Eizo Foris FG2421: 120hz VA Panel

Is it possible that the restart issue could be caused by faulty/loose power cable inputs? I do not have the issue on either of these 2 units I have, but just now I raised the height of this new one and the cable slipped out just enough to turn the monitor off but stayed in the plug o_O
 
Vega said:
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.
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Come on man, you're seriously going to sit there and tell me any of these negatives are acceptable on a $600 monitor?
 
Dallows said:
Come on man, you're seriously going to sit there and tell me any of these negatives are acceptable on a $600 monitor?
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He bought 3 of them... I bought 6 and kept sending em back til I got a couple that were acceptable. I can't comment on the severity of your particular panel but I am quite partial to these. I have compared IPS/PLS TN and MVA. None of the above are perfect at any kind of price I can get away with, and none of the above are even available at 120Hz with strobing backlights outside of a handful of models that all have several flaws no matter how well you do on their particular lottery.

This is the best/prettiest option for that very specific subset of monitors which do "Lightboost", which is why Vega is using them right now. As he states earlier in the thread, he has unlimited resources, so there is no particular subjectivity to his selection, it was based on trial and error, to my knowledge. He tries everything and keeps the best is what I remember reading. I didn't blindly follow his recommendation either, because I didn't want to spend 1800 dollars on 3 monitors. Instead I wasted a lot of time messing around with various TNs that all pissed me off way more than my FG2421s ever could. The thing about it is, this is all based on how I see things. If you can't stand it, money is really not the important part is it? Just get something else, but if everything else is worse even to your own eyes, then why bother yourself about the expenditure. I just can't imagine spending 2000 dollars on my rig (or whatever it was) and then giving myself a hard time about spending a good portion more on the part of the whole package that brings the output to my brain...
 
Dallows said:
Come on man, you're seriously going to sit there and tell me any of these negatives are acceptable on a $600 monitor?
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The problem is that most people don't realize that a $600 monitor isn't really expensive. If you want a professional monitor, one with truly no flaws with it, you'll have to spend ten times that. See the Sony Trimaster PVM monitors. Every monitor has a flaw - nothing's perfect. Pick a flaw you can live with, that's the name of the game.

I have two main CRT's I use - Sony GDM-FW900, and GDM-F520. Both of them are exquisite. They each have fantastic color, black levels, perfect motion clarity, and zero input lag. Photos, games, and movies all look amazing on these things. The downsides? Geometry and Convergence aren't completely perfect. You can get them close, but they'll never be as perfect as a fixed-pixel display. Text isn't as razor sharp as LCD either, but again - the F520 comes really close to LCD-like text. And of course, the other downsides are those inherent to all CRT's - big, heavy, and they take up a lot of space. Also - they need recalibration periodically.

Like I said - this is a game of "pick your battles." If you come into the arena expecting total perfection, then prepare your wallet. Because at consumer levels, it doesn't exist.
 
Ya, $600 isn't much at all for a quality display. Most people are just used to spending $250 on some crappy little TN. For perspective, the top display of the CRT era was the FW900 which retailed for $2500 new.

On the flip side, expensive doesn't always equate to a good display. I've spent $3500 on a 31.5" IGZO 4K and didn't care for it one bit. The Eizo is still the top gaming monitor out there with it's only serious contention on the horizon being the delayed and ballyhooed ROG Swift.
 
Vega said:
Ya, $600 isn't much at all for a quality display. Most people are just used to spending $250 on some crappy little TN. For perspective, the top display of the CRT era was the FW900 which retailed for $2500 new.

On the flip side, expensive doesn't always equate to a good display. I've spent $3500 on a 31.5" IGZO 4K and didn't care for it one bit. The Eizo is still the top gaming monitor out there with it's only serious contention on the horizon being the delayed and ballyhooed ROG Swift.
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At least my old crappy TN had a uniform backlight and the colors stayed the same if I shifted my head a cm to the left or tight.

I guess the point is I shouldn't need to spend $2500 to get something that's mostly defect free. And I shouldn't have to exchange a monitor 6 times to get something decent. I could probably deal with most other problems but the backlight affects everything, especially movie watching and games with dark scenes. It's too distracting to consider reasonable.

But I guess people keep buying this shit so they'll keep producing it.
 
Really undecided on what to do about mine. While there are no dead pixels and minimal crosshatching the blb from the right side is quite noticeable in some games. It washes out about 1.5cm. In most game its fine but with certain colours it is quite apparent. I know that most people have some sort of blb issue so I'm wondering if its worth trying for a replacement. Its not so much the hassle, which is minimal, but the fact that I may get one that's even worse.

