NEC PA242W Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on September 27, 2013 9:00 AM ESTWhen I revamped the monitor testing system, displays like the NEC PA242W were the reason why. The fact is that almost any monitor that is reasonably well designed can perform well after a calibration the way most people review. If you really want to know what separates a display like the NEC PA242W from standard consumer displays you need to push it harder. That means testing things like 25-point uniformity, multiple colorspaces, and as many data points as possible.
Thankfully NEC has delivered a monitor that shows off what can be done and has amazing performance on our test bench. Straight out of the box the performance is practically perfect. Even the pickiest user is going to find the NEC image to be as good as it can get without any tinkering. Using the SpectraView software you can take this down even more and make it easy to switch between as many calibrated presets as you would like. The only area that could use some improvement is the absolute black level. Otherwise the NEC PA242W leaves me with nothing to complain about when it comes to image performance. It really is the closest thing to perfect that I have seen.
This performance comes at quite a cost. $1,000+ for a 24”, 1920x1200 monitor is a lot of money to spend today. Of course factor in that you are saving the money from not needing calibration hardware or software and that price becomes more reasonable. So the real question is: do you need this? If you’re asking that question then you probably don’t. If you saw perfect color, perfect uniformity, and knew that you needed it, then you’re probably more willing to pay the price as it is essential to your work. No monitor that I have seen can be pulled out of the box and, provided you check the options more carefully than I initially did, provide a better image with no extra work.
Displays like the NEC PA242W are expensive, but they also push the boundaries for what a display can do. Technologies like 3D LUTs and more uniform lighting will likely trickle down to more affordable hardware, but it will take time. For now if you want the most accurate, most uniform display that you can buy, you want the NEC PA242W. It’s designed with image/video professionals in mind, and it performs admirably.
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cheinonen - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
The current version of CalMAN, at least one of the higher end versions, has support for calibrating a set of displays to look identical. It might mean none of them are perfect, but they all look about the same. I've never tested it out, as it's meant for commercial installations, but that might help with this issue if you already have the monitors.1Angelreloaded - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
instead of using 3 monitors, have you ever thought about moving to a large format display they make professional based ones for 40inch and higher now at 4k levels with IPS tech, that's a lot more realestate than say 3 1080p s side by side.nathanddrews - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
I think I already know the answer to this: "too much".How much would it actually add to the cost of a monitor to have it pre-calibrated using this method at the factory? Obviously a trained human would be expensive and time consuming, but what about a series of sensors on the assembly line that tune the display before packaging? Panels that meet the requirements for uniformity and gamut get one price, displays that can't make the cut go off to a different bin. Doesn't seem too ridiculous to me.
Senti - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
The problem is the transportation after that will likely screw everything in unpredictable way.nathanddrews - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
How, exactly? I've never heard of shipping or transporting affecting display calibration...foxalopex - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
Professional calibration software like Spectraview is designed to ask for a recalibration every 2-4 weeks. So yes by the time it gets to you it's not as calibrated as it could be. Keep in mind this is a professional monitor so they're nothing like a normal user. If you're more on a budget, a good $600-700 IPS monitor would probably work for most folks but for folks who insist on the best, you can't go wrong.DanNeely - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
That drift is due to components aging with; a good factory calibration should still be good when you unbox it and will stay better than what we normally suffer with for a while since the bad one is drifting too.Some tablet vendors have been doing it for at least a year now. I'd be interested in seeing how much the screens on them have drifted if Anandtech used any of the tablets they did color calibration testing a year ago as daily drivers.
bobbozzo - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
see above:cheinonen - Friday, September 27, 2013
...the out-of-box experience is also very good and it is still more uniform than any other display tested to date. The calibration does not affect the uniformity.
cheinonen - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
Just as an FYI, measuring the uniformity to the degree that I do takes close to two hours per display. That's with a fast meter and moving it between locations as quickly as possible but still allowing time for each sample to settle and be accurate. Adding that kind of testing to every display will increase the price a lot. Most companies wouldn't see any return on investment there, since the majority of consumers still don't care enough. Even if you only add $25 to the cost, that's a lot for most people unless you're talking about $1,200 displays.dushyanth - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
which would you choose: Eizo CS230 or this