NEC 2490WUXi - The Full Story

So in short is it "safe" to use colorcomp 24/7 ? if thats the case what level i would ask?
 
my 10 year old amazing 21' Sony CRT looks to be on its final legs and I'm thinking about going with the LCD2490WUXi...1) would this be a good choice if I primarily will be using it for high end PC gaming?...2) if I purchase this from Amazon or Provantage would I still get the WUXi version or are they now only selling the WUXi2?...3) would the NEC or the HP LP2475w be a better choice for gaming?

thanks for any help
 
NEC2490 is alot better screen then HP 2475w just get it no regret here awesome display!
 
For "high end" gaming, it really depends on how sensitive you are to the input lag and response times. Based solely on gaming I'd recommend the HP over the NEC simply because of better response, but other factors come into play. I myself notice the 2490's lag a little bit and I'm by no means a hardcore competitive player - in fact, I really only play TF2 1-2 hours a night. A friend of mine has the 2690 and notices nothing at all coming from a CRT, and another friend (this one's a pro-level competitive gamer) claims it's so bad he can't even play.

The gamut is also an issue, if you're sensitive to that. I find trying to play TF2 on my friend's 2690 pretty difficult because the colors are so damn neon, it hurts. I'd evaluate whether you value "good gaming" over everything else the 2490 has to offer. I personally went with the 2490 and am dealing with the lag because it's so much better for everything else I do/want to do. Console gaming is an exception, but I have a VGA box coming soon, so I'll see how that works.

As for Amazon or Provantage, either one is a good place to buy from as they have good return policies. I can verify Provantage is still shipping the original 2490, because it's where I got mine less than a week ago. Their prices fluctuate daily though, so keep an eye out - the non-SV dropped to $906 a few days ago.

Again, I'd weigh the gaming option with whatever else you want to do with it. The fact is that it does have input lag and its response time isn't the greatest in the world, so you'll have to see for yourself if you feel it in games or not. However, for standard gamut (no dealing with WG headaches,) and the A-TW polarizer, you'd have to go with the 2490.

An alternative that seems to have cropped up recently is the Dell U2410, if you want to look into that. Offers a decent sRGB mode (won't rival the 2490) and a "gamer mode" although said mode seems to disable the sRGB emulation, so you're still playing in WG, but without much of the input lag. I don't know too much about it, but you're free to ask about it in the appropriate thread.
 
thanks for the info...the Dell U2410 looks interesting...read some very positive reviews online as well...this might be a nice compromise which lies somewhere in between the 2490WUXI and the HP LP2475w in terms of overall quality
 
..Hi!
Since the original 2490wuxi is EOL, I can only find the 2490wuxi2 @ €750 and the 2690wuxi2 @ €1100 in my country.
So, how would they compare against the Dell U2410 @ €570, HP 2475 €520 and NEC EA231WMi (not sure if it ships here yet and have no price quote.

I would prefer standard gamut, and if the 23' NEC is any good may get two for a dualmon setup.
Use involves graphics 4 web & 4 print, vfx & compositing and some photo retouching.

I'd appreciate a list from most desirable to the least, combining price/performance ratio.

thanks
 
Ok, I'm ready to get the NEC LCD2490WUXi. I live in Canada, where NEC has no direct distribution presence.

Does anyone know of any stores or online retailers in Canada that have good return policies in case I receive one with dead pixels or screen uniformity issues? One store told me that NEC has a >6 dead pixel exchange policy, is this correct?

Thanks !!
 
I am in Canada. I bought mine at a local dealer. This is going to be a special order anywhere, you are going to have a real hard time getting a good return policy on a special order item.
 
Peat Moss said:
Ok, I'm ready to get the NEC LCD2490WUXi. I live in Canada, where NEC has no direct distribution presence.

Does anyone know of any stores or online retailers in Canada that have good return policies in case I receive one with dead pixels or screen uniformity issues? One store told me that NEC has a >6 dead pixel exchange policy, is this correct?