Here are some shots from the game which shows it up the most, Rust:







Do you guys think its worth trying for a better example?
 
Fraggins said:
Really undecided on what to do about mine. While there are no dead pixels and minimal crosshatching the blb from the right side is quite noticeable in some games. It washes out about 1.5cm. In most game its fine but with certain colours it is quite apparent. I know that most people have some sort of blb issue so I'm wondering if its worth trying for a replacement. Its not so much the hassle, which is minimal, but the fact that I may get one that's even worse.

Here are some shots from the game which shows it up the most, Rust:
<snip>
Do you guys think its worth trying for a better example?
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Does that really bother you? It's hardly noticeable on the photographs. TN anomalies are so much worse than that, imo. I'm not telling anyone what to do, I'm just gonna go back to playing my games, but my BLB "lightstrip" is worse than that I think and I forgot about it and don't notice it. The only fg2421 quirk I sometimes notice is the haziness on a scrolling grey background--compared to the lightboost TNs I've had it's a quirk I don't mind very much, especially since it's been a totally consistent problem across every unit I've played with--just a drawback of the tech.
 
Fraggins
That bleed is exactly the reason why I returned mine. I think it's not worth trying another one.
 
I got mine and so far, i love it. No dead pixels, easy to use OSD, no crosshatching from what I can see...but i do have like 1cm of "bleed" just like Fraggins, above. Oddly (?), its only on the right side, none perceptible on the left. Mildly annoying, not a dealbreaker for me, but if you were really fussy, I'm sure it could really bother someone.

The number one thing about this monitor, from my perspective, coming from something far, far crappier is the contrast. the whites are SO effing white and the blacks the same. It was a massive upgrade for me.
 
Dallows said:
Come on man, you're seriously going to sit there and tell me any of these negatives are acceptable on a $600 monitor?
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Every VA display has a viewing cone. If you don't like that effect, you will have to buy a different type of panel.

VA -> brightness increases or decreases radially from the center of the screen

TN -> brightness decreases from the bottom to the top of the screen

IPS-> brightness increases in the corners of the screen

BLB is another issue, but most LCD displays have it to some extent. Unless you spend a ton of money, the best you can do is find a panel where the BLB occurs in a regular pattern. An irregular pattern - such as bleed along part of one edge - usually indicates some kind of damage to the screen.

An IPS panel is probably the best overall panel for desktop PCs, since it will have the least obvious viewing cone. This is probably why IPS is taking over the marketplace.
 
I am thinking about picking up a sale display unit directly from eizo germany. Wondering if they were likely to use their best looking unit as a display? 100 euro cheaper and if they let me, I will go see it in person first. Not far from me. Wish they had gsync. That would be the icing on the cake, assuming it didnt have all these bloody faults to begin with!
;)
 
shiznit said:
Where are you guys buying and able to return them until you get a good one?
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I returned a bunch to Newegg and 1 to Provantage, neither of these etailers are selling them anymore. I strongly suggest buying this display from B&H photo, since they are willing to package these properly in an extra shipping carton, and they will pay return shipping on defective monitors. They also just happen to have the best price.
 
If they stop manufacture of these monitors, good samples will become the "FW900"s of the LCD world and will hold their value quite well IMO.
 
That brings back memories ;)

I don't miss the support beam I had to put under my desk so that beast wouldn't crash through. And the constant geometry adjustments. If you're comparing to the fw900 I really need to see this in action.
 
shiznit said:
That brings back memories ;)

I don't miss the support beam I had to put under my desk so that beast wouldn't crash through. And the constant geometry adjustments. If you're comparing to the fw900 I really need to see this in action.
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It's funny you mention geometry because a lot of these folks have no idea how frustrating that was. It was one of the few reasons I was happy to switch to LCDs (besides the obvious support bar problem). I almost pulled the trigger on a good FW900 very recently for about 3 times what I paid for one of my FG2421s. The geometry calibration adjustments would have eventually killed me, I'm sure. I've never seen an FW in person but this is the LCD monitor that has been said to be closest. Not close, but the closest. It's... different.

I was a little iffy about grabbing one of these for my wife, who plays Final Fantasy 14 on a ROG Haswell laptop, but I wanted her to have the same monitor I had and see if she liked it (she definitely does, no comments on any anomalies and she would love to find something to be picky about). Anyway, the point is it still works great at 60Hz without Turbo on. She's barely able to hold 40+fps and has no idea what she's missing as far as motion clarity, but on a game like that it doesn't matter too much.

