NEC EA294WMi Review
by Chris Heinonen on February 10, 2014 6:00 AM ESTWhere all the 21:9 displays have excelled is with their uniformity. Talking to NEC about this, the shorter vertical height is one of the main reasons for this. Every display has a certain tolerance for panel shifting or twisting when it is produced. By having a shorter height this tolerance level is reduced and it is easier to produce a panel that is more rigid from top to bottom. This leads to more uniform backlighting overall and these better uniformity results.
Looking at the NEC, the white uniformity is good but not great. There is a decent bit of light fall-off at the edges, past the 10% level that I would consider to be good. Additionally the top of the display is a bit bright relative to the center of the display. This is a bit worse than I have come to expect for the 21:9 displays.
Black uniformity exhibits similar issues. The bottom of the screen, especially the corners, is too bright and the sides are darker. The deviation is just far too high for the black levels and it leads to a screen where you can easily see bright areas with a dark background.
Because of this the contrast uniformity varies across the screen. Some areas see contrast ratios of over 1,100:1 while other areas are closer to 500:1 or below. Usually with screens we see more contrast uniformity as if there are bright corners, the whites are brighter as well, but with the NEC we see an overall lack of uniformity here.
The color uniformity has issues as well. The right side of the screen, where the backlight is low, has larger dE2000 errors for color than the rest of the display. Most of the screen has a color dE2000 below 2.0 when compared to the center but there are certain areas that are above that.
The uniformity of the panel here is disappointing. It is almost certainly due to a non-uniform backlight that is then causing errors in the expected brightness of colors. Since the 21:9 panels usually excel at this, I wonder if this sample is on the poor side or if I’ve just gotten lucky with the previous samples. Either way, the uniformity here on the NEC is not as good as I would like it to be.
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FractinJex - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
Ever since moving to 1440p sometime back I wont go back 1080p...is just old now..the only trhing imo holding back 1440p from being mainstream is the fact that you need a HPU to use it as the intel igpu is crap and same witht he amd....keep hearing about 4k this and that yet most don't even understand those craphole panels only do 30hz lol people are skipping and thinking they can go straight to 1080p to 4k over the next year or two.....nope not gonna happen get yourself a good 1440p Korean pnael or even two and be set...don't wait for crappy slow manufactuare to release some overpriced non sense like Asus is doing with the 1440p AOG crapy TN panels and ripping everyone a new one lol 1080p trash
jaydee - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
Almost twice the cost of the under-rated AOC Q2963OMhttp://www.amazon.com/AOC-29-inch-IPS-Q2963PM-21/d...
haikuginger - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
You mixed up the contrast ratio chart- it's 989:1 at max brightness, and 838:1 at minimum brightness, not the other way around.surt - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
Where are the LESS wide-aspect displays? I want a nice 16:12 3200x2400 display.ShieTar - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
16:12 is 4:3. Thats not less wide, its legacy.Hrel - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
We don't need wider displays. We need Hollywood to stop making things wider for NO FUCKING REASON AT ALL!!!!! If you can't fit the shot in a 16:9 frame back up, or stop sucking so hard at your profession.extide - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
The sad part is, if you notice, in basically anything shot wide (or super wide) the 'important stuff' is all within a 4:3 box in the center, so it can still be viewed on a 4:3 screen properly. Ever notice when you watch the news on widescreen, the news logos in the corner aren't in the far corners, they are in a bit? That is because they are at the edges of where a 4:3 screen would be! So the edge space is all basically wasted!kyuu - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
There's actually a very good reason movies are shot in widescreen resolutions. It's the same reason people generally do multi-monitor setups that extend horizontally, rather than stacking two or three monitors vertically. Think about it.A 21:9 monitor like this is a great alternative for a multi-monitor setup for those who don't want to deal with the headaches and bezels.
tim851 - Tuesday, February 11, 2014 - link
Amen!For years, people put two 1280x1024 monitors next to each other. Then 1080p screens show up and it becomes a fucking meme to pretend you're a "professional" who can't work with anything less than 1200p.
So 1440p becomes affordable and people still play this frickin' meme, because 16x9 is the "Devil's AR".
cheinonen - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
Except 16:9 was picked as a compromise aspect ratio for everything. Academy Ratio (1.37:1) content can fit windowboxed, Scope content(2.39:1) can fit letterboxed, and flat (1.85:1) content will fit almost perfectly. 16:9 wan't created to eliminate choice in aspect ratios, but to provide a good format for all of them. I shouldn't foget 70mm (2.20:1) in here either.Also, I'd like to let artists pick how they want to present things. If they want to use Academy, or Scope, or Flat, that's their choice. The idea that they don't know what they're doing by shooting scope is just laughable as well.