Thanks !!
Click to expand...

www.ncix.com generally has a good return policy AND a dead pixel warranty that can be purchased. They will send you up to 3 replacements which I think is fair, if you get the extra warranty..
 
Snowdog said:
They don't even list any NEC monitors...
Click to expand...

Actually they do, but they aren't listed under the regular monitor section, A simple search for NEC 2490wuxi will bring them up. (NCIX still sells the first version of the monitor, which I ordered over a week ago... I have a shipment coming in from them that's on vehicle for delivery today, I'm sure hoping its my new NEC. :) heh)

http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=nec+2490WUXi
 
Peat Moss said:
Ok, I'm ready to get the NEC LCD2490WUXi. I live in Canada, where NEC has no direct distribution presence.

Does anyone know of any stores or online retailers in Canada that have good return policies in case I receive one with dead pixels or screen uniformity issues? One store told me that NEC has a >6 dead pixel exchange policy, is this correct?

Thanks !!
Click to expand...

I ordered mine over a week ago from NCIX. Its a special order item, so exchange policys aren't included, BUT... I've heard NEC is really good for dealing with problems.

You can get either the Regular or the SpectraView model from NCIX:
http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=nec+2490WUXi

Standard First Version:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=37237C22&vpn=LCD2490WUXI-BK&manufacture=NEC/MIT LCD MONITORS

SpectraView First Version:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=37243C22&vpn=LCD2490WUXIBKSV&manufacture=NEC/MIT LCD MONITORS
 
Strange. I swear when I checked earlier they had no NECs at all. Now they do.

Anyway this is a special order just about anywhere in Canada. You will be lucky if a distributor in Canada even has one. It took a month after I ordered mine to come in.

If NCIX is not going to give you some kind of special return policy, order it from you local shop (what I did).

I would much rather go to my local shop and pick it up from them when it comes in, than deal with a shipping company (and shipping fees).

NEC won't replace for a single dead pixel (mine has one). If you have more serious problems they are good at getting you an exchange.
 
Snowdog said:
Strange. I swear when I checked earlier they had no NECs at all. Now they do.

Anyway this is a special order just about anywhere in Canada. You will be lucky if a distributor in Canada even has one. It took a month after I ordered mine to come in.

If NCIX is not going to give you some kind of special return policy, order it from you local shop (what I did).

I would much rather go to my local shop and pick it up from them when it comes in, than deal with a shipping company (and shipping fees).

NEC won't replace for a single dead pixel (mine has one). If you have more serious problems they are good at getting you an exchange.
Click to expand...

Heh, I just got mine and absolutely love it. Compared to the 17" NEC that I'm coming from, its absolutely huge. Gonna take a little while to get used to the sheer size of this thing.

I do have one dead sub-pixel, but that's not bad, I can't even really notice it as its about 5 inches off the center to the right, and about 3-4 inches up from the bottom. Seems like its a dead green sub-pixel as when cycling through red green and blue, with a green screen there's a black dot.

I'm happy with mine, and even though it was a special order, I placed my order with NCIX on September 28th. Their warehouse stock said Toronto had 4 of them, so yeah, I received it today. :)
 
10e, how much is the pixel warranty from NCIX ? One online retailer I checked with wanted $96.00 for a dead pixel warranty. They said NECs were more expensive to warranty.

There is a local shop (Vistek) in my city (Calgary) that can special order it for me, but I think they said they only go by the manufacturer's warranty.

I can get a good deal from an online dealer in Quebec, but they only go by NEC warranty as well. Hmmm...what to do. 6 pixels is fairly high.
 
Peat Moss said:
10e, how much is the pixel warranty from NCIX ? One online retailer I checked with wanted $96.00 for a dead pixel warranty. They said NECs were more expensive to warranty.

There is a local shop (Vistek) in my city (Calgary) that can special order it for me, but I think they said they only go by the manufacturer's warranty.

I can get a good deal from an online dealer in Quebec, but they only go by NEC warranty as well. Hmmm...what to do. 6 pixels is fairly high.
Click to expand...

