I noticed that images to the right of the screen have obvious shadowing (only with Turbo240 on) for example the taskbar clock in Windows 7/8 has shadow behind it (the white text) as does the text on this forum page.
Does anyone know why this happens or if it's a defect of my specific panel perhaps?

Anyone care to share their color settings?

Also. When I scroll the [H] pages the text turns a bit yellow, anyone else getting that? Can't remember if it did this on my other FG2421's.

Thanks.

Dallows said:

Anyone care to share their color settings?

Also. When I scroll the [H] pages the text turns a bit yellow, anyone else getting that? Can't remember if it did this on my other FG2421's.

Thanks.

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My Turbo240 colors are, Temp: Off (so all gains are at 100), Brightness: 60 (this is whatever you like really), Black Level and Contrast are 50, Gamma 2.2
Contract Enhance is off, screen is "Full screen", and color space is RGB Full Range.

This is my personal preference I enjoy an analytic picture.

While I think the problems with this monitor are minimal. I find it hard to believe that Newegg received a new shipment with the build dates of Nov. 11 2013. There's also a slight bit of damage to the panel on the back. Not sure what to do about that. It's by a corner and it causes the bezel to not be flush together

Dallows said:

While I think the problems with this monitor are minimal. I find it hard to believe that Newegg received a new shipment with the build dates of Nov. 11 2013. There's also a slight bit of damage to the panel on the back. Not sure what to do about that. It's by a corner and it causes the bezel to not be flush together

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They seem to be selling like hotcakes. Newegg is sold out again. If I received a display from them I thought was refurbished or open-box, first off, I'd call Eizo and check the serial number, they can tell you if it has a full warranty or not. Second, either way I'd complain about the damage to a NE chat agent and get a gift card or something. Third, if I got an FG2421 that had "minimal" problems, I'd keep it--no question.

how much better is the colour reproduction,compare to a tn 120hz panel like benq xl2410t? is it worth the upgrade to fg2421 or not?

I must have gotten lucky... since my panel is near Vega quality. Initially out of the box it looked a little washed out, but once I got the colors straightened out it looked appreciably better. BLB is at a minimum, a slight bit in the upper left quadrant. No dead pixels or noticeable crosshatching (not sure I want to really look for it, then I may never be able to unsee it.) I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't start having issues, but for now I'm quite glad I got it. Mfc date is Dec 13 2013 from Japan. I ordered it from b&h.

I think I'm going to ditch this monitor once and for all. The con's outweigh the few pro's in my case.

I've ordered a EV2336 so we'll see how that plays out. I'll hold onto the FG2421 until I can compare.

I just spoke with a Customer Service rep from B&H and they confirmed that if the Eizo FG2421 arrives or displays any defects within 30 days of the purchase they will issue a refund or exchange the monitor and cover return shipping, which I was previously mistaken about. I have placed an order for another and we will see how it goes.

Bluesun311 said:

I just spoke with a Customer Service rep from B&H and they confirmed that if the Eizo FG2421 arrives or displays any defects within 30 days of the purchase they will issue a refund or exchange the monitor and cover return shipping, which I was previously mistaken about. I have placed an order for another and we will see how it goes.

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Good luck bro. I'm quite glad I went with B&H, and they had a great price too.

I got another Eizo FG2421 after the last one was a dud. The last one had noticeable BLB in the bottom left corner, random restarting issues. I got another one 100 euro cheaper and this time it's one of the Japanese ones with 0 BLB and no restarting issues. It has 1 stuck pixel in the top left of the screen but it's impossible to see unless you are looking at a very close distance while the screen is completely white. Very happy with my purchase this time around ^^

Forgive me if this was asked but is there a way to tell outside the box if it's made in Japan and/or mnf date? What's the likelyhood of getting an older/original build if I order from B&H?

bought mine from B&T and got my shipping confirmation. looking forward to reporting back.

To everyone waiting on these monitors from B&H. Don't freak out if you get a bad one. It's part of the fg2421 "experience." Good luck to all you guys.

Thanks. I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed. Your post about them paying return shipping is what pushed me over the edge...figured I kinda can't lose. I have a monitor (crappy as it is) to use until I get a decent one.

I take it Dec 2013 or later builds are the best yes? Mine should be here tomorrow so here's hoping!

oldskooler79 said:

I take it Dec 2013 or later builds are the best yes? Mine should be here tomorrow so here's hoping!

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No idea. A lot of the really good units were from the initial shipments, which is common with new products, unfortunately. I bought the one I kept used from someone on OC.net who guaranteed I would like it after returning a slew of them that were mfg Oct/Nov. This one was made end of Sept. There are going to be new units out there that are just as good, though, and there were plenty of reports about crosshatching and QC issues when it first came out, too. Mine has really good black uniformity but a sort of filmy weird haze over the middle of the screen while scrolling across certain solid shades of dark grey. Basically the FG2421 doesn't like this forum's color scheme and looks great on pretty much anything and everything else I try.