Yeah, I could have gotten her a cheaper 60Hz monitor but even then, opening up a lot more models, this is probably still the best looking as far as color and contrast depth for under $600--and somehow buying her this monitor got me "points". :D
 
Dallows said:
Newegg definitely not selling them anymore?
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I'm no insider, I just sort of habitually check prices at NE. I have noticed that the link is still there in their systems, so if you go to http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824136126 you can still find Monarch's review where he says his restarts once every 24 hours. But if you search their website, the item is gone. Usually means an item has been discontinued but their whole system is messed up right now so, who knows. They haven't been able to find any orders I place when I call CS. Very fucking annoying. If all you can do is get credit... ugh.

Seriously though, look at those pictures of the packaging from B&H. I have a hunch the restart issue is not being helped by Eizo's manufacturing packaging. It would seem to me something about the design is either flawed out of the factory or a lot of these units are being damaged in shipping which is causing the restart issue (which is a real thing, not a figment of anyone's imagination). I'm guessing Newegg's units were coming from Eizo Japan and B&H's are coming from Eizo Germany. They are all marked made in Japan as of now, as far as I know. Either way, I'm buying monitors from B&H from now on until they piss me off. Double shipping carton=win.
 
Bluesun311 said:
I'm no insider, I just sort of habitually check prices at NE. I have noticed that the link is still there in their systems, so if you go to http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824136126 you can still find Monarch's review where he says his restarts once every 24 hours. But if you search their website, the item is gone. Usually means an item has been discontinued but their whole system is messed up right now so, who knows. They haven't been able to find any orders I place when I call CS. Very fucking annoying. If all you can do is get credit... ugh.

Seriously though, look at those pictures of the packaging from B&H. I have a hunch the restart issue is not being helped by Eizo's manufacturing packaging. It would seem to me something about the design is either flawed out of the factory or a lot of these units are being damaged in shipping which is causing the restart issue (which is a real thing, not a figment of anyone's imagination). I'm guessing Newegg's units were coming from Eizo Japan and B&H's are coming from Eizo Germany. They are all marked made in Japan as of now, as far as I know. Either way, I'm buying monitors from B&H from now on until they piss me off. Double shipping carton=win.
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Well that same thing happened when they ran out to stock. It didn't "disappear" for that long but it did come back.

None of the FG's I received from Newegg restart and they were all in the original Eizo packaging. One did arrive with some damage (lower corner on the back of the monitor) but there was no damage to the box. Who knows maybe they sent me someone else's return. I haven't been keeping track of the serial numbers though.
 
Here are my first impressions as I just got mine from B&H photo. I'm comming from an AE-1000 projector... so I may be a lot less jaded than some of the people who bought this monitor expecting perfection. For me the difference in contrast, motion clarity, and input lag is a huge step up.

I was really apprehensive in buying this monitor given all the complaints in this thread, but I'm very happy with what I got. My sample has no dead pixels. I looked very hard for the artifacts some people were complaining about under Turbo 240 and I can't find anything. The picture looks exactly the same between the two modes except turbo obviously has great motion clarity. There is a very faint "texture" to the screen that you might catch if you look really hard for it on a white background, but I've yet to notice it under any other circumstance. So I guess I don't have the crosshatching people were complaining about either.

The only thing about the monitor that I can find something to complain about is the VA Panel viewing angle cone that has already been talked about in this thread. On my monitor it is definately more pronounced on the right hand side. One of the posters posted some colors that really illustrate the problem. There are a few colors where it is very obvious, and others where you can't see it at all. And of course the closer you are to the monitor, the more pronounced it is as well. Also even if I move my head so that it is straight on to the edge on the right I can see a very narrow band maybe a bit less than 1 cm, on the right side that is slightly lighter on certain colors. It seems like a less pronounced version of a defect others have complained about. The color uniformity issues are worth trading off for the other benifits, but I don't want to make it sound like it is trivial either. It is on occasion noticible and distracting.

I can imagine some future monitor that would make me want to upgrade that has better color uniformity, higher resolution, perhaps 30'', has gysnc, etc. But if you want a monitor today that has great contrast and motion clarity, there doesn't seem to be anything close.
 
I'm curious what is the "power" gamma setting? The manual says "The &#65279;images&#65279; will &#65279;be &#65279;sharpened &#65279;by &#65279;increasing&#65279; the&#65279; half tone &#65279;contrast". I have no idea what that means =P

It seems to reduce contrast? It makes it harder to see the difference in colors on test patterns to me.
 
Sling_Blade said:
...

I can imagine some future monitor that would make me want to upgrade that has better color uniformity, higher resolution, perhaps 30'', has gysnc, etc. But if you want a monitor today that has great contrast and motion clarity, there doesn't seem to be anything close.
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Manufactering date?
 
