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Played with it for a couple days, so here's my thoughts:
All in all, this is an absolutely superior monitor. Best I've ever seen, much less owned. So, to the specifics. This is from a gamer's perspective, since I use it for that, and then for general use (web surfing, apps, etc). I don't do pro photo/prepress work so colour matching isn't a concern. I want it to look good, not accurate.
Input Lag
Seems to be a big issue for a lot of people. Well whatever lag it has, I don't notice. I'm not saying that would be true for everyone, but I certainly don't have any problem playing games on it. It doesn't feel laggy, that's for sure.
Response
This is a fast panel. I don't notice any ghosting with it. One of the great things, coming from a VA that was technically as fast or faster, is the dark-dark transitions. Everything just looks clearer as there's no more ghosting. I'd gotten used to it and now I notice its absence.
I can't imagine anyone but someone who is extremely sensitive noticing any problems. Images are smooth and fluid.
Overdrive seems well under control (I turned it on). I can't get it to exhibit any problems. For example on my BenQ I could see some sparkles and incorrect colours if I played with certain red-green transitions. The same thing here doesn't cause any artifacts I can see.
Colour
Hands down, best colour I've seen on a display. Better than CRTs, better than my old LCD (A BenQ FP241W). I'm sold on IPS as the technology for desktop monitors. The colour looks good no matter what. I move around, there isn't any noticeable shifting. Also, it looks the same at all distances.
Something I noticed with the VA panel was how much better it looked when I was like 10 feet away. That's not to say it looked bad at normal operating distance, just that when I laid back in bed to watch a movie or something it got noticeably better. So I think VA would be good for an HDTV.
However this IPS panel looks just as good close up as it does far away. Since close up is where it is getting used, that's what I'm after.
Wide Gamut
For gaming, wide gamut is the way to go. I find it makes games look just stunning. I can't get over how good the forests look in WoW. The green crystals in Terokkar look emerald now. Yes, maybe the colour isn't "correct" but it doesn't matter. What matters is in all the games I've tried, it looks better. To my it looks more vibrant and closer to reality. Things aren't as washed out.
I don't really notice a problem with it browsing the web either. However, Firefox 3 will be along soon and can handle colour correction if you like.
So while photo or video people might have a problem with the higher gamut, for gamers I think it is a huge boon.
Contrast ratio/Black level
The monitor walks the walk here with it's CR claims. With a native white point and gamma, you get real close to the 800:1 quoted. Even with heavy modifications, such as a 6500k whitepoint and L* gamma curve, it measures almost 600:1 on my display (for reference film in a good theatre is like 500:1).
Black level is quite good. By the numbers it is higher than my FP241W, but not a whole lot. On everything but a totally black screen, it's very dark and even then it is good.
Unlike the BenQ, you seem to be able to set brightness to any level without killing contrast or crushing blacks. On the BenQ I had to set it pretty high to get a full range. Here if you lower brightness both the white and black levels go down.
So if you are worried about blacks sucking, well, don't. In regular use, it looks as good as my VA panel did.
Uniformity
I don't know how good it is without colourcomp but with it, it is stunning. I can't see any variation over the panel. There's no reason not to use colourcomp as far as I can tell. All it does it reduce the maximum brightness, which is still really bright. With colourcomp on, and the white point set to 6500k (which further reduces brightness), the calibration software still had to reduce brightness below 50% to get down to the 200nits I requested.
Unless you like your panel scorchingly bright, colourcomp shouldn't be a problem and man, either because of it or the panel itself this thing has an extremely consistent image.
Calibration
I bought the Spectraview version which has the calibrator included. I'd highly recommend it. Prior to calibration the monitor is great, after calibration, it is stunning. Extremely natural and neutral colour, best greys I've ever seen.
One of the things I think really makes it worth it is the L* gamma curve you can use. I'd never heard of it before. Basically instead of a straight power gamma curve, it is modified and is supposed to be more perceptually uniform. After seeing it, I believe the claim. Gradients look extremely uniform in the change in brightness. In games, it seems to help the low end a lot. Darker colours are visible and differentiated.
