Hello all,
Long time lurker but I just recently signed up and decided to post. Now before I make too much of a fool of myself, let me first mention that I've been spending the past two weeks reading virtually everything I could find about 22-24" wide gamut monitors, NEC, Eizo, LaCie etc. I've found numerous threads discussing NEC model XXX vs Eizo model YYY but most of them end up with ridiculous off-tangent bickering and usually conclude if you have money and like to spend it buy Eizo, if you don't, buy NEC. I have also read numerous reviews on all sorts of displays on sites in varying languages with what I can only presume to be "close enough" translation via Google. The display I most commonly see the PA241W compared to is the Eizo CG243W, but in terms of pricing and features I feel it's probably closer to the SX unit, and after speaking with an Eizo rep at some length he concluded my suspicions that the SX is a slightly watered-down version of the CG, but for the most part every bit as good. Here's what I can determine quickly...
-resolution, color gamut, etc is very nearly, if not literally, identical.
-both offer hardware calibration with the use of separate proprietary software/puck combo ( SpectraView II for NEC, EasyPIX for Eizo)
-at B&H the Eizo is $558 more expensive, which to me seems somewhat irrelevant. Not that I couldn't find something to spend $550 on, but at this point I don't see it being a deciding factor.
- NEC is 4 year warranty, Eizo is 5 - but even the Eizo rep himself said that 99.9% of the time a defect reveals itself in the first 90 days.
So what I'm hoping for, is some unbiased experiences with both of these units (or the Eizo CG243W) but I'm really not trying to rope a bunch of other displays into this conversation. Also if anyone has any stories, good or bad, about the customer service from either of these brands that would be helpful - from my phone call today with Eizo, the helpfulness and honesty provided alone was almost enough to steer me towards one of their displays. There's no doubt in my mind that both of these are excellent units, but I'd really like to hear what the more experienced members here have - as this will be the first time I've ever owned a wide gamut monitor.
On a side note - I have read lots of threads on here about calibration for wide gamut displays, mostly for soft proofing and what not. But just out of curiosity, if all/most of my images will go elsewhere for pre-press before being printed/compressed/displayed, are the factory profiles acceptable for editing? I can't see why a display of this caliber would need to be calibrated (pardon my ignorance) unless you have special requirements or test environments, yet I read all the time that people calibrate their display before ever using it.
Anyway that's it for now, I'm sure more questions will arise with time, but for now thanks in advance.