I have to agree, a monitor is something you stare at for long periods of time so may as well put the vast amount of your budget into a decent screen. Monitors, mice, keyboards, PSU's and cases should be purchased with the view to run them for as long as possible. The rest comes and goes.
Yowser... Nice work though - wish I had that much to spend on a screen! Looks sexy... I'm hopefully going to be getting a new monitor in a month or so but its a choice between NEC EA231WMi and Dell U2410 for me, no Eizos in my price range.
Absolutely gorgeous pook. Jealous doesn't even cover it. Can't wait for the day I can put another Eizo on my desk, had one and smitten!
I can't agree more. I still have my first ever Lian Li case, a PC-65. It houses my wife's Phenom rig, and is still in perfect condition. I've only just replaced my keyboard after 6 years heavy use, and it still works (keeping it as a spare). Never skimp on the parts you actually interface with. The rest of the hardware has a limited life span. The NEC gets a decent write up at TFT central http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_ea231wmi.htm Their range is pretty big.. are they all expensive? I only looked at the 30" screens.
I'm still looking for used NEC S/H-IPS monitors. Yes, call me stupid but outside of Eizo PVAs, I'm still hardly convinced. Time to look for a 2180UXi!
It's all down to how the panel is implemented, and how well installed in the chassis I think. This Eizo uses the same Samsung S-PVA panel that's in loads of other screens. I think it's all to do with how accurately, and how well the back lighting is put together. I would suggest smaller IPS panels are probably not as bad in the "white glow" department as their larger brethren.
+1 for the 231wmi ...but then I am biased! lol Dropping £1800 on a monitor is going some; thouh I agree on the premise of your arguement regarding the monitor you look at as opposed to what's in the rig. It doesn't matter what's in the box if what it outputs on is a piece of s**t. Bit-Tech need to invest a little more in monitor reviews: it is a failing on their part that they don't do more. £1800 on a monitor? Wow.
I can attest to the small IPS panels having less white glow, even if they have a bit of bleeding. Well, if I ever have $2000 to drop on a monitor, then the Eizo should be my first choice.
Hello Pookeyhead and others, I am currently in the market for a large 30 inch monitor. Although I don't have quite the rigorous expectations of monitor performance, I am seriously considering this panel now (EIZO FlexScan SX3031W 30" Widescreen Monitor) that you purchased. I am just wondering how your first month has gone with it, and how do you find it in games (fast, good response, etc), and would you recommend it for someone who games pretty heavily while also wanting to have a good monitor for photo/editing/movies/writing. The price is pretty steep, but it is a 5 year investment and it seems to be a good one at that. I will be working with photos that need to be of good quality, although I won't be doing a high level of editing (just want good picture quality). Just wanted to hear your opinion. And silly question, but what is its refresh rate? Can't seem to find that on the website (probably looking in the wrong place). Thanks!
Unless explicitly stated otherwise all TFT panels run at 60Hz. Contrary to CRT monitors, where 60Hz would mean headache-inducing flickering, the same doesn't hold true for TFT technology. A pixel holds its value until it is changed. There's no need to refresh the content. Unless of course you meant response time instead of refresh rate...