Not sure. You might have to contact them because I don't see the "Express Coverage" banner on the product page for the LCD2490WUXI/WUXI2 or LCD2690WUXI2 either. They may not offer it.

I haven't been able to find NEC's dead pixel warranty in a cursory search, so you may want to send NEC North America an e-mail and find out if it's very important to you.

I know that my first LCD2690WUXI-BK had two dead red subpixels, and an almost "matrix" of stuck ones up top, but I called them and got a replacement by saying the panel was very loose and rattling, and received a brand new one within two business days from Chicago. In that regard their service was second to none.

There's always a concern when getting a monitor ground shipped due to all the jostling it receives on the truck, so maybe it would be best to buy it locally if at all possible, as another option. Where are you located?
 
10e said:
Not sure. You might have to contact them because I don't see the "Express Coverage" banner on the product page for the LCD2490WUXI/WUXI2 or LCD2690WUXI2 either. They may not offer it.

I haven't been able to find NEC's dead pixel warranty in a cursory search, so you may want to send NEC North America an e-mail and find out if it's very important to you.

I know that my first LCD2690WUXI-BK had two dead red subpixels, and an almost "matrix" of stuck ones up top, but I called them and got a replacement by saying the panel was very loose and rattling, and received a brand new one within two business days from Chicago. In that regard their service was second to none.

There's always a concern when getting a monitor ground shipped due to all the jostling it receives on the truck, so maybe it would be best to buy it locally if at all possible, as another option. Where are you located?
Click to expand...

He's NOT in Calgary.

Oh wait, he just said he is. My bad.
 
Anyone here using clear type text, on WIN7? this option make the text quite better on my monitor,the problem is....AFAIK it should be opposite? also does this mode change anything other then text or i can use it without any issues?
 
Peat Moss said:
10e, how much is the pixel warranty from NCIX ? One online retailer I checked with wanted $96.00 for a dead pixel warranty. They said NECs were more expensive to warranty.
Click to expand...
I emailedNCIX a couple months ago, and they said special order items:
- do not have express coverage (therefore no zero dead pixel exchange for special order monitors)
- are not returnable except when they are defective and returned within 15 days.
 
And I just got off the phone with NCIX today, and you're right, they do not have any kind of extra warranty for the NEC LCD2490 monitors because they are a special order item.
 
Okay, thought I'd post an update after having the monitor for a few days...

I've noticed this 'Horizontal Banding' that some people have mentioned, even with ColorComp at 4. It seems with ColorComp off, its not quite as bad, but the screen then appears a bit uneven. So its a bit of a trade-off, but the banding only appears with a mid-dark level grey. Not really noticeable otherwise. (Its about a 1 inch strip that goes right across from one side to the other on the screen about maybe 3 or 4 inches up from the bottom.)

Another thing (which to me is 100% non-issue) is, I've seen the effect, quite prominently from the A-TW polarizer. With a completely black screen, I can see the Magenta/Purple glow on the left 1/4 of the screen, and green on the right 1/4 of the screen. Franky this doesn't bother me at all, It's only visible with a pure black screen, but even so, it doesn't bother me as its quite subtle... Plus even with a hint of color, it disappears.
I guess its a personal preference. But I'll admit its not as annoying as the bad viewing angle from my previous NEC MultiSync 1760nx. (Move your head up/down even 3 inches and the screen either got 30% brighter or 30% darker... Some darker web pages you either had to tilt the monitor, or move your head up/down to be able to see some of the darker stuff, heh.)

But considering I only have one single dead sub-pixel (Green) which isn't even noticeable as its towards the bottom right, I'm not complaining... If I were to call NEC and they swap it out, I might get a monitor with 2 hot pixels or worse, So I'm just going to keep it for now and break it in a bit. Maybe the horizontal banding will fade with some use.

