LCD2490Uxi-BK-SV or LCD2690Uxi-BK-SV

philg

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May 21, 2007
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My priorities are:

1. Photo editing for stock - need accurate colors and screen real estate.
2. Gaming - need reasonable speed for no ghosting.
3. GIS and scientific document publishing (ie. MSc. Thesis!) - need facing pages.

Which one is the better choice? Will the 2690 perform less well for games/movies? Will the 2490's 72% color gamut be a significant penalty?
 
not many people have the 2490 since it's only available in the U.S. and it costs a left testicle, but I have only one nut now, so you're in luck :D

I can see two pages side by side just fine on my 2490. I game just fine on my 2490. The difference is this, do you want to pay a few hundred dollars less for 72% of NTSC space or do you want 92% of NTSC space. I ultimately chose the cheaper route, although the main reason for me buying this was for photo editting.

My reasoning, flawed as it may be, is that not everything supports a wide gamut, so those webpages or non-color aware programs that did not support a wide gamut I would have to manually change the colorspace to sRGB. Since I'm not the only user of this computer, I felt it would be easiest on me to just keep everything simple and leave everything at sRGB....calibrated of course, but at sRGB nonetheless. Plus, reports of noisy inductors and bad panels and such...well, it kinda sorta maybe a little scared me off of the 2690.

So lets get to photoeditting. I do it just fine. Widescreen, put the control panels outside the main pic, edit the pic on my calibrated monitor, everything looks great. Be aware, if you print your pics, you may need to worry about the printer calibration, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Honestly though, I don't have a wide gamut monitor, I've never seen one, so I cannot really comment on it's merits/flaws. Ignorance is bliss as they say and since I don't know what I'm missing, I'm happy I saved a couple hundred dollars and am happy with my monitor. It's almost everything I thought it would be.
 
I can only offer you 5 choices and Juardis gave you two of them. The only other “Pro” model is the Eizo CE240W. The other models would be the Dell 30” model and the Planar 2611. The Dell needs a dual link vid card attached to it and has a resolution of 2560X1600. If you want to game with it, you will need one of the newer nVidia cards. The Planar is a new 26” model and has the same panel and wide gamut as the NEC 2690 but without any of the high end color correction built in. They are all 1920X1200 except the Dell 30”. The lowest costing one is the Planar with the highest one being the Eizo.

Warranty:
Eizo: 5 years
NEC: 4 years
Dell and Planar: 3 Years
 
The 2490 is available in the us. Its listed on NewEgg

Its on my short list.

The 72% gamut issue is a none issue. Wide gamut is a feature you will probably never use and according to some experts will actually degrade the color accuracy with todays 8 bit tech. I would be more considered about 12 bit gamma correction and color accuracy. On that not as far as the listed specs these are equal. The only reason I can see to get the 2690 is if you have a hard time reading the icons and default text size on a normal 24" screen.

Personally, if I had the cash on hand the 2490 would get my vote. The only other sub 2000 I would consider would be the Dell 30" but as mentioned above keeping up the hardware to game on it would be expensive and the colors won't match the NEC.

A side note, if you are sensitive to ghosting you may have an issue given that the Behardware review only gave it middle of the road ghosting performance compared to some other monitors.

Clearly the reaction time of this panel is disappointing. There has been no progress since the Nec LCD2090UXi, an IPS 16 ms. We even wonder if LG-Philips, the panel manufacturer, or Nec forgot to put the 1 in front of the 6ms response time.

On the other hand that is about the same response time the Dell 2001FP had everyone loved it so it would depend on how sensitive you are the effect. If you are casual gamer I tend to doubt it would be a big issue.

A side note, if you don't have a color calibrator you should order one. No monitor is color accurate in stock settings. It doesn't make any sense to spend this kind of money and monitor if you are not willing to spend $80-300 on a calibrator.
 
I agree about the gamut based on what I've read so far. The review at BeHardware focuses on the 2690. Could it be that the 2690 is slower than the 2490 due to larger pixels and wider colour gamut ie. could i expect more gaming performance out of the 2490?

The other option, as I've stated before, is to 'cheap out' and get a lcd20wgmx2 or an Apple cinema display, and an Eye one display 2. The 20" NEC might be better for games and I would only spend half the money of the 2490 all up.
 
I play FPS with the 2690 , I am very happy with its performance, the colors are always going to make you stop and just say wow. It will not dissapoint, and I am pickey.


Best deal on 2690....http://www.provantage.com/nec-display-solutions-lcd2690wuxi-bk~7NECL08X.htm

the 2690 has an sRGB mode in its profile selection , you can decide if you like wide gaumet or not.

