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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risa2000 - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
I have some "cheap" Eizo and cannot complain, all my friends who are amateur photographers have Eizos, it is kind of benchmark here (Europe), but I have never seen a review of anything Eizo here. So either they do not sell them in US, or Anand has some itch about them.cheinonen - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
Eizo has never contacted me about a review sample, nor have I heard back from them the times I have tried to contact them. I have nothing against Eizo, and I'd love to review some of them, but they've never provided the opportunity. That's all.foxalopex - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
Awesome, I actually own this monitor. I bought it about a week ago as PA242W-BK-SK kit which includes NEC's rebranded X-rite Calibrator. I have to agree with Anandtech's review, it's an absolutely amazing monitor for any colour accurate work. Doing some research according to specifications, it uses the newest developed AH-IPS panels from LG (2011) and brand new backlight technology so it is definitely state of the art.I wonder if Anandtech is using the latest updated SpectraView software because there are a few settings which might help. (Didn't try the previous version which came with the monitor) I recall a special check box in the settings for low cadela settings which averages out the readings which helps weaker sensors work better and a slower 52 point setting that is suppose to get better results.
That said, I agree with their conclusions. It's only major weakness is that the black level isn't as black as it could be. But it more than makes up for it in that you can actually see gradients of grey. It's hard to explain but to the eyes it's a weird thing to see. At first you can't see as much contrast as some high end LCD TVs but at the same time you see tremendously more details in the gradients from the light to dark areas. This is what makes it spectacular as a professional LCD monitor and valuable for photographic work.
That said, I know some of you mentioning this is too expensive. It isn't for the folks who know what it's used for. After all you wouldn't take an F1 car (which probably be beat by a cheapo truck) to do offroad rally racing with.
chrnochime - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
Agreed. This is a tool for amateur/professional photographers/photo work, not for gaming. And really, it's the same price of a titan, which definitely will depreciate a lot faster in several years while this depreciates a lot less and will still be a great tool to use.hmcindie - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
I disagree. What you are seeing is something you really shouldn't see that well. The problem in color grading with a monitor with very low contrast (such as this) is that you tend to overcompensate your curves and do very contrasty looks. With a display that can actually do good contrast ratios, it will just look quite different. I have no idea why these monitors are billed as professional. I have a couple NECs and EIZOs at work and they are not all that. There is a reason all our serious grading is done with plasmas (though those suck at desktop work).foxalopex - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
I guess you don't do much work as a photographer then. A known problem in photography is that the average photographer will over saturate and over contrast pictures compared to what is really there. Someone who's very serious into photography and isn't trying to go for an entirely artistic impression is usually trying to get the the photo to as close to real life as possible. Working with raw photos, one of the problems you realize is that if you over-boost the contrast, it might look visually better to a casual viewer but you end up losing a lot of details in the images. This is something you see all the time with cheaper digicams. They produce vibrant, over contrasted pictures expected by the consumer while a professional digital camera doesn't but has amazing true dynamic range. Monitors can be like that too. NEC's and Eizo's are well loved because they display a large range of colors. Cheap monitors tend to over saturate and over contrast because while they look good, they are not very accurate. When you mean plasma, I assume a TV. A TV is optimized to crank out as much light as possible. You can't do that without sacrificing some of the quality in the image. NEC's and Eizo's are meant to be used in low light environments so they don't need to be super bright.hmcindie - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
I actually do quite a lot of work as a photographer and as a color grader. NEC and Eizo have horrible dynamic range as monitors. They color performance is good, but nothing dramatically different from example my home monitor which is the HP2740w (calibrated). For example the 2grand Eizo I'm using at work has worse light bleed in the corners. So no, I do not agree that these things are worth the money. We use Panasonic Plasmas for grading at work and at home I have the Pioneer Kuro (last model before discontinued) and it blows away any NEC or EIZO. The difference in dynamic range and color fidelity is not even close. It's not about saturation, it's about accuracy.Alan G - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
Those of us who are photographers swear by NEC monitors and the Spectraview callibration system (though I sometimes use the ArgyllCMS software which offers more flexibility and has the added feature of being free). The most important thing for us is to get an image on our display that will most closely resemble the print that comes out of our printer so that we can use Soft Proofing in Photoshop or Lightroom to make the necessary corrections. I'm worried that your test settings will misinform those potential users who might be photographers but have never had a monitor like this one. 200 cd/m^2 is really very high. Almost everyone that I know is somewhere in the 110-140 range depending on the lighting of their work room. I drop the contrast down to 250:1 as well. It may be that folks who do video editing work with higher settings because their end display is far different from a photographic print.These niggles aside, it's good to see NEC come out with a new display. My P221W is still working well after five years and the color is still faithful. I'll likely be getting this new one next year.
cheinonen - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
We do everything at 200 cd/m2, as that was a more common setting for general use, and at 80 cd/m2, which is the sRGB standard. Adding 140 cd/m2 would be possible but also add a lot of extra work to the reviews and I feel that 80 and 200 covers it fairly well.birdsoneview - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
Looks great for photo, graphics, and visual effects work, but for film/video editing that input lag is unacceptable.