Originally posted by: acrabb
XT - YOU WERE RIGHT!!! I waited too long for Dell to "make things right". So, they left me hanging - needing a monitor before this weekend (although they promised a callback within 24 hrs on Tues, they called at 5pm on Friday). So, I was forced to drive to the nearest city (~70 miles), to shop for the best monitor (best deal) that I could find. It became apparent that I would have the Samsung LTM210M2 panel (Samsung 215TW; HP F2105; Gateway 2185) - I could not find any S-IPS panels. So, I purchased the 215TW at Compusa - sales rep told me to buy a pack of gum to put the purchase over $500 and I recieved a $50 gift card. FWIW - earlier that day Circuit City sold their last "Open Box" HP F2105 for $310!
Now about the Samsung 215TW - it's ok. Maybe, my expectations are too high, but it doesn't make me oh and ahh. Issue #1 - during the calibration (Monaco), the final adjustment has the brightness set on 1 (scale is 0-100). So, this baby has plenty of room to go up, but I hope there is never a need to go down on brightness! Issue #2 - maybe this isn't specific to this monitor, but adjusting the R value was not moving the slider on the red bar - ok it didnt move it much. I had to center it by adjusting the blue and green. So, now I wonder (because I can probably stay centered by moving red from ~25 to 60+) if something is wrong with my monitor; I havent actually tried adjusting the red it since I finished - I am basing this on the fact that the earlier adjustment was not moving the slider). Finally, the calibration has left the screen on my laptop looking like crap! Everything is way too blue! I am a sports photographer (hobbiest), and I like to take pictures and do a quick color edit and post the photos to the web. Then, when/if orders are placed, I hook up to the external monitor to do final editing of photos before uploading to the printer. So, my exclussive (almost) use, is to ensure that I have good color (my on monitor edit matches the printer). However, the profile for the external monitor leaves the laptop in really bad shape. I have tried applying different profiles at different times, but nothing seems to be working for me. Am I doing something wrong? Does anyone have a suggestion of how I can use one profile for the laptop and another for the external monitor? And another thing the dE was ~3.5 - 4 (I forgot the exact #), but it was worst than the Dell PVA that I sent back.
I would say this is definitely user error (no offense).
The 215TW should calibrate to <1 dE94. The low brightness value is really no issue. My 20WMGX2 calibrates to only around 9 brightness at 120 nits. The contrast is usually sky high (97). I've noticed the color controls are a little stubborn on my LCD during calibration too, and they don't seem to "take" immediately, but I believe it is because of some threshold ("bug" or "feature" in colorimeter or software), not a problem with the monitor.
What software are you using?
And what colorimeter model?
Gretag-Macbeth Eye One Display 2 + basICColor allows me to get my LCD at <0.40 dE94 for most tones. You should be able to use a different profile for laptop and monitor. How exactly I don't know. It depends on your graphics driver. I don't believe that Windows has a function to set gamma ramp based on display # so you better hope the driver does. I know NVIDIA drivers can do it without trouble.
I have little doubt you'll be able to calibrate the 215TW to amazing settings.