I dont think any one who has a 26 is going to wish they had bought a 24.



just my .02 ;)
 
put it this way the lag on the 2690 is greater than the dell 2407 (which was unbearable for me), the lag issue alone go's againt this monitor.
 
The 2490 is available in the us. Its listed on NewEgg

A side note, if you are sensitive to ghosting you may have an issue given that the Behardware review only gave it middle of the road ghosting performance compared to some other monitors.

That review at Behardware is flawed. They did not have overdrive turned on. Go to widescreengaming forum and read one of the reviews there from Tamlin. Gaming is fine on either the 2690 or 2490. I play Oblivion a lot at 1920x1200 and I do not notice ANY lag or blur or ghosting. It's there to some extent I'm sure, I just don't notice it.

As for the SV version, I guess that comes with the software? Since you're interested in the SpectraView version, I assume you're REALLY serious about color accuracy, in which case, I'd buy the 2690. Especially since they're about the same price. As someone said, there is a sRGB profile embedded in the 2690 monitor, so you can select that for when you want sRGB. On my 2490, I thought the native color space looked better than sRGB though. Not sure what the difference is between the two color space.
 
Good catch on the ghosting issue. I never meant to imply that they were right, just pointing out that some had claimed that was an issue.

As for the profile, given what a nice monitor either model, my two cents is use a color calibrator rather than a default profile. Besides, you will be sRGB either way but at least with the calibrated profile you will be seeing accurate sRGB.;)

SV, correct me if I am wrong but isn't that just the NEC name for a rebranded calibrator you can buy as a package with monitor much like the Lacie with the Blue Eye Pro?
 
My priorities are:

1. Photo editing for stock - need accurate colors and screen real estate.
2. Gaming - need reasonable speed for no ghosting.
3. GIS and scientific document publishing (ie. MSc. Thesis!) - need facing pages.

Which one is the better choice? Will the 2690 perform less well for games/movies? Will the 2490's 72% color gamut be a significant penalty?

What seperates those two models are the size, pixel pitch, gamut and monitor lut calibration. The 2690 can be calibrated within 92% gamut, while the 2490 within 72%. Both have 12-bit gamma correction and 12-bit LUT, colorcomp for color and brightness uniformity and the other features. Both are excelent screens IMO.

As for responsiveness, the 2690 (and the same goes for 2490 I think) performs very well. Overdrive is off by default, but can be turned on for increased responsiveness. The Behardware review tested the screen without accessing overdrive and the advanced menu.

Here's a couple of reviews where they used overdrive:

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2007/review-nec-lcd2690wuxi-part12.html#Responsiveness
http://www.trustedreviews.com/displays/review/2007/04/12/NEC-MultiSync-LCD2690WUXi/p1

Input lag on this screen is about 2 frames. Pretty much average when it comes to 24"->27" screens. Less then the Benq FP241W and the 2707WFP, but more then the 2407WFP according to Behardware/les numeriques.

http://www.lesnumeriques.com/duels.php?ty=6&ma1=88&mo1=174&p1=1747&ma2=52&mo2=149&p2=1606&ph=12

As for the wide gamut in games and video, I think Trustedreviews put it pretty nicely:

The overwhelming feature that really came across when testing this monitor was its level of sharpness and the strong true colours. Looking closely at photos on this display next to a 24in Dell 2407 was like seeing them with my glasses cleaned. There was lots of visible detail and true vibrant colours without being oversaturated or forced, while the DisplayMate tests showed a beautiful progression in the colour and greyscale scaling tests.

The colors really look better. Green looks more green and less lime. Same goes for colors/shades inbetween blue -> green (like cyan) and red -> green (like yellow). This is also an advantage if you need to use the CMYk color space. I never game, surf or watch movies in sRGB mode. Wide gamut all the way! :D

Edit: You should be aware that some early units of the 2690 have had issues with sound. Its supposedly fixed now, but I would advice to check this early on just in case.
 
Good catch on the ghosting issue. I never meant to imply that they were right, just pointing out that some had claimed that was an issue.

As for the profile, given what a nice monitor either model, my two cents is use a color calibrator rather than a default profile. Besides, you will be sRGB either way but at least with the calibrated profile you will be seeing accurate sRGB.;)

SV, correct me if I am wrong but isn't that just the NEC name for a rebranded calibrator you can buy as a package with monitor much like the Lacie with the Blue Eye Pro?

Depends if you are located in Europe or North America. You assertion is correct in Regards to Europe. In the US NEC writes their own software in house. The SV also comes with a Gretag Colorimiter
 
Hi all,

Thanks for your advice over my last few threads. I ordered an LCD 2690UXI-BK-SV today with the Spectraview software.

Regards,
Phil
 
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