Any good monitor calibrators in the $100 range?

[Corporate Thug]

Looking at the Datacolor Spyder4Express S4X100 or ColorMunki Smile. Thoughts?

 

[geoxile]

If you're going to spend the money on a spyder I'd recommend spending the extra $30 on a Spyder4Pro at least. Last time I checked the express barely has any options.

If you can stand using dispcalGUI then you could try it with the Colormunki Smile, I personally never could figure out how to get it working with my spyder.

Also, word of advise, fullscreen programs with gamma correction (most games) will override your color profile. Sometimes you can add -nogamma to the target and use http://goebish.free.fr/cpk/, but otherwise you might want to look into PowerStrip.

 

[amenx]

I would go for Colormunki Display over Spyder 4 Pro. The Colormunki Display has the same sensor as the premium X-Rite i1Display Pro which is often used in monitor reviews and is noted for its accuracy. They both appear to be identical but main difference between the 2 is the i1Display Pro does the job faster and has different software to the Colormunki. Either way the bundled X-rite software imo is inferior to DispcalGUI/Argyll CMS (freeware).

p.s. sorry I see you may have a budget limit of a $100 and the Colormunki Display is a bit more than that but is far better than the Colormunki Smile.

 

[Eric1987]

Do they really make THAT much of a difference to spend over 100$ on one?

 

[Arkanius]

Do they really make THAT much of a difference to spend over 100$ on one?

If you do color sensitive work, yes.

 

[Corporate Thug]

If you're going to spend the money on a spyder I'd recommend spending the extra $30 on a Spyder4Pro at least. Last time I checked the express barely has any options.

If you can stand using dispcalGUI then you could try it with the Colormunki Smile, I personally never could figure out how to get it working with my spyder.

Also, word of advise, fullscreen programs with gamma correction (most games) will override your color profile. Sometimes you can add -nogamma to the target and use http://goebish.free.fr/cpk/, but otherwise you might want to look into PowerStrip.

Damn, I had no idea that gamma correction overrides the color profile...

 

[Corporate Thug]

Do they really make THAT much of a difference to spend over 100$ on one?

Take a look a some pre and post calibration pics...quite a difference. It's one of those things that you buy and it will be with you for a loooong time so in the long run, its not a whole lot of money for accurate colors.

 

[ZeroRift]

I'm kinda in the same boat here. I really demand proper contrast, gamma and accurate greyscale because I'm sensitive to blacks that look grey, and colors that are washed out.

OTOH, I really don't care about gamut (sRGB is plenty) or color accuracy (<7 dE is plenty) because I'm not sensitive to that kind of display error in games.

I once had access to an x1 pro because of where I worked, and loved the results, but I can't really justify the cost of a new one for myself given that I'm not a graphic artist.

For these reasons, I would only calibrate my displays around once annually, so I don't really care how difficult the calibration process is so long as the results are good.

Are the freeware options really as good as the bundled software? Is there some benchmark we can look at for this to compare?

Is the sensor in the Colormunki Smile the same as the x1 / Colormunki Display, or is it a lower quality device? Would it matter so long as color errors are not the priority?

(I don't mean to hijack, but I'm hoping this information will be helpful to the OP as well)

 

[amenx]

Are the freeware options really as good as the bundled software? Is there some benchmark we can look at for this to compare?

DispcalGUI/Argyll CMS is superior to the bundled X-rite software for Colormunki Display and the i1Display Pro. It gives you far more control and options to fine tune your calibrations. The bundled software is basically a very simple minimalistic program that has never given me good results. There is also HCFR, which is an excellent free program for measuring (not calibrating) the results and gives you graphs, measures, CIE charts, etc.

Is the sensor in the Colormunki Smile the same as the x1 / Colormunki Display, or is it a lower quality device? Would it matter so long as color errors are not the priority?

I doubt it at its low price, it looks like a different device as well. Would it matter? I cant say, it depends on the individual and priorities. For me I think it would matter as I can notice even small adjustments in my calibrations (ie, 6500k to 6600k).

 

[amenx]

Also, word of advise, fullscreen programs with gamma correction (most games) will override your color profile. Sometimes you can add -nogamma to the target and use http://goebish.free.fr/cpk/, but otherwise you might want to look into PowerStrip.

Theres also ColorSustainer which I use:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=386325