When
you "put one next to the other", they may "look identical" to
your eyes. Who's to say how they look to someone else? We each have individual vision sensitivities. As for producing identical measurements, I'm not convinced by rhetoric.
Let's look at measurements from both. The
NEC MultiSync PA311D and
Eizo ColorEdge CG319X were both measured and tested by
prad.de.
Let's start with Full Native Gamut and with the factory calibration, as you believe that "is more accurate than calibration" by the user with a colorimeter. By the way, I've seen the comment
on another forum which refers to them as "cheap, toy-colorimeters". I disagree with that characterization, as I do with the some of the other assertions being made here.
At full gamut, PRAD measures
Delta C which shows chroma/saturation errors. Delta C error is perhaps more noticeable as color shift in neutral values, particularly shadows. Here is the Full Native Gamut using each monitor's factory calibration showing the Delta C and Gamma results (6500 K, 2.2 Gamma, 140-160 cd/m2) for
the NEC PA311D and
the Eizo CG319X. You can place the linked charts one below the other and see that their both very good with the Eizo only slightly better. Keep an eye on the Delta C numbers as we go along, as a theme will develop.
Since we may be working in a specific color space, let's look at the factory calibrations for Adobe RGB and how well they transform from their native color gamut. Here is the
NEC PA311D result and
the Eizo CG319X. Both produce outstanding Delta E results hovering at or below dE 0.5, an imperceptible difference. The Delta C results are nearly identical for the Eizo in both Native and Adobe RGB. While the NEC Delta C error
range has started to creep up a bit, overall it's about the same as in Native gamut.
Since many professionals and consumers have incorporated motion/video into their work, lets look at
DCI-P3 and its 2.6 Gamma with the results from their factory calibrations. Here's the
NEC PA311D and the
Eizo CG319X. Here we see some major differences in both Delta E and Delta C results.
What I really find interesting is that regardless of the color space chosen, the Eizo produces extremely consistent and very neutral Chroma/Delta C values. For the three examples linked above (Native, Adobe RGB, DCI-P3), the largest Chroma error (Delta C) is just 1.1 and that's
only in the lowest shadow value. The average error only moves from 0.3 (Native & Adobe RGB) to 0.5 in DCI-P3 mode and the error range from 0.7 (Native & Adobe RGB) to 0.8 in DCI-P3. For comparison, the NEC has a Chroma/Delta C maximum error from 1.6 to 2.4 and an error range from 1.1 (Native), 1.5 (Adobe RGB), to 1.9 (DCI-P3). If you read thru the full review, it seems persistently higher and more variable.
It's almost as if Eizo is obsessed with neutral gray tones and precise Gamma control. Perhaps that extra internal processing bit-depth isn't all just wasted. Since I left out sRGB with its non-linear gamma, here it is for the
NEC and the
Eizo.
Since you're convinced that you can't improve on the NEC factory calibration accuracy with "cheap, toy-colorimeters" and this reply is long enough already, I'll leave it to readers whether they want to compare the calibrated test measurements which are also included in the full PRAD tests linked at the top. I will suggest to others that it would be worthwhile to consider calibrating and comparing to the factory defaults. While
calibration of the NEC in the DCI-P3 color space did improve the color accuracy compared to its
factory calibration, it still can't quite tame the Chroma Delta C results when compared to the
Eizo.
One other difference between these two monitors that may make a difference to a
very small minority of users is the method for controlling brightness. NEC uses
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) for the backlight LEDs which in essence means that it is continually flashing the LEDs on and off at a very high frequency which is reduced in frequency (more
potential "flicker") as brightness is lowered. A graph of the NEC backlight looks
like this at 140 cd/m2. Eizo uses continuous LEDs regardless of brightness level and looks
like this. Like I said, PWM backlight flicker affects a
very small minority of users. For those
few who are, for various reasons, sensitive to this type of backlight, it can literally be a pain and a consideration.
There are many other differences in design, build, circuitry, features, software, and what's included. I think that's obvious to anyone that bothers to look. That's
more than enough for now.