It may not be what most things are expecting, but it seem to look great. Thus I'd recommend anyone who has the Spectraview version give the L* curve a whirl.
I'm also really sold on hardware calibration. I did software calibration with my last monitor, and the hardware calibration has cleared up two things that I noticed:
1) Slight imperfections in a grayscale gradient. This is probably due to the fact that you lose some colours when you correct the videocard LUT. Not a problem here, at least that I can see, grayscale is perfect.
2) Games override it. A lot of games like to load their gamma via the video card, and thus override any calibration. Again, no problem with a hardware calibration, your corrections are applied after the game. So while the game might change the power, it doesn't change the corrections.
Features
Great monitor when it comes to the features. Rather a nice step up from the BenQ, which was a little spartan. The OSD is excellent. Easy to use, very responsive, and tons of controls. The normal OSD has just about everything you want to adjust, but just in case you need more than advanced OSD has more than you ever though possible.
The scaler is just amazing. Quality is great, I stopped using the nVidia scaling and switched over to the monitor. The ability to customize it is incredible. For every resolution you can set how it scales (like full, aspect, etc), sharpness, and so on and it'll remember it.
I also like the LED controls. I happen to get annoyed by all the bright blue LEDs that are so common these days. No problem, just tell the monitor you want it green and/or turn the brightness down. Not major, but they went the extra mile with pretty much everything like that. You can customize as much as you like.
Overall
Superior screen, if you've got the money. Sure as hell pricey and I'm sure you can do near as good for a good deal less, however I can't fault the price as it really is top notch.
If you do decide to get one, I'd really recommend the Spectraview version. It is a good deal cheaper to buy that with the monitor, and it is worth the price in my mind. If you can swing $1100 for a monitor, you should spend the extra $200 to get 100% out of it. Provantage has a pretty good deal on the SV version, just a little over $1300 shipped.
So if you have the money, and you want a truly superb monitor for gaming, I'd say this is one to seriously look at.
All in all, this is an absolutely superior monitor. Best I've ever seen, much less owned. So, to the specifics. This is from a gamer's perspective, since I use it for that, and then for general use (web surfing, apps, etc). I don't do pro photo/prepress work so colour matching isn't a concern. I want it to look good, not accurate.
Input Lag
Seems to be a big issue for a lot of people. Well whatever lag it has, I don't notice. I'm not saying that would be true for everyone, but I certainly don't have any problem playing games on it. It doesn't feel laggy, that's for sure.
Response
This is a fast panel. I don't notice any ghosting with it. One of the great things, coming from a VA that was technically as fast or faster, is the dark-dark transitions. Everything just looks clearer as there's no more ghosting. I'd gotten used to it and now I notice its absence.
I can't imagine anyone but someone who is extremely sensitive noticing any problems. Images are smooth and fluid.
Overdrive seems well under control (I turned it on). I can't get it to exhibit any problems. For example on my BenQ I could see some sparkles and incorrect colours if I played with certain red-green transitions. The same thing here doesn't cause any artifacts I can see.
Colour
Hands down, best colour I've seen on a display. Better than CRTs, better than my old LCD (A BenQ FP241W). I'm sold on IPS as the technology for desktop monitors. The colour looks good no matter what. I move around, there isn't any noticeable shifting. Also, it looks the same at all distances.
Something I noticed with the VA panel was how much better it looked when I was like 10 feet away. That's not to say it looked bad at normal operating distance, just that when I laid back in bed to watch a movie or something it got noticeably better. So I think VA would be good for an HDTV.
However this IPS panel looks just as good close up as it does far away. Since close up is where it is getting used, that's what I'm after.
Wide Gamut
For gaming, wide gamut is the way to go. I find it makes games look just stunning. I can't get over how good the forests look in WoW. The green crystals in Terokkar look emerald now. Yes, maybe the colour isn't "correct" but it doesn't matter. What matters is in all the games I've tried, it looks better. To my it looks more vibrant and closer to reality. Things aren't as washed out.
I don't really notice a problem with it browsing the web either. However, Firefox 3 will be along soon and can handle colour correction if you like.
So while photo or video people might have a problem with the higher gamut, for gamers I think it is a huge boon.
