NEC PA242W Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on September 27, 2013 9:00 AM ESTUpdated 10/2/2013: Talking to NEC after this went live it was found that the review unit had a feature, Metamerism, enabled. This helps to match it to other displays, but also caused the pre-calibration numbers and non-SpectraView numbers, to be incorrect. I'm currently re-running the pre-calibration numbers on the NEC now and updating the pages as fast as possible. The end result is that the NEC performs far, far better out-of-the-box than initially thought.
Be prepared, as there is a lot of bench test data coming here. For my pre-calibration settings I used the sRGB color gamut, a color temperature of 6500K, and a gamma setting of 2.2.
|
Pre-Calibration (re-tested) |
Post-Calibration, 200 cd/m^2 |
Post-Calibration, 80 cd/m^2 |
|
| White Level (cd/m^2) | 197.0 | 204.14 | 80.79 |
| Black Level (cd/m^2) | 0.3457 | 0.366 | 0.1479 |
| Contrast Ratio | 570:1 | 558:1 | 546:1 |
| Gamma (Average) | 2.2633 | 2.1437 | 2.3734 |
| Color Temperature | 6460K | 6426K | 6442K |
| Grayscale dE2000 | 1.573 | 0.6504 | 0.6473 |
| Color Checker dE2000 | 1.0198 | 0.6392 | 0.5331 |
| Saturations dE2000 | 0.9682 | 0.6722 | 0.5675 |
Out of the box the NEC is practically perfect. The grayscale has a little bit of an error but one that should barely be visible if at all. The gamma has a small peak at 95% but no huge issues at all. The colors are reference quality and there is nothing to complain about with them. If this was a post-calibration result I would say it is amazing. The fact that it is a pre-calibration one makes it even that much more incredible.
Post calibration, aside from a dip in the gamma at 90-95%, everything else improves and becomes practically perfect. Yes, the overall error levels can be lower but you couldn't see it. None of the 96 samples in the large color checker chart even come close to a dE2000 of 2, much less the visible limit of 3. The average error of 0.63 is the lowest I've ever seen. It's perfect.
When targeting 80 cd/m^2 and the sRGB gamma target we see similar performance. The gamma curve isn’t perfect but really everything else is. The color checker chart hits an average dE2000 of 0.53 here which is even better, but not visible. What you see on the screen is what you are supposed to see.
With Metamerism turned off, the NEC measures perfectly. The only improvement I could see is in contrast ratio, but they might be letting that suffer to coax more reliable overall performance of the panel which is a trade-off that would be worth it for their target markets. Perhaps once OLED gets affordable we can see something better, but until then this is really, really good.
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DanNeely - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
Defect rates on an 8k panel would probably be prohibitive.ZeDestructor - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
I'm curious on how high they are...If it remains withing tolerable limits, I'd happily take upto 200 dead pixels or something similar...
MrSpadge - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
Let's talk again once you have a few dozen permanently white, red green or blue dots right in your primary viewing area!ddriver - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
As long as the pixels aren't clustered in a small region dead (dark) pixels will probably not be distinguishable. Stuck bright pixels are a different matter, but at that pixel pitch shouldn't be that much annoying too.ZeDestructor - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
As ddriver said,, as long as it isn't in a cluster, its fine. 200-400 dead pixels spread out over a 440+ppi 24" panel at 30-60cm (my view distances for a desktop) will be pretty hard to spot..SodaAnt - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
I know that I've seen an 8K prototype at 30" before at least, and it was pretty damn beautiful, but as far as I know, the (well known) company that made it hasn't brought it to market yet.speconomist - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
You mean 32K, as the 20''monitor is 16 times larger than a 5'' inches monitor.garadante - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link
No, it'd be 8k. Yes, it would be 32 megapixels (roughly) but 4k doesn't mean 4 megapixels. It means 4k pixel width. So 8k pixel width is the same as a 1080p panel stacked 4 wide, 4 high.BlakKW - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
I would really like to understand your analogy of 4 wide, 4 high...it would help me remember the reason 4k is better and how this scales when you add a "k". Also, I've seen it argued that even 4k exceeds the human eye's ability to differentiate, so at what point does "everyone" agree you can't tell the difference?ZeDestructor - Saturday, September 28, 2013 - link
4 wide, 4 high he means in terms of "stitching" 1920x1080 (2Kx1K resolution, abbreviated to 2K in some circles, 1080p elsewhere) panels, leading to an effective resolution of 7680x4320 (8Kx4K naming).When I was referring to a panel sizes, I was referring to the diagonal measurement, as most things are quoted/marketed/sold using that measure. Thus 20" = 16 5" panels.
"4k is better and how this scales when you add a "k". " It doesn't. K stands for "kilo", the x1000 prefix.