Sooooo. Now I'm sitting here with my 3rd monitor....
My second NEC 90GX2 and a LG L1970HR.
Side by side, clone mode. Makes me feel like a giddy little geek.
BUT 2 monitors enter, one monitor leaves.
First impressions:
NEC feels more solid and it's easier to rotate and tilt. The LG is is very thin. The base is VERY tight. You won't be knocking it away from where you set it, that's for sure. It took me like 5 minutes to unlock it from the collapsed position to get it set up. Like I said, tight. (Couldn't collapse the base again after opening it).
LG has no DVI cable and uses a power brick (if you hate those beware).
NEC has USB ports (good I was running out). Ports are on the back of the LG base, easy: plug in and you're set. NEC has this funky thing where you thread the cables up the base, connect under the pannel (turn it over to find what you're plugging in), leave some slack, attach the monitor's bottom panel, put a cover over the arm and whew.
LG looks better out of the box at default settings. Nice vibrant picture, nice contrast (as expected).
NEC is nice too, but maybe the edge to LG for naturalness. Not sure there. The LG blacks seem a bit light.
OH yeah this is the second NEC with no dead pixels, LG 1 dead that won't repair in the top left 1".
Lets tweak:
Oh god oh god oh god someone spank LG. Those under monitor buttons are so hard on the fingers to use. The menu system is a bit awkward too.
NEC's little eraser head control is sweetness. A little inaccurate on occasion but very pleasant to use. The controls are also in the front instead of under the monitor so hopeless tweakers have good access.
NEC has 5 useful modes for brightness/contrast and you can tweak any of them as you like (that is your brightness/contrast will effect all mode presets). Ignore the names, movie is bad for movies and good for text, standard is good for movies, different games benefit from different modes.
LG f-engine: 3 modes + one user defined. If you tweak the brightness/contrast manually you are no longer using the f-engine's modes. If you switch the f-engine setting your contrast/brightness settings are disabled.
THX optimode. Not the best method for adjusting monitors really but it'll do for my retardedness.
NEC Contrast 40% Brightness 50% (you can go much higher if you like in your face bright, it's all up to your taste (which helps if you have a bit of clear on the clearcoat). I have it at 40% Bright 30% Contrast at the moment). Movie mode and Standard both look pretty good on these settings.
LG weighs in with a Contrast of 60% and Brightness of 50%. I've brightened it a little for typing this.
Movies: Star Wars Ep3... NEC's movie mode looks ok, Text mode seems a bit better quality. If you like dark blacks, you can go with photo mode but I think it's a bit innacurate. LG, looks very nice, possibly better than any of the NEC modes, it's hard to say. The LG seems to have less of that sparkly artifact the faster panels are prone to. PowerDVD messes up the brightness if you try to overlay both monitors at the same time. I'm giving the edge to the LG here. I'm not swearing to any of this, you'll have to decide for yourself really.
Web, text, desktop use: NEC wins it. Nice on the eyes, great contrast for reading. LG seems a little washed out. None of the f-modes help. My manual attempts look worse.
Dr. M's synthetic black test. I don't know if this shows off backlight bleeding or if it's just inconsistency of lighting. Using a pure black screen I twiddle the modes, contrast and brightness. (How's that for scientific?)
My previous NEC blew at this. The new one is much more uniform. It is moves towards brighter at the bottom in a smooth gradient (most noticeable in game mode (which is fairly bright)) with a thin brighter patch at the very top. This is minimized a great deal in some of the preset modes and with the contrast/brightness I've set. Overall not bad, not perfect, but pretty good.
LG, at it's current settings shows a very similar patch of light along the top as with the NEC, but also one along the left edge. Not much else to say about it.
Color: Don't ask. I'm slightly color blind so I won't judge accuracy, but the NEC seems more vibrant. I like the clearcoat on it, if that makes me shallow TGH, I'm ok with that. The reds are a little more "CRT monitor" looking (kind of bright like neon is bright but not that intense). LG shows reds that are deep but slightly dull. Subjectively I like the NEC colors better, I suspect the LG is more accurate, but I don't care, I like the vibrancy of the 90gx2.
Ghosting: Pixperan... looks like a single ghost behind the car test for the NEC, ghostless for the LG. LG wins no question, but the NEC did well.
I didn't fire up any actual games (did play the internal Pixperan one), but I've pretty much covered the bases here.
The viewing angles seem similar, scrolling text seems similar.
The LG is going back (if I can get it in the box again). The NEC, even with it's DVI port tied behind it's back (it's on my analog output). It is just more pleasing to me.
I wish it were as fast as the LG, but that's not enough reason to keep it, NEC edges it out nearly everywhere else.
If gaming and movies is 95% of what you do and ghosting annoys you, the LG is a good decision.
If you 50% game like I do and then split your time across productivity and other uses the NEC might be a better choice.