Contrast ratio/Black level
The monitor walks the walk here with it's CR claims. With a native white point and gamma, you get real close to the 800:1 quoted. Even with heavy modifications, such as a 6500k whitepoint and L* gamma curve, it measures almost 600:1 on my display (for reference film in a good theatre is like 500:1).
Black level is quite good. By the numbers it is higher than my FP241W, but not a whole lot. On everything but a totally black screen, it's very dark and even then it is good.
Unlike the BenQ, you seem to be able to set brightness to any level without killing contrast or crushing blacks. On the BenQ I had to set it pretty high to get a full range. Here if you lower brightness both the white and black levels go down.
So if you are worried about blacks sucking, well, don't. In regular use, it looks as good as my VA panel did.
Uniformity
I don't know how good it is without colourcomp but with it, it is stunning. I can't see any variation over the panel. There's no reason not to use colourcomp as far as I can tell. All it does it reduce the maximum brightness, which is still really bright. With colourcomp on, and the white point set to 6500k (which further reduces brightness), the calibration software still had to reduce brightness below 50% to get down to the 200nits I requested.
Unless you like your panel scorchingly bright, colourcomp shouldn't be a problem and man, either because of it or the panel itself this thing has an extremely consistent image.
Calibration
I bought the Spectraview version which has the calibrator included. I'd highly recommend it. Prior to calibration the monitor is great, after calibration, it is stunning. Extremely natural and neutral colour, best greys I've ever seen.
One of the things I think really makes it worth it is the L* gamma curve you can use. I'd never heard of it before. Basically instead of a straight power gamma curve, it is modified and is supposed to be more perceptually uniform. After seeing it, I believe the claim. Gradients look extremely uniform in the change in brightness. In games, it seems to help the low end a lot. Darker colours are visible and differentiated.
It may not be what most things are expecting, but it seem to look great. Thus I'd recommend anyone who has the Spectraview version give the L* curve a whirl.
I'm also really sold on hardware calibration. I did software calibration with my last monitor, and the hardware calibration has cleared up two things that I noticed:
1) Slight imperfections in a grayscale gradient. This is probably due to the fact that you lose some colours when you correct the videocard LUT. Not a problem here, at least that I can see, grayscale is perfect.
2) Games override it. A lot of games like to load their gamma via the video card, and thus override any calibration. Again, no problem with a hardware calibration, your corrections are applied after the game. So while the game might change the power, it doesn't change the corrections.
Features
Great monitor when it comes to the features. Rather a nice step up from the BenQ, which was a little spartan. The OSD is excellent. Easy to use, very responsive, and tons of controls. The normal OSD has just about everything you want to adjust, but just in case you need more than advanced OSD has more than you ever though possible.
The scaler is just amazing. Quality is great, I stopped using the nVidia scaling and switched over to the monitor. The ability to customize it is incredible. For every resolution you can set how it scales (like full, aspect, etc), sharpness, and so on and it'll remember it.
I also like the LED controls. I happen to get annoyed by all the bright blue LEDs that are so common these days. No problem, just tell the monitor you want it green and/or turn the brightness down. Not major, but they went the extra mile with pretty much everything like that. You can customize as much as you like.
Overall
Superior screen, if you've got the money. Sure as hell pricey and I'm sure you can do near as good for a good deal less, however I can't fault the price as it really is top notch.
If you do decide to get one, I'd really recommend the Spectraview version. It is a good deal cheaper to buy that with the monitor, and it is worth the price in my mind. If you can swing $1100 for a monitor, you should spend the extra $200 to get 100% out of it. Provantage has a pretty good deal on the SV version, just a little over $1300 shipped.
So if you have the money, and you want a truly superb monitor for gaming, I'd say this is one to seriously look at.
I had to turn the brightness setting way down. I too bought the unit with the SpectraView II calibration kit (almost crazy NOT to buy it with this included) and found somewhat of an improvement after calibration, but nothing that would knock my socks off. If anything, I would say the calibration seemed to clear up fuzzy edges, sort of a video "alignment" more so than the colors bursting off the screen as it already was..