The refresh is 60Hz. You'll only find higher on screens intended for 3D and gaming use, as the intended market for the SX3031W is of course image editing, 60hz is fine. I still love it. Like I said earlier in the thread, the colours are superb, and calibrated to within a delta E of 0.8 or lower. That initial measurement was with the Eye One software and a DTP94 colorimiter. Using the ColorEyes software, it's within 0.3. This has now also been confirmed by Lacie's Blue Eye Pro software. Delta E of < 0.3 If you game a lot, I would suggest think carefully about your gaming style before buying this panel. I'm perfectly happy with it, but I don't play things like CS:S at a competitive level. I can notice no lag whatsoever, but the figures are a lag time of 30ms, which is what you'd expect from a S-PVA panel. A hard core gamer would not be happy with such a panel, but casual gamers would find no problems. Having said this, most high end IPS and PVA panels are around this mark in terms of lag. If you're uber serious about twitch games like CS:S then a TN screen is better.... but they are rubbish for image editing. I've only ever used PVA and IPS panels, so for me, this seems quite snappy. If you're used to fast TN panels with zero lag, you may find it a little sluggish. You would however, find ANY high end panel sluggish compared to that. The panel itself is more than fast enough for all but the twitchiest games. Movement is smooth with minimal blurring. Very fine text will blur slightly if you drag a window, but to expect anything else on a PVA or IPS panel is silly. Only the fastest of TN panels can pull off a trick like that. I can confirm that the gamut is indeed as advertised at 98% Adobe 1998. Viewing angles are good, but while the lagom viewing angle gamma screen shows little change on angles, certain colours do exhibit the trademark gamma shift at wider angles.. mainly green. This is normal for PVA panels. Colours themselves don't shift... but gamma does slightly. If this bothers you, then IPS may be more suited. The black levels are good at a measured 0.18cd/m2 when calibrated to 140cd/m2, which is excellent for a LCD screen. Gamma is bang on 2.2. It suffers none of the white glow issues of a large IPS screen. I have found nothing annoying, or irritating after living with it for a month. The initial profile I created when I bought it still checks out, so there's no drift in colours. My GTX 295 runs all the games I have at the native 2560x1600 with no problems or need to turn down settings. Be aware that HDCP is only available over the single link DVI. Slightly annoying as you'll have to be using the dual link DVI to run at 2560x1600. Basically, if you want to watch DRM protected blu rays, you'll need to use the other DVI port. As it's a very high end panel, it's surprising it HAS HDCP at all though. Many don't. The Hardware LUT is 12bit, and gradients are silky smooth even after profiling. The SX3031W does have a fan inside it. It's very quiet, and goes unnoticed here, as my PC fans drown it out, but if you have a completely silent PC you will hear it slightly. The preset modes are pretty crappy in terms of color accuracy, and should be avoided. Calibrate it in custom mode, not one of the presets. (I assume anyone spending this much will also be buying color profiling equipment). I have no idea how accurate the colour out of the box are. I never measured them. I calibrated it immediately. They did appear a little warm though... but only slightly. Running a screen like this un-calibrated would be crazy though. Warranty is 5 years (3 for backlight) and pixel warranty is the usual zero bright pixel arrangement. Mine has zero dead pixels. If I had to criticise, I have noticed that on a plain grey background, the corners of the screen take on a very slight red cast if you lean too far to the sides. This perhaps me being stupid now, as A) it's VERY slight, and B) unless you are insane.. you don't lean to one side anyway Other than that, I have no regrets NOT buying a IPS screen. Sure, zero gamma shift is nice, but the better black levels, and contrast this offers is of more use to me. Well.. you saw the video of that Dell I bought, so I'll leave it to you to decide. The Dell DID have awesome viewing angles and zero gamma shift, but struggled to show a deep black, and that off centre white glow would drive me nuts. All in all, from a professional viewpoint I think this panel is worth the money, yes. I would buy it again with the benefit of hindsight (if that was possible). [edit] If you're new to the world of high gamut panels and higher end image editing, can I urge you to read up on colour profiling, and wider colour management issues? Particularly colorspace, as a wide gamut monitor like this WILL make colours in some websites look over the top and very saturated. Using a colour managed browser helps, but even then if the web site doesn't use profiled images, they will still look wrong. The following will help: re: profiling of images from Photoshop http://www.gballard.net/psd/assignconvert.html http://ephotopros.com/articles/arti...156/assign-profile-vs-convert-to-profile.aspx Once you understand the above fully, think about using ProPhoto as your default Photoshop colourspace. At least use Adobe RGB1998.. and never sRGB. general color management in daily use: http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html On the above tests however, on the "ADOBE RGB (1998) 2.2 gamma:" test it says that when you roll the mouse over, if the image remains the same your browser is NOT colour managed. This is incorrect for these screens as it assumes a sRGB monitor. As this panel can reproduce Adobe 98 there is actually no change. This is not a fault, it's just that the article was written before high gamut screens became widely available. All other tests still apply.
Thanks for that very informative reply. A lot to think about indeed. With that info, I will just have to make a judgement call on which I desire more, gaming or professional use. Glad to see the monitor is working out, though.
It's perfectly adequate for gaming... just not if you're the hard core, LAN party type. Not that you'd be taking something this huge to a LAN LOL
A perfect monitor doesn't exists.. it's a trade off you must do. To say the truth. I am no crazy gamer, but I do play a lot of games, and do consider myself a gamer. I passes from a CRT (which is unbeatable in term of input lag and response time (speed of light?! as it's a cathode ray tube), to the U2410, which also has 30ms input lag on average (lower if you the monitor to game mode, but I don't), and I did not notice anything. Then again, for me, people who keep insulting it's peripherals including monitor because they lost a match, is simply because they suck, and it's not the peripheral.. they just have to blame on something as they can't blame on them-self. If you are that kind of person (no offense), then go with a TN panel, else I think, an PVA or IPS panel will do you just fine.