Otherwise I'm still quite happy with this monitor. I did notice the slight input lag while trying a bit of gaming (Halflife 2), but after reading an article about how to reduce some of the processing/lag on the computer side...
Article about Input Lag mainly on the computer side:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3601
Page with the Input Lag Tips:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3601&p=7
I was able to lessen the lag effect slightly.
-Turn off V-Sync
-Turn Pre-Rendered frames from its default 3 down to 1
-Turn on Triple Buffering

I've noticed an ever so slightly better response with games now. (Either that, or over the testing of turning it on and off, I just got used to the lag and can now predict to over-aim to compensate) Haven't done any actual tests to see, So I can't say for sure the exact effects.

Hope this helps anyone else who's still looking to buy one. Even knowing all this, it doesn't change how I feel about it. I'd buy it anyway even after knowing all this.
-The colors are beautiful, and the viewing angles are perfect.
-The lag is bearable and you'll get used to it unless you're a twitchy gamer and need every last millisecond, and
-The banding won't be seen under regular use, unless you work with flat mid-dark grey all the time

Take Care :)
 
albovin said:
The NEC 2490WUXi allows hardware calibration (see the review above).
For that purpose you'll need SpectraView calibration software. Latest revisions of SpectraView support Spayder3.
A better option is EyeOne Display2.
Click to expand...

Albovin, do you recommend the EyeOne display2 OVER the Spectraview hardware calibration then? Same for the 2690?
 
quentinwolf said:
Maybe the horizontal banding will fade with some use.
Click to expand...
No, believe me, it's permanent. The banding is the same as the first day of use, and I'm using this monitor for 6 months.

This is simply unacceptable on a monitor of this range. You could tolerate this fault on a cheap TN monitor, but not in a superior H-IPS with A-TW polarizer panel with exclusive electronics in order to show the most possible stable image. After all, you don't pay more than 800€ ($1000) for a monitor you cannot watch with specific background colors, specifically middle gray (128,128,128) and middle blue.

I have had several quality issues with all my NEC monitors (specifically 3: 20WGX2, 2690 and finally the 2490). But I'm not going to give up. Soon, I will try to send the unit again (3 times and counting) to the service center. The last one the unit was there, technicians adjusted the service menu with no results. I hope this time technicians review electronics, because I'm certain it's an EMI problem, perhaps with the power supply, since the banding appears on the left side of the monitor, where the power supply is.
 
Last edited:
Peat Moss said:
Albovin, do you recommend the EyeOne display2 OVER the Spectraview hardware calibration then? Same for the 2690?
Click to expand...

The EyeOne D2 is the hardware device that comes with the SpectraView kit. It tends to be slightly better than than the Spyder.

No matter which HW device you use (EyeOne/Spyder) you definitely want to use the NEC software to calibrate the internal 12 bit LUTs of the monitor instead of other packages that calibrate the 8 bit LUTs on the graphics card.

If you start without a calibrator your best bet is to buy the whole package (montior+software+calibrator). It is the best deal.

If you already have an acceptable calibrator you definitely should prefer the SV software, but it is fairly expensive as a stand alone package.
 
_HU_ said:
No, believe me, it's permanent. The banding is the same as the first day of use, and I'm using this monitor for 6 months.

This is simply unacceptable on a monitor of this range. You could tolerate this fault on a cheap TN monitor, but not in a superior H-IPS with A-TW polarizer panel with exclusive electronics in order to show the most possible stable image. After all, you don't pay more than 800€ ($1000) for a monitor you cannot watch with specific background colors, specifically middle gray (128,128,128) and middle blue.

I have had several quality issues with all my NEC monitors (specifically 3: 20WGX2, 2690 and finally the 2490). But I'm not going to give up. Soon, I will try to send the unit again (3 times and counting) to the service center. The last one the unit was there, technicians adjusted the service menu with no results. I hope this time technicians review electronics, because I'm certain it's an EMI problem, perhaps with the power supply, since the banding appears on the left side of the monitor, where the power supply is.
Click to expand...

That's the thing. If I make the screen grey, or fill it with white, I can't see it by just looking around at the monitor. It seems perfectly uniform. The only way I can notice the banding, is if I have a grey screen, and track the mouse with my eye as I move it slowly all around, then you can visually see the banding and slight blotching (with colorcomp on at level 4). With Colorcomp off, I can immediately see color variations and blotching, without even having to scan the monitor. So I definitely prefer to run with colorcomp on.

