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30" - NEC or Eizo

M

Mivnik

n00b
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
6
Hello guys!

I´m interested in buying a 30incher for work - I work as an illustrator and concept artist, so I need good image quality, good viewing angles and plenty of size.
I don´t play games except of WoW sometimes, so I don´t care about lags or something.
Silence is appreciated, I have an almost unhearable PC here and I notice every other sound (damn you, external drive!).

I currently work on a Eizo M1950 19", and I quite like the image quality and everything, hoewever it has become too small for me.
So, instead of adding a couple of pixels on both sides with a 24/26", I decided to go after the big ones.

So my question is:

Does anybody have experience with the NEC 3090WQXi or the Eizo SX3031W?
I read a lot of very helpful things from visualguy and albovin here on the forums,
but all comparisons have been between the NEC and the Eizo CG301W
and therefore of no help for me (don´t want to spend 3,5k € on a monitor).

Simply put: which one is the better monitor? Does it matter anyway (compared to the M1950 - if the image quality should stay the same)?

Thx in advance for your help!
 
Mivnik,

I discussed the LCD3090WQXi in detail in another thread. One serious problem with that monitor right now is that it suffers from a uniformity problem which shows up as dark vertical stripes, particularly on gray, but also on white. Maybe the units that are sold in Europe are OK - I don't know - but the units that are currently being sold in the US suffer from this problem.

Another issue that bothers me with that monitor is that the red color doesn't look right in sRGB mode. For example, if you look at the Yahoo logo on the Yahoo home page, it will look more like brown than red.

The SX3031W is very similar to the CG301W. The main difference is that the SX cannot be calibrated. For me, this is a big disadvantage, but you may feel differently about it. Eizo factory calibration is good, but I still find that I get results that I like better when I do my own calibration.

Another advantage of the CG301W is that Eizo hand picks the best panels for it. The problem with that model, of course, is that it's very expensive. I think it's priced about 50% higher than a fair price, but it is the best 30" monitor, and it's available only in limited quantities, so they can charge a premium. The only downside of that monitor (other than price) is the gamma shift of the PVA panel. The same problem applies to the SX3031W. Don't buy these monitors if this bothers you. It doesn't bother me since I find that it doesn't make a difference in real-world use of the monitor.
 
If your research indicates that image quality is very similar (I don't know that answer) I would personally favour the NEC. Being more "popular" than Eizo will make it easier to go through the entire service life of the monitor being able to service or replace things like hoods, calibration equipment, etc... You're probably also more likely to see discussion of optimal firmware settings, upgrades, hack/easter eggs and that sort of thing. However, it isn't as those Eizo is an obscure brand among professionals, however.

I see that the Eizo indicates 100% NTSC gamut, the NEC 102%
I see that the Eizo has 16-bit internal colour processing, the NEC seems unstated
I didn't see a Spectraview version of the 3090, but it says "Spectraview software enabled"
The NEC has a 4 year warranty, the Eizo a 5.
The Eizo specifically mentions advanced electronics including scaling, not sure what the 3090 does.
 
I just bought the NEC 30 few days ago. One of my worries were the vertical stripes that others talked/showed. Mine has one very faint stripe. Really only visible at full brightness and with gray background. I turned down the brightness (full brightness is TOO bright) and don't see it anymore. I think the more recently produced panels might be much better than some of the early ones. Mine was produced week 25 of 08.

My only other complaint were some bright spots in bottom corners (pretty much fixed by lowering brightness). But as others told me this is a problem with all the panels without polarizer.

Red in sRGB mode is a bit off on my panel but it does not look brown. I also did not do any calibration.

I tested scaling on the panel using either gfx card scaling or panel scaling. The panel does a MUCH better job at scaling when not using native resolution. Text is definitely clearer. Gfx card scaling makes text look very blurry.
 
I've spent some more time using the NEC and honestly even though I have not used other 30 inch panels, I do not think I would recommend the NEC. Another problem I have noticed is that white tends to becomes yellowish white towards bottom of the screen. Even using the uniformity feature does not do anything for this. That combined with the glow in corners is still really ticking me off. I played some Mass effect and that glow drives me nuts especially in dark scenes.
 
Wow, the tide is now turning .... I wonder how many people who supported the monitor before actually owned one as opposed to drooled over it. :confused:
 
Hello guys,

thank you very much for your quick and competent help!

I´m relieved to hear that the Eizo CG is very similar to the SX, except of hardware calibration. I would prefer to hardwarecalibrate it, but I think software calibration would be enough for me (or at least I hope so).
Why would they build a display with such a wide gamut and then don´t let me adress all of it by hardware calibration? (or maybe I´m confusing some things :). Got to read a little more about it.

Well, I guess I´ll have to try to order both and then send back the one(s) I didn´t like...

Thanks again for your help!
 
Please Let me know what you think when you try em out because I'm in exactly the same situation!! I paint digitally and I need the extra space so hopefully you can tell us more about these 2 specifically!!
 
pawstar said:
Wow, the tide is now turning .... I wonder how many people who supported the monitor before actually owned one as opposed to drooled over it. :confused:
Click to expand...

Yes, it's too bad how the NEC 30" seems to be turning out compared to the rest of their lineup. I was hoping to set my sights on a NEC 30" to replace my GDM-F520 CRT when the time comes.

I've always been very fussy about my displays, and now I do colour correct work as well. Unfortunately the work I do doesn't (currently) generate any revenue to offset the cost of some really nice kit like Eizo or LaCie.

Oh well, there's always the 2690. :)
 
Unfortunately not... I´m currently researching the NEC 26" model... don´t expect a decision soon (way too much to know about displays out there ;)
If anything happens, I´ll make sure to let you know.
 
Eizo uses "crappy" PVA, which are just not as good as H-IPS used in the high-end NEC LCDs. So go the NEC way :)
Or LP2480zx if you can stand 24" LCD (and pay the price).
 
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