After installing w8.1 fresh, the screen manager app no longer finds the display. The manual button is greyed also.

Help please? Thank you

deasnutz said:

After installing w8.1 fresh, the screen manager app no longer finds the display. The manual button is greyed also.

Help please? Thank you

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Idk... unplug the usb and replug it? Do you have the setting checked in windows CP for devices and printers to auto find drivers and icons?

What do you mean by "manual button is greyed"?

Edit: And holy shit I just figured out how to install the official Eizo drivers for windows 8.1... I figured Generic PNP Monitor was fine (it probably is).
Anyway I somehow prefer having the Device Manager display the Model instead of saying it's generic. Here's a link to the FG2421 downloads page. The drivers are included with the ICC profiles...

1. Connect the Monitor with the Computer and start Windows 8.
2. Right-click the mouse on the "Start" screen at a position where there are no tiles.
3. Click "All apps".
4. Click "Control Panel" under "Windows System".
5. Under "Appearance and Personalization", click "Adjust screen resolution" to open "Change the appearance of your display" window.
6. Click "Advanced Settings".
7. Select "Monitor" tab and click "Properties" of the "Monitor type".
8. Select "Driver" tab and click "Update Driver...".
9. In the "Update Driver Software" window, click "Browse my computer for driver software".
10. Click "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer", and then click "Have Disk... ".
11. In the "Install From Disk" window, click "Browse...".
12. Select the Monitor Information File (the downloaded file) and click "Open".
13. Click "OK".
14. Select a suitable monitor name from the list in the "Model" then click "Next".
15. "Windows has successfully updated your driver software" is displayed and click "Close".

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The updated app for Screen Manager Pro works fine on my fresh 8.1 install from yesterday. I love how their instructions to update the driver are like going outside the house and running around the block to pee on a fire hydrant.

By the way, new owners: if you think your display is DOA--there's a a slightly hidden power switch on the under side of the unit... Any guesses why that switch was necessary or useful?

Oops...I don't think I reconnected the USB cable. Thank you!

Firmware updates possible on this screen? I have one of the initial manufactured (bought in Nov).

Newegg and Amazon are now out of stock and are NOT planning on re-stocking this monitor.... I suggest you get one NOW!

It could be either a bad or a good thing. Eizo provides a 5-year warranty and I am hoping that they continue making this model but with much higher quality parts and quality control. If that happens - I will get a replacement that will be even better than what I have.

At this point I am very glad I bought this screen with all its faults because I spent more hours playing games on it then I spent total hours on my VG248QE. I do hope they release some kind of firmware updates. What sucks is that there is no software available for the industrial version of this monitor. I really wish I could download it from somewhere! What if it has color gamut controls? Maybe even more features or even have new firmware that would work on FG2421!

This monitor, without its usual defects and with colorspace calibration to achieve an IPS-level color accuracy would be the very best monitor for games. If it could also strobe without double-imaging, it would literally be THE monitor, skyrocketing Eizo brand as the brand for gaming monitors.

Im with ya MonarchX. This is in fact why ordered it NOW because I don't want to let this gaming beast slip by. Mine was delivered today, but I've had such a busy schedule that I won't be able to open it until tomorrow. I will update here with my initial impressions with some pics in games (Crysis, Doom 3, etc).

I've read from multiple sources that the 240hz mode introduces artifacts or some other nasty in the picture and I'm okay with this. I bought this to use as a solid 120hz display with killer contrast! If it can deliver that for me then it's more than worth it's cost.

New FG2421 arrived this morning from B&H. Free shipping in 4 business days

First off, this is the only one of 6 Eizos I've bought in as many months that has been properly double packaged. Imo, the mfg. packaging Eizo designed for these is an accident waiting to happen. In fact, if B&H had NOT double packaged this one, I don't think it would have survived the trip to TX from NY:


Now for the fun stuff: This unit I received is even better than the FG I already had, which is saying something. They both have the same little light strip that disappears on dark backgrounds, they both have a little hazy gamma shifting in the middle, and they both look fantastic. Built Dec 3 Made in Japan like every other one I've seen. So now just waiting for it to restart on me but we will see.

I'd say have at these from B&H, they seem to be good units.

The viewing angles are really killing this monitor. You shift your head a bit to the left or right and it washes everything out. Even sitting in the middle my icons on the left are lighter than if I put my head right in front of them.

It's a VA panel, you will have to deal with it. All panel types have negatives. I'd rather take the VA Eizo over IPS glow. And it's still way better than TN panels issues.