The banding isn't that much of an issue for me. Granted I am a bit dissapointed for what I paid for, but otherwise its a great monitor. I'm more afraid of them just swapping it out and getting one with worse problems, as what I currently have, in my opinion, is very subtle. I figure it could always be worse.

Mine has a build date of 2009/06 and Firmware 1.00.09
 
Heh in last 2 days i have noticed some geometry distortion especially in this forum (smileys,quote qreplay posting options) where kinda off after instaling different drivers the issues are gone,never tought this could be driver related heh now it does look alot better! one wine just for it ;)
 
@quentinwolf:

The problem with this model is that its life cycle have expired. On Europe, this model was released near the end of its life cycle, and the NEC service center cannot provide you with a new model in case of failure. They only may fix the fault on your unit (if they can).

Do you see horizontal waves like these? http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/6729/screenflutterq4lv.gif The effect is a bit exaggerated, but you get the idea. That image was created by another user with the same problem like us, and finally this user chose to send back the unit to the shop for a refund.

My firmware is the same, 1.00.09. ColorComp is set at level 1, but ColorComp set to Off it makes no difference.
 
Last edited:
_HU_ said:
@quentinwolf:

The problem with this model is that its life cycle have expired. On Europe, this model was released near the end of its life cycle, and the NEC service center cannot provide you with a new model in case of failure. They only may fix the fault on your unit (if they can).

Do you see horizontal waves like these? http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/6729/screenflutterq4lv.gif The effect is a bit exaggerated, but you get the idea. That image was created by another user with the same problem like us, and finally this user chose to send back the unit to the shop for a refund.

My firmware is the same, 1.00.09. ColorComp is set at level 1, but ColorComp set to Off it makes no difference.
Click to expand...


Oh, no I have no horizontal waves like that... Mine seems like a blacklight deformity or something beind the LCD that isn't scattering the light quite right.

This can't be noticed by just looking at the screen, it looks perfect. but if you focus on the mouse cursor and watch the cursor while moving it around, I can see a few half inch slightly darker bands, that go across the screen from the left side to the right side (non-moving)

I'll try to setup my tripod and take a picture, and tweak the brightness/contrast and curves to see if I can exadurate it.

Other than that, honestly the screen is perfect. I don't have any moving scan-line type effects or anything. :)

I have a feeling some of the horizontal banding is caused by colorcomp making the screen more uniform. But it makes it better for me than with it off, I can visibly see a giant yellow-ish color blotch that covers about 70% of the screen with Colorcomp off, it dissapears with it turned on to 1, and up to 4 further reduces this banding.
 
@quentinwolf:

Thanks for your reply. Where are you from? It seems this fault only affects to european users.
 
_HU_ said:
@quentinwolf:

Thanks for your reply. Where are you from? It seems this fault only affects to european users.
Click to expand...

No problem _HU_,
I'm from Alberta, Canada. :) Special ordered my monitor through www.NCIX.com in Vancouver, BC (Which had to get the item from their Warehouse in Toronto, Ontario, as they didn't have any stock locally.)
My monitor had quite the journey... East to the West to the Prairies.

I was also a bit shocked when people said their monitors were making a high pitched whining sound... I have extremely sensitive hearing, and knew I'd have have issues if it made any sounds... But it seems that's also only a problem for European users, as my monitor is 100% silent.
 
I have had a 2690WUXi too, before purchasing the 2490, and the 2690 it made a slight buzzing when the bright was set at 0% level, but it was tolerable. My 2490 has an almost inaudible buzzing (it's there though), but my previous 2690 had the 'waves issue' stronger than my current 2490 (it was untolerable even with direct sunlight).
 
rosh said:
Does 2490 american version support 220v?
Click to expand...

I know my 2690 supports both 110/220 out of the box. You would only need to purchase the proper power cable if you bought the North American version for use in a 220V region.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top