A Little BackgroundAfter suspecting the NEC LCD2690WUXi was on its way out (failed achieving target intensity during calibration) I phoned NEC tech support. I was pleasantly surprised that even though the unit was well past its warranty period, I got to talk with Aaron, a Level 2 Tech. Over the course of about 30 minutes we proceeded to run the monitor and the color sensor through a series of performance tests. The conclusion was certain; the back light was failing. The LCD2690WUXi has been a great monitor for the past 6 years and over 12,000 hours of actual use, but it was time to retire it.
The PA272 was one of the options Aaron and I talked about, but then so was the discounted PA271 and even replacing the back light in the LCD2690WUXi. One of the compelling reasons for getting the PA272 was Aaron's endorsement of it – not in any way as a sales guy, but as a nerdy tech guy, my kind of guy! In more tangible terms; however, the PA272's back light is likely not going to fail nearly as soon since it's LED (start looking up the word 'metamerism').
Setting it upI love B&H, but I was less than happy with them when the User's Manual was in Cyrillic! And of course it was Friday noon when the UPS guy drove off. Minor issue, almost not worth mentioning – at least the pdf from NEC's website was in English.
The added USB ports are always welcomed, something the LCD2690WUX lacked, and the next noted refinement was the stand. The height adjustment lock in the lowest position makes it much safer moving this beast around and the cable caddy thing on the LCD2690WUX which would easily fall off has been replaced with a vertically sliding shield that's not removable. The other improvement made on the stand of the PA272 is the way the swivel left-right works. All kind of minor points but all pluses.
No DVD disk comes with the monitor, but one isn't needed for the PA272, so don't sweat that. Figuring out what the mini DisplayPort cable is really going to accomplish, I still have no idea, but I connected it anyway along with the DVI-D, USB and power.
Powering UPWindows found the new hardware and installed the generic USB hub drivers first and then fetched and installed PA272 drivers. After that successful run, the NVIDIA drivers and SpectraView II software were installed without issue.
CalibrationThe same calibration sensor that came with the LCD2690WUX (NEC iOne Display v2) and the updated SpectraView II (v1.1.16.02) proceeded to do their thing smoothly... until it was finished. Whoa! That color is way way off! Later, my wife called it: 'sea foam' green when I asked here what color the screen looked like to her. For about 4 hours I combed through articles and reports searching how to fix this ugly green thing.
Many thanks and kudos to Marcin Kałuża (aka Czornyj) for his
quick reply to my call for help on the Luminous Landscape forum and the easy solution: MultiProfiler, NEC's free software and a check in the box for Metamerism correction – hope that you looked up that word by now
 Complaints
They are minor, but like the pluses, worth mentioning. The happy fix of being rid of the green cast through the MultiProfiler is short-lived and must be redone after each calibration. Why this little check box isn't 1) in SpectraView II to begin with and 2) on by default upon completion of the calibration process is something that escapes reason... maybe NEC will take note? |
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Bottom lineThis is a fantastic display device and is definitely the hands down successor to the LCD2690WUX.
