NEC or LaCie Monitor for new PC

As we are finally ‘upgrading’ to Windows 7 at work I have decided its also time for a new PC at home, but the first priority is to decide on a good monitor.

I currently use an Iiyama HS540S calibrated with a SpyderPro3 - which has served me very well for around 10 years, but Iiyama appear to be out of the pro monitor market so I’m thinking of a NEC SpectraView Reference 241 or a LaCie 324i.

Both are 24 inch 1920x1200 and the zero pixel defect guarantee on the NEC is drawing me to that as the first preference.

Has anyone any experience good or bad with these monitors?

Dave.

I saw the NEC monitors at Focus a couple of years ago - stunning quality.

The Dell 2209WA I use is very similar in that effortless, kind-to-the-eyes way that can be rare amongst flat screens. Many are rather harsh.

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Best regards, John

Don't forget the LG IPS 23 monitor which uses the same panel as the Dell but uses a different backlighting...

£139.99 delivered from Amazon!!!!

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Another vote for NEC spectraview. I have a 2090 and it's superb. Would think the newer panels are better again. But not cheap, and you need a compatible monitor calibration device to set it up to it's best.
Good luck whatever you get!

Paul

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Thanks for the feedback everyone – from what I’ve found on the web the SpectraView monitors use the same panels as the NEC MultiSync monitors but they are specially selected for quality and then tweaked further. I think the Spyder3 calibrator is supported in the NEC software, but I will check with NEC first. So hopefully I can place an order at the end of September or October. Still have more research on the new PC and what hardware and software will need updating for Windows 7 64bit.
(Already have a new Wacom Intuos4 on order as my current Wacom is one of the old Intuos RS232 based ones which isn’t supported on Win7).

Dave.

Just a quick update.

I went with the NEC SpectraView Reference 271 in the end, the 241 was out of stock so I decided to put off the PC upgrade to next year.

Very impressed with the monitor, and when I got the calibration sorted the colours look very natural and finally I don’t miss my old CRT. As good as the Iiyama HS540S was it didn’t quite come up the Iiyama CRT somehow.

Out of the box the Adobe RGB profile was good, but it is worth doing a full hardware calibration.

As for the PC hardware after installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and upping the RAM to 8GB the PC is performing well enough for the time being. Anyone still on XP should consider Windows 7 – from what I saw of Vista, Windows 7 is a big improvement so if you were put off by Vista (as I was) don’t rule Win 7 out – after using it for a few weeks I wouldn’t go back to XP.

Dave.

I have a Lacie 320 which works well and pivots. Fantastic for working on portrait shots. These monitors definitely need hardware calibration to make the best of them.

This monitor is very easy on the eyes as John mentions about these types. One of the things about them is that being designed for graphics, they do not exhibit the excessive brightness of many monitors, relying on a wide palette and good dynamic range for their quality and I think that is probably what makes them unfatiguing to use.

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