He's absolutely right. All monitors are a compromise, and for me S-PVA was the best one. For others it will be IPS or TN. All I will say is only get a TN panel if you game and browse and do nothing else. A superb screen by all accounts.
With the 3008 priced pretty high, the eizo seems like a small premium to pay to get that extra quality. Being that I want to do more than just game, and Goodbytes point is well taken, it will be a choice between IPS and PVA. I use a mac cinema display right now and really don't notice it, as my main games are more RPG based (although I used to play tonnes of CS and TF - been forced to take a break from twitchy gaming due to RSI - however, i played them on my cinema display and it was great). TN seems fine, but at that size I think the viewing angles start to become more important. Right now I am running with a 1gb 4870 on my mac (flashed to work on a 1.1 macpro), with a slight OC. I think it should be fine for running games on a 30 inch monitor. So besides the eizo, the 3008, the LG, NEC (old model I think? if I remember correctly from this thread, so much information to absorb) what else are competitive models. The 305T or whatever from Samsung is not a consideration (lacks some key ports, ie: HDCP), as I'd like to watch some movies at proper resolution (another plus to the eizo, even if it is a bit of annoying setup =P). I think its going to be hard to decision no matter what Again, thanks for the awesome replies and thoughts!
To sum up: 30" IPS - Positives: Little or no colour and gamma shift over angles. Accurate colours. Wide Gamut. Negatives: Poor blacks (compared to PVA), and off axis white glow is noticeable at the corners even when directly in front of it. 30" S-PVA - Positives: Excellent contrast. Best black levels. Accurate colours. Wide Gamut. Good viewing angles. Negatives: Gamma shift noticeable on some colours if you go too far off centre, and contrast can shift slightly too. Viewing angles not as wide as IPS. As for exact model it depends on your budget. Eizo make two S-PVA panels: The SX3031W and the CG301W. The only difference is that the CG301W can be hardware calibrated independently of the computer... basically, you're programming the screen's LUT and not the video card's. The SX3031W can't. However, as they both have a 12bit LUT, visually, there's not really any disadvantage to "software" profiling the SX3031W, as the gradients are still super smooth thanks to the 12bit LUT. As for your other point: I must make it clear. I wouldn't say the Eizo is any better than the Dell 3008 in terms of colour accuracy, as it may well not be. I never calibrated the Dell, but it uses a well respected IPS panel. The Dell being IPS DOES offer wider viewing angles and no gamma shift. The ONLY reasons I returned it was the "black glow" problem, and the anti-glare coating is very aggressive. It looks like frosted glass, and looking at a white screen and moving your head makes it "sparkle". It's quite horrible. The SX3031W has none of that... nice smooth AG coating. It's a tough decision I know when you're spending this amount of cash, but what helped me was to make a list of what I do with my computer. If it involves gaming, editing, or watching movies in a darkened room, then then that black issue may annoy you. Both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. There's no one perfect monitor yet. NEC got close with their 2490WUXi, but then killed it when they dropped the A-TW polariser.
To add: It is important to note that both panel technology are significantly better than TN panels. When Pookey says for instance "poor black", it's really, as he said, compared to PVA. It is better than TN panel blacks. So say the truth, on my Dell U2410 monitor, which is an IPS panel, the black downside is not an annoyance to me. Not even in StarCraft where everything is very dark to start with. The only time I actually notice, is if I watch a very wide screen movie (with 2 large black line at the top and bottom), and that I am in angle (or have my screen brightness at 100% - which makes me blind already, especially at night), and look for it. It's there... but it's not strong issue. It doesn't kill the experience like a TN panel does. Also, it's really not visible, not even at 180 degree view angle when you are on your desktop. It's really when you have BLACK you can notice it. Heck I barely notice is on my log-in screen of Win7, which I set the background to be black (Win7 looks very nice with a black background - you should give it a try ) Although I don't have a PVA panel, I am sure it's similar for the downside of the PVA. Basically, if you are not a professional, which a full career on it, I don't think you'll notice much both technology downsides, unless, of course you really search for the downside.
