NEC EA294WMi Review
by Chris Heinonen on February 10, 2014 6:00 AM ESTAll calibration measurements are done using SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5.1.2 software with a custom workflow. Measurements are done using a C6 colorimeter that is first profiled against an i1Pro spectrometer to ensure accurate results. There are two sets of targets we use. Pre-calibration and our first calibration aim for 200 cd/m^2 with an sRGB gamut and a gamma of 2.2. This is a common real-world setting for a display. The final target changes the light level target to 80 cd/m^2 and the gamma curve to the tougher sRGB standard.
The EA294WMi features a number of preset modes. On my sample they all ran a bit warm with the 6500K setting measuring closer to 6100K. Using the 7000K preset gave me a color temperature that was closer to the 6503K ideal value. It still runs a bit warm, at 6413K, but that is very close to 6503K for not being calibrated.
If you look at the charts you’ll see that the color temperature, while having the correct value, is excessively green. There is a large push that grows worse as the intensity increases. This is why just looking at the raw temperature value is really pointless, as you can get to 6503K without having an ideal balance of red, green and blue. Looking at the individual RGB breakdown can show you the actual accuracy of the color temperature.
|
Pre-Calibration |
Post-Calibration, 200 cd/m^2 |
Post-Calibration, 80 cd/m^2 |
|
| White Level (cd/m^2) | 201.85 | 198.96 | 82.427 |
| Black Level (cd/m^2) | 0.2024 | 0.2061 | 0.0867 |
| Contrast Ratio | 997:1 | 965:1 | 951:1 |
| Gamma (Average) | 2.1847 | 2.1959 | 2.493 |
| Color Temperature | 6419K | 6580K | 6476K |
| Grayscale dE2000 | 5.9004 | 0.6941 | 0.922 |
| Color Checker dE2000 | 4.1192 | 1.1519 | 1.2513 |
| Saturations dE2000 | 3.6287 | 1.1265 | 1.1144 |
The gamma is good overall and tracks close to the 2.2 target value. It has a little bit of a rise at the top and bottom, but the deviation is fairly small overall. As you see in the Grayscale dE2000 values, the incorrect RGB balance shows up as very visible errors with an average dE2000 that approaches 6.0.
Color accuracy is a bit better than the grayscale. The saturations dE2000 average is 3.6 and the color checker average dE2000 is 4.1. However the more saturated reds are over-saturated which leads to skin tones having a slightly sunburnt look. Blue is a bit under-saturated and cyan has an incorrect tint. These overall numbers are good but issues are still visible on screen.
Post-calibration the 200 cd/m^2 target improves a lot. The gamma tracks perfectly and so does the RGB balance. Our average grayscale dE2000 is an invisible 0.69 after calibration. Colors improve with the tint of cyan being correct now. The EA294WMi lacks the internal LUT of NEC's professional monitors but the performance still improves. The main remaining flaw comes from yellow being over-saturated which pushes it and some orange shades above the visible error limit of 3.0 dE2000. Both the color dE2000 averages are very good in the end.
When we target 80 cd/m^2 and the sRGB gamma curve our results are virtually identical. For these tests I bumped up the number of points that CalMAN samples to the maximum possible and will do this on future reviews as well. We see that the RGB response is very level across all measured values and the gamma tracks almost perfectly. The CIE chart for saturations is harder to make out as there are too many targets, but we see that the color error gets higher as the saturation percentage increases. Yellow and Green are the worse offenders here, as we expected from the CIE charts, while the other colors are all close to 2.0 or below.
Overall the post-calibration performance is impressive. The pre-calibration numbers are not great due to the poor white balance and so for ideal viewing you will want to calibrate it. Other displays offer a better out-of-box experience than the NEC.
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purerice - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
good points there. My old monitor is 16x10 which was supposed to be 16x9+subtitles/menus but that didn't fly I guess.As long as you don't have to watch a movie like Multiplicity with the camera shaking back and forth to catch the various Michael Keatons (VHS version). That was perhaps the worst edit-butchering of any decent film I have ever seen.
iamezza - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
The best use case by far for 21:9 is for gaming. Just about any game that uses a first person (and not just FPSs) or over the shoulder perspective is a lot better with a wider screen.I've had triple 16:9 screens for a couple of years and it friggin rocks!
kyuu - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
Agreed -- I'm quite tempted to use a 21:9 monitor since it seems ideal for gaming.Panzerknacker - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
Nice screen but too high input lag.purerice - Monday, February 10, 2014 - link
?????? Stated market, medical imaging...Not sure how much movement you get in your MRIs or X-rays but the ones I have seen seem to be pretty still.
gochichi - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
Though it sounds like it may be insignificant, there's actually 33% more pixels in a 2560x1440 27" display than 2560x1080.I initially thought that if a laptop could drive one resolution it would drive the other and vice versa. This is NOT the case in practice, where I had laptops whose HDMI outputs displayed plug-n-play perfection on the 2560x1080 display but couldn't handle 2560x1440 without a bunch hacking and compromise(to where you had to hack the settings and go to 30Hz and so on, or it just going 1920x1080 etc).
So keep that in mind, I had an HD4000 Samsung Ultrabook that worked flawlessly with the 2560x1080 but not at all on any of me 1440 screens via HDMI.
So for some it may be well worth the strange aspect ratio to gain the plug and play functionality on some fairly decent still relevant laptops (the original 13" Yoga for example).
I'd love to see 1440P on a high quality 21" screen for some $400. 3360 x 1440 p sounds beautiful too. For me these 29" 1080p widescreen have pixels that are entirely too chunky... but I suppose for frame rate purposes having 25% fewer pixels to push would be a boon games.
2014 should be a year of much overdue innovation in the PC monitor space. I'm loving the 4k displays from Dell so far and can't wait to see what ASUS, Apple, and others will come up with.
dszc - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link
Chris and Jarred,I can't thank you guys enough for your continuing excellent display reviews. You continue to be my trusted "go-to" source.
I have a request. I'd like to know what TV I can use as a monitor, so I'd like to see some tested. What I need doesn't need to be reference quality level, like some of the higher-end EIZOs or NECs. But it does need to be in the same ballpark as these: HP 27xi, AOC i2757fh, ViewSonic VX2770Smh-LED. We need a very accurate representation of what our customers are likely to see on the web in the sRGB color space.
I suspect that there are LOTS of folks out there who would like to have an accurate 1080p sRGB monitor in the 50-60" size that can be comfortably viewed by a few people simultaneously, whether it be a workgroup or small conference setting, or a home family room, or gaming group.
Anyway, please move this request up as high as you see fit on your list. Currently, we have lots of reviews and information on 20-30" monitors that are really largely similar. We could REALLY use your help on a bigger size class (40-60" TV size) of monitors.
Thanks for your consideration.
Ever a fan of Anandtech,
Dave