Q-BZ said:
Manufactering date?
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12/03/2013, made in japan

Also I played a bit more and as far as the color uniformity goes... its certainly something I stop noticing if I'm not looking for it. TF2 is probably one of the games that make the issue most noticeable, as it has a lot of solid wood colors and as you rotate the camera that wood color will change significantly as it goes from the edge of the screen to the center and to the other edge. It would be great if that didn't happen but If I'm playing I'm looking at the center of the screen and I'm not really paying attention to it. Other than that the colors really really pop and look great. I was reading a blur buster post on one of the new gysnc/lightboost monitors they have and they say lightboost colors are improved but still worse. This monitor does "lightboost" with almost no impact on color. I'd much rather have amazing contrast with these color uniformity issues than a washed out picture. Maybe one day we won't have to choose.
 
Also, I would have to say it is really hard to tell whether my panel is all that better or worse than what other people have posted about. Some did have really obvious looking pictures of crosshatching or dead pixels, which are clearly bad. But for the ones that are just talking about the VA panel viewing cone issues, and how it is more pronounced on the right side, I can see that in pretty much all the pictures. Differences in how far away the picture is taken from the screen, the angle, their settings on the monitor, and the color being shown make it impossible to compare. Stargazer's pictures did look particularly bad, so maybe there are some differences, or maybe he found some settings that really make it worse. I don't know. So instead of posting pictures here is how I would compare mine:

http://i.imgur.com/62VTsjQ.png

This is pretty much the worst looking case I can find. It's crushed in the middle with a dark splotch, and then gets to a normal color, and then is washed out on the edges. On mine if you move your head to the left that dark splotch will pretty much move all the way over to the edge. If you move your head to the right the dark splotch goes away at about 3 inches from the right side, and right at the edge, less than a cm, it is slightly lighter. That's with:

brightness: 31
black: 50
contrast: 50
temperature: off
gamma: 2.2
contrast enhancer: on
turbo 240: on
gain rgb: 100, 96, 92
 
I've watched a few shows off of Netflix on the monitor and I have seen a scene that looks crummy. It was a dark scene that had some of those "worst case" colors for the monitor where the gamma shift really brings out a difference in two colors that the compression has caused to be more different than they would be. However, in motion it isn't that bad, as each frame shifts the colors, and the effect is more of one of noise. If you pause the scene it looks quite awful though. This is definitely just the gamma shift though. If you move your heqd the noise goes away from that portion of the screen. Just another example of how the VA panel has its odd foibles. I wouldn't recommend this monitor for anyone who wasn't interested in mostly a gaming monitor.
 
Well damn it again, I now noticed that this monitor shows vertical lines or bars/columns and dirty blotches of bad uniformity. It is noticeable only on gray levels, so games like Deus Ex HR and BF4 are affected, but colorful games like Witcher 2, Sleeping Dogs, Skyrim, etc. don't have any scenes with this effect. This is now reached a point where, if I find one more type of defect, I am going to get my money back... But for now, I am still waiting for newer build dates. Eizo, I bet, is more than aware of the issue and I hope is working to tighten quality controls to make sure that only the best of the defective parts are selected for making this monitor.

Has anyone thought of starting a petition about the issues with this monitor and then submitting it to Eizo and demand explanations and answers?
 
I've seen a hint of that on mine but it is so faint its not worth complaining about.

Also I thought maybe some of the complaints about this monitor were people being too picky, but the complaints about it bringing out compression artifacts is no exaggeration. This thing is terrible for watching movies on. Some scenes it is fine but if you get a darker scene with the wrong colors it looks hideous. Also with the right lighting skin tones can look way off too, with some characters going from looking pale to like they have a tan depending on where they are in the scene. I won't be watching anything else on it.

This is a very purpose built monitor. CS:GO is fantastic on it, as are a number of other games. The motion clarity is great. You better have something else for doing anything else on though. I'll be keeping mine but if this were something I planned doing anything else on I would not.
 
Sling_Blade said:
I've seen a hint of that on mine but it is so faint its not worth complaining about.

Also I thought maybe some of the complaints about this monitor were people being too picky, but the complaints about it bringing out compression artifacts is no exaggeration. This thing is terrible for watching movies on. Some scenes it is fine but if you get a darker scene with the wrong colors it looks hideous. Also with the right lighting skin tones can look way off too, with some characters going from looking pale to like they have a tan depending on where they are in the scene. I won't be watching anything else on it.

