Quato Soft Proofing Monitors

[NikosR]

Hi,

I'm in the market for a good TFT monitor and was looking at EISO solutions, when I came across QUATO.  This is a name I had never heard before but came across them at a local photo exhibition. This German company seem to produce good quality softproofing monitors and they have been catering to the publishing business here in Europe.

It seems that they are now turning their attention to the photography market and the local distributor in Greece is offering good incentives.

Their Intelli Proof 230 excellence monitor seems to have impressive specs.

Quato Site

Does anybody have experience with these monitors? How do they compare to other solutions?

Any other wide-gamut TFT monitors I should look at?


Nikos
Athens, Greece

[eronald]

Quato has a good rep and the monitors I have seen look nice. My impression is they are a technically strong company with weak distribution.

Edmund

[Boris_Epix]

I have a Quato Radon 21" LCD (or whatever the name is).

To be honest I'm a bit disappointed... the screen looked somewhat dull (colorwise) from the start and it costed a fortune for no good reason. Later on I tried to match two Quato 21" screens in a dualhead configuration but they were never the same. I thought that was the goal of calibration/profiling.

Later on I tried to replace one of the Quato 21 with an Apple 30 inch tft and I was extremely happy with the working area but again I couldn't match the quato with the Apple.

My screen came with an older version of iColor which can be updated from the internet. Quite frankly I feel it's nice but a friend installed "Eye-One Match 3" on my laptop and calibrated it with his color bug and the colors just seemed more vivid and what I'd expect right after that.

My screen came with the x-rite DTP94 color bug which is supposed to be really good so I guess the bad experience comes from matching two screens, calibrating any screen with iColor and the price beeing a complete rip-off for what it is (a lcd panel that is also used in other cheaper LCD screens and a bit of marketing). Btw... my Quato 21" came for close to 3000 euros to my house. You can almost get two 30 inch screens for that price.  

The only thing I might be interested in is the hardware calibration... if it would help to get a closer matching between the Apple 30" and the new Quato.

But as it stands now I have the Quato rotated to vertical orientation and use it for the Photoshop layer palettes, history and navigation windows.

Hope this gets you some input from an actual user...

Best

Boris

[Woodcorner]

Hi Nikos,

for almost two years I have been using a Quato IntelliProof 21. I am very happy with this display and especially their customer support. Quato IntelliProofs sport hardware calibration, which is a real plus in my eyes. In some European countries, Quato offers a 5 year warranty including free transportation.

Back when I bought the monitor, I compared  the various top brands in regards to their abilities for my B&W and color work. The Quato was the best offer for me at the time (price and performancewise).

The newer line of Quato IP 230 seem to have even better panels and improved hardware under the hood.
I don't think you can go wrong with them. Nevertheless you should compare them to monitors like EIZO. The older Radon series was much cheaper and has nothing in common with the current Intelliproof lineup.

Cheers,

Andrew