bit-tech Shopping: NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi Black 29.8" Widescreen LCD Monitor

• Video - 15 pin High-Density D-shell (VGA)
• Video - 24 pin DVI-D
• Video - 29 pin DVI-I

• Adjustable Height
• HDCP
• Rotating Screen
• Swivel Screen
• Wallmount

Rating: 10

Time with product:

Strengths: Outstanding color range, sophisticated calibration features, stellar black levels. Priced way below any competing professional grade monitor. Spectraview II software.

Weaknesses: Cloudy at 45 degree viewing angle. Black screen brighter than expected. Naviset software underwhelming. Spectraview II software hard to find.

Summary: From the moment I turned this monitor on I have been in awe. I have been working with color graphics systems for 25 years and this is the monitor I always hoped to own one day. Coming from a pair of 21" CRT monitors this is is a huge upgrade. Even though the total screen area is about the same there is no comparison to having it all on one 2560 x 1600 workspace.I have never seen such rich color in my photographs. I put part of this down to the brightness of the monitor and it's wide color gamut and part down to the accuracy of the color. Putting up richly colored backgrounds is pure eye candy. Watching videos is also a treat, and surprisingly for a monitor aimed more at photo professionals there is no blurring that I could see in fast motion video, so this monitor should be equally capable for video work. NEC did a lot of things right but not everything. The viewing angle provides an inky black level from straight on with a slight clouding in the lower left and right corners, really only noticeable on a pure black screen. Oddly enough the worst viewing angle is 45 degrees off axis on either side after which it gets better before clouding up a bit at the extremes. For sitting directly in front of with normal usage it's pretty much perfect. If you're particular about color you will need to understand profiles to get the best out of this monitor. It has a wide color gamut so programs like IE which don't understand color spaces are going to look very garish on this monitor, as are most games. You can of course switch the monitor into sRGB mode in which case it will emulate a cheap VGA monitor but that kind of defeats the purpose of buying this monitor.The standard disk that comes with the monitor doesn't give you much except Naviset software, not even a monitor driver. Naviset was supposed to allow you to configure the monitor without using the menus but it falls far short of that providing only a few simple controls. The menus (especially if you switch them into advanced mode) are quite comprehensive and allow a large degree of customization. If you're serious about using this monitor properly get the Spectraview Software. This comes with a monitor driver and much more comprehensive configuration and calibration software. It's an excellent piece of software which allows you to get the best out of the monitor. With the profile installed you can use Firefox 3 to browse and display images correctly (see FF instructions on how to enable this feature). Putting IE and FF side by side the IE images look ridiculous because they're being rendered as if the monitor was in sRGB mode. Oddly enough the built in file browser in Vista also seems to render images correctly which is surprising given it took the Vista team a full 18 months to fix their operating system to not corrupt the gamma lookup table every time the system went into standby or brought up the UAC screen. If you're going to put an image on your background be sure to convert it to the monitor's color space before saving it. After calibration black level was about .65 and max luminance was 137 (target 140) with the color temperature 6700K (target 6500K). You can of course set the brightness much higher, I'm running eco mode 2 and uniformity correction on and it was still too bright before calibration. For accurate photo prints 140 is about the most accurate representation of what's going to print on paper. At first glance I found the amount of backlight bleed disturbing, noticeable mainly on a pure black screen. In practice the contrast ratio is more than enough so it's not a problem when actually working with photos but compared to a CRT with a good anti-glare filter it's pretty high. NEC really should bundle the SV-II kit with this monitor. I can't imagine why anyone would pay that much for a WCG monitor and not calibrate it properly. SV is definitely a type A application (you can even change the color and brightness of the front panel LED!). Buying it was a nightmare, no-one had stock and I had phone through three divisions before I finally found someone in NEC Large Plasma Displays who could sell it to me. I tried buying online with no success (found out later that Firefox is not supported). The SV-II kit was out of stock everywhere so I eventually got the i1 separately and bought the SV software from NEC. The uniformity is very good with only one vertical band perceptible about 1/3 across the monitor visible on pure white or gray screen. Not a problem for me as on most images I don't see it. My monitor has zero stuck pixels which is impressive given there are over 12 million pixels on this monitor. The monitor came with a very nice stand, well weighted and easily adjustable with a quick release latch. The shell was a little plasticky but overall quite decent. I prefer a floating monitor so I'm using an Innovative Office Products 7500-1500 monitor arm.Overall an excellent product at an outstanding price.