Monitor

[petercorb]

My old Mac 30" matte screen has gone - not going into the story here!
It was my workhorse despite much newer technology; calibrated with an i1 Pro I could predict  (with colour management, Image Print and experience) image output with on my 7900 & 9900 printers with remarkable accuracy.
I live in South Africa and the options are non-existent.
Basically without importing and paying duties and of course having no support my choices are 1) Apple Thunderbolt 27" (glossy screen arghh) 2) Dell U2713HM. The 2711 and the H are unavailable here.
The Mac is almost 3 x times the price and is Glossy
Has anyone any experience with the Dell U2713HM, I have read the specs and understand the differences as above but has anyone got first hand experience of the HM after calibration and actual use in a workflow situation. I am not a hobbyist.
Thanks
Peter
   

[D Fosse]

It's not about specs (which are mostly marketing nonsense with little real-world relevance), it's about quality control and tight tolerances. The things that really matter aren't in the specs.

Dell is known to cut a lot of corners in order to sell seemingly high-end units at a third of what such a unit should cost. I'm not saying they're all bad, just be careful and check before buying:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19526218.aspx

The only safe choices in monitors are NEC and Eizo. Seriously. They deliver high basic quality in all price ranges. I've no direct experience with Apple displays but from everything I hear they're nothing special.

[jduncan]

My old Mac 30" matte screen has gone - not going into the story here!
It was my workhorse despite much newer technology; calibrated with an i1 Pro I could predict  (with colour management, Image Print and experience) image output with on my 7900 & 9900 printers with remarkable accuracy.
I live in South Africa and the options are non-existent.
Basically without importing and paying duties and of course having no support my choices are 1) Apple Thunderbolt 27" (glossy screen arghh) 2) Dell U2713HM. The 2711 and the H are unavailable here.
The Mac is almost 3 x times the price and is Glossy
Has anyone any experience with the Dell U2713HM, I have read the specs and understand the differences as above but has anyone got first hand experience of the HM after calibration and actual use in a workflow situation. I am not a hobbyist.
Thanks
Peter
   

Can you provide an estimate of the budget you have  taking into account taxes? Do you have a mac, if so what model ?

Best regards,

J. Duncan

[petercorb]

At this point I am looking to spend +- $1,000 or in SA Rand terms about R12,000

I have two identical setups, one at home the other at my studio and use (TWO)  2.3 i7 MacMini with 16G of Ram and a OWC 960 SSD with the latest Mac software OSX 10.9.2.

For my home I have a 20" Matte Screen and did have a 30" identical model type at my studio (until it was stolen then trashed)

I use LR5 and CS6 for my image processing and output to my 2 Epson Printers with Image Print & Mirage RIP's.

NEC & Eizo monitors are exorbitantly expensive here in SA and besides are special orders, this is not an option.

 

[D Fosse]

You can always order from B&H, they ship around the world and the process is fast and very painless. Just recently there was someone in South Africa here who did just that, and he ended up very happy.

You will get customs and VAT on top, though, so strictly in terms of saving it may not be worth it. Which is a shame, because NEC in particular is ridiculously cheap in the US considering what you get. Eizo is at a more "normal" price level there.

Generally speaking, though: The display is where it really pays off to stretch the budget as much as you can. This is where you get substantial return on investment. A display is basically an analog device, and quality has direct impact. Not like a CPU, where a cheap one does the job just as well, only in a little longer time...

[petercorb]

Well after some research and first hand experience of a Dell U2713H, I have ordered one of these monitors. I had the chance to try the Dell, in fact I still have it on loan. I calibrated with my i1Photo Pro (the old Gretag device) and I am very happy with the result. I cannot use the 10LUT therefore I am restricted to sRGB but image manipulation, soft proofing etc is perfect. I will use this monitor and if all goes well replace my other 20" (matte screen mac) with the same. In the end, because of the very high cost of buying an NEC or Eizo here in South Africa it was a choice between a 27" Thunderbolt or this Dell, I'm afraid I couldn't contemplate a "shinny screen" besides I saved R6,000 ($600+-) 

[D Fosse]

Nothing beats trying it out at home first, that's not always so easy. So you got a good one.

I cannot use the 10LUT therefore I am restricted to sRGB

Two different things, don't mix them up. You can use whatever monitor gamut you want, irrespective of that. And unless you specifically need to restrict the unit to sRGB because you need to use software that isn't color managed, it's always best to use the custom setting. This leaves the unit in its native, unrestricted state. Build the calibration and the profile from that.

(I assume what you mean is that you can't hardware calibrate directly to the monitor LUT. For that you need the i1 Display Pro sensor (i1D3), which is the only one the Dell software will accept).

Just so it's said, for web you'll need to use Firefox with color management set to mode 1. No other browser is usable with wide gamut.

[petercorb]

Correct - "cant hardware calibrate directly to the monitor LUT"

At some stage during OSX upgrade (I think it was Snow Leopard) ex-Rite completely re-wrote the software platform and the old (mine) i1 Photo Pro did not accept the new version. They then released a restricted platform which allows monitor calibration - nothing else. In order to upgrade for Print profiling etc its a cost of $600+-.