NEC SpectraView 1990 (LCD 1990SXi) backlighting

[Bilbo]

Hi,

I recently bought a NEC SpectraView 1990 to help me in processing my photos, after being disappointed with the quality of various low-budget monitors. I did intentionally choose the SpectraView over the "plain" 1990SXi, besides for the other special features (like hardware calibration), also expecting to have a higher quality product (returning a bad sample is frequently problematic in my country).

My first impressions with the screen backlighting uniformity however are not at all good. All settings standard, on a completely black screen there is light "leaking" from the edges, especially in some places. While this wouldn't be a problem if it was visible only on a completely blank screen, it is pronounced to a degree where it becomes distracting when, say, watching a movie with enough dark scenes in it.

Better to see than to hear explanations, so here's a photo of the monitor:



The screen is not that bright, nor it's that blueish in reality. The bleeding (in white) can be seen at the left edge, and even more pronounced -- at the upper part of the right edge. The two brighter blue areas in the upper left and lower right are not backlighting leakage, but rather inconsistencies of the type, caused by different viewing angles. It's still strange why they appear as well, since the photo was made from 2-3 meters away.

What troubles me most, is whether this is a normal thing to expect from such kind of monitor, or should I ask for replacement instead (even though it might be refused)? After all, the cheap Samsung on my work desk looks much better, at least when speaking about uniformity. On the other hand though, there's also the nonnegligible risk of getting a sample even worse than the current one (and I cannot choose from different samples, so it's quite like a lottery).

I guess these things are difficult to judge, since each pair of eyes out there is different, and what is uniform for someone might be completely unacceptable for someone else. Anyway though, any advice or comments will be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Luchesar

[Stephen Best]

Have you turned on "ColorComp"? If not, turn it on and set the level (the default is 3) until the uneveness goes away. This will drop luminance so you'll have to increase this accordingly.

[Bilbo]

Thanks, Stephen. ColorComp has been turned on by default. What it actually did however, was that the monitor was not uniform when presenting white and colors; there was a darker area in the upper 1/8 of the screen with a reddish tint. Quite strange indeed, but it made the things worse.

Anyway, I'm afraid ColorComp doesn't do anything with the backlight leakage.

[Stephen Best]

Anyway, I'm afraid ColorComp doesn't do anything with the backlight leakage.
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I would have thought that they'd take the ColorComp measurements with the backlight in place. The trick is to get a balance between evenness without driving the backlight too hard. If you don't get acceptable results, swap your monitor for another ... you're supposed to be getting a hand-picked (or at least a model with better measurements) for the premium you're paying.

[Bilbo]

I think they do the measurements with a pure white screen. At least that's what I make of the monitor certificate (the RGB values mentioned there are all 255). If this is indeed the case, then they certainly cannot catch the problem with the leaking backlight on a black screen.

Anyway, I did try to play with the settings, but the black stays uneven no matter what I do. Even at the lowest brightness and contrast the leakage is visible, perhaps even more so. The only way to make the screen uniform is to raise the black level, but then you don't really have black color anymore, unless you can accept dark gray as such.

You're absolutely right about the premium, and it's quite heavy actually: I payed 50% over the price of a standard 1990SXi. I just hope that this sample is not really one of the best. I don't even want to think what the "ordinary" monitors would then look like. Too bad if NEC is not a sign of quality anymore.

[Nill Toulme]

My standard issue US-model 2090uxi does not look like this.  The backlight is not perfectly uniform, of course, but there's no light leakage around the edges to speak of, and it calibrates beautifully and looks great.  And ColorComp was *not* turned on by default.

I think I would take that one back.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Bilbo]

Hello again, guys, and thank you very much!

I'd really like to apologize for being so late with my reply; I wanted to write you as soon as I had my problem solved, but whether you believe it or not, it's still not solved now, nearly 5 months later!

Well, I did return the monitor to NEC (through their representative). Then I had to wait for about 2 months, but finally I got a replacement. Two months wouldn't have been too much of a problem, if only the monitor was OK itself. But see what it looked like:


CLICK HERE FOR FULL SIZE


CLICK HERE FOR FULL SIZE

I don't really think this is the way a professional grade monitor should look like, so I sent it back again. Now, a month later (it's good that I decided to ask about the situation) I'm being told that, according to NEC, my description of the problem is "subjective and incorrect", and there's no reason therefore to make a replacement.

Well, I'll leave to you to decide who's right and who's wrong. I, personally, feel very much disappointed with NEC and it's quite improbable that I'll buy anything from them anytime soon. It's definitely not what I would expect from such a company both in terms of production quality and customer care.

Anyhow, in the end I was offered a refund, so I'm currently thinking what to buy in place of the SpectraView. Several people already suggested Eizo (specifically CG19), but I'll be happy to hear other opinions as well.

Thank you very much in advance!

Best regards,
Luchesar