This is a very purpose built monitor. CS:GO is fantastic on it, as are a number of other games. The motion clarity is great. You better have something else for doing anything else on though. I'll be keeping mine but if this were something I planned doing anything else on I would not.
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Yeah and the right side bleed makes the artifacting worse. I don't understand why those problems don't show up on my other monitors though. But I don't know jack about panel tech, so.

I may have to just start watching movies on my tv instead of my pc.
 
That's because all the color uniformity issues are gamma shift. Just jacking your gamma up on your other monitor would probably bring out the artifacts, and its worse on this monitor because not only do the edges get their gamma jacked up but it isn't uniform as you get closer to the center, making it all the more noticeable.
 
So I'm refunding this. The gamma shift and colors were really bad imo compared to no gamma shift and perfect colors of IPS. The motion blur reduction was nice but not enough for me to want to keep this. Felt like a downgrade from a Qnix 2710. Lesson learned. I primarily play FFXIV fyi.
 
Smokepiece said:
So I'm refunding this. The gamma shift and colors were really bad imo compared to no gamma shift and perfect colors of IPS. The motion blur reduction was nice but not enough for me to want to keep this. Felt like a downgrade from a Qnix 2710. Lesson learned. I primarily play FFXIV fyi.
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What was your built date?
 
Smokepiece said:
So I'm refunding this. The gamma shift and colors were really bad imo compared to no gamma shift and perfect colors of IPS. The motion blur reduction was nice but not enough for me to want to keep this. Felt like a downgrade from a Qnix 2710. Lesson learned. I primarily play FFXIV fyi.
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It goes like this:

Eizo Foris FG2421 = excellent technology for gamers, bad/defective units
IPS monitor = crappy technology for gamers, great units
TN monitor = fast, but ugly technology for gamers, semi-crappy units.

I would rather go with bad units, but great technology. Every time I think I find a new defect and think of refund I also think of alternatives and.... there are none! Eizo Foris FG2421 is a DEFECTIVE line of monitors that compensates for its defects with its technology.
 
MonarchX said:
It goes like this:

Eizo Foris FG2421 = excellent technology for gamers, bad/defective units
IPS monitor = crappy technology for gamers, great units
TN monitor = fast, but ugly technology for gamers, semi-crappy units.

I would rather go with bad units, but great technology. Every time I think I find a new defect and think of refund I also think of alternatives and.... there are none! Eizo Foris FG2421 is a DEFECTIVE line of monitors that compensates for its defects with its technology.
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If only more people would understand this...
 
Finally got around to buying an i1display pro colorimeter against advice received in this thread (best part--it registers itself with its own serial number if you let it). Since this probe is so cheap I'm sure these readings aren't exactly perfect, but they aren't exactly eyeballed, either--so sayeth the German engineers. Still, my hand picked settings weren't far off from what the probe wanted, I just can't make icc profiles without some sort of measurement device & software.

Anyway, mine can tell that the 5000:1 CR spec isn't quite right. It got about 3500:1 Off-center, and it could tell that there was a spike in luminance in the center. It actually wanted a pinker white than I was expecting... until I realized I should not use the center to base all my judgements on and try for a balance between the two luminance spaces (center, everything else).

After switching to a 1440p for a few days and coming back to the FG2421 it's a terrible shock how bad the motion is on a cheap 60Hz IPS. 120Hz IPS here I come.
 
If only they could've fixed the atrocious bleed from the right. It's even off-color, like a green on most screens. I wonder if I would have any luck going through Eizo for repairs.
 
Dallows said:
If only they could've fixed the atrocious bleed from the right. It's even off-color, like a green on most screens. I wonder if I would have any luck going through Eizo for repairs.
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Sounds defective and Eizo would swap it out for a different one but it might be refurbished. There should be almost no bleed. All 5 of the Fg2421s I have had (still hanging on to 2 of them) have been almost exactly the same on that score. Just a small strip (like a Chinese Fortune Cookie slip of paper size) of minor light bleed on the middle/top right edge that only affects grays and not deep blacks. Jason Ferrell's stuck pixel test will give you an easy black full screen and it should be wall to wall pitch black with almost no deviation. Once you start getting into lighter shades of brown and grey then the "bleed" lights up. I don't know how or why but I am positive it's *supposed* to be almost unnoticeable.

Incidentally, what are your OSD settings for brightness contrast black level and RGB gains? TFT central's settings worked great and pretty much matched what I ended up with just using the x-rite i1 display pro to calibrate with. I'm at 26 brightness. Also, the monitor does have a slightly green tint out of the box, and turning down the green and blue gains slightly might help.
 
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