Originally posted by: Zebo
None of the monitors I mentioned are close to $2000. For example the
Lacie 320
which comes with a $250 colorimeter and $200 hood is $1250. When you consider the "freebies" the monitor is more like $800, not too far away from mainstream 20's. Granted it's not a $400 LP2065 but it's a lot better too. No lotto, grade A panel better electronics and such. Toms in every review still uses the 320 as their top reference point for color quality.
Well you're right, it is pretty 'cheap' without the other stuff. I haven't seen a single review of the LaCie 320, though. I don't recall seeing it in THG's reviews ever, but if you could provide a link that would be great.
I just don't understand how you can say best regardless of price and not include professional monitors like these. It would be more accurate to say best price/performance that way you could include TN's too which should be on any recommend list with a caveat about price/performance.
By and large, I really dislike TNs and make an effort to avoid them whenever possible. That doesn't mean some won't be on the list, but not too many will be (except in Gaming where they practically dominate). For somebody who is not willing to spend $250 on their monitor, the LCDs under that price point don't vary much in quality: that is, they are all of fairly poor color quality.
You could say my list is rather utilitarianistic, but that's all I really intended it to be. Simply put, the market for those LCDs is so small that I just haven't gathered the time to bother maintaining a pro photo editing section. In addition to that, like I already said, the reviews are pretty sparse on the high-quality CCFL pro LCDs. The LED ones are actually reviewed quite often, but these are way expensive for most people.
For now a simple note will just have to suffice. That is, when buying a photo editing LCD, please:
a) Reply to the forum so that you can get a good, accurate recommendation, that is if I can even provide one for your needs.
b) Reply to the forum so I know there's still a market for such LCD recommendations.
That I recall, I have not had a single person inquire about 'pro' photo editing LCDs. It would take a while to search the whole thread for such questions, but if there was such a question it was quite a while ago. I can tell you with certainty that if my memory serves me right, I have never had anyone with a budget of over $1500 for any LCD except an HTPC LCD. That is, never $1500 for anything under 32" or so.
When people want to spend this much on an LCD, it simply needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Very rarely does someone at home
only do photo editing (and to tell you the truth the LaCie could be horrible with regards to ghosting). Most photo editing/business users have contracts with NEC/Eizo/LaCie already thus bypassing any need (or even want) of research automatically. Being tied to a company like that, they might not even have a choice.
The LaCie 320 is actually an odd duck in that it is not a whole lot more expensive than some consumer LCDs. So yes I would consider placing that in the prosumer section, but again I have yet to come across a review for it. Lately I have not had the time to dig deep like I used to, so if you ever come across deltaE, contrast, and gamma measurements for it I'd be grateful. I can say that I have not seen it at the usual sources. A full review is much more preferable than a brief mention of the dE94 measurement.
So, in a nutshell, I do not have a pro photo editing section because:
a) I do not feel comfortable recommending LCDs that are not often discussed and critiqued.
b) The pro photo editing market is very small with most needs already satisfied via a contract or otherwise.
c) People with such needs should definitely be replying to the thread and making a special inquiry. Even people with needs already covered by the general recommendation list in here ask.
d) The monitors in this sector are way out of most peoples' budgets.
e) These LCDs, after calibration, are rarely much better than the IPS LCDs recommended in the prosumer photo editing section.
f) The demand is low, and digging up reliable or full info on them is often impossible. Finding brief mentions of calibration results for these monitors on Danish, Polish, Czech, or Chinese sites is time consuming since I don't speak anything close to any of those languages.
g) They are in a completely different sector, one I don't specialize in. I can't go off "previous experiences", "precedents", "trends", or "patterns" of any kind when I recommend these LCDs.
You may think I tend to only spend time on what the majority wants, here. I will have to say that's mostly true as a matter of fact, but if once in a while I need to assist someone with their research of pro photo editing LCDs I would certainly not mind that. At the moment I just do not see the demand nor the data I need to maintain a section geared toward the general public for it. What I will do is make a stub section with a couple notes, including a request for them to reply specifically with their exact needs and an offer to assist them in any research they need, to the best of my ability.
If there are LCDs that fit the prosumer section under the $1200 or so threshold, then by all means I would love to add them. But with such expensive LCDs I can only do that if there is a good full review of it. I have not seen such a review of the LaCie 320. My aim is to keep the recommendations highly accurate, and the rate of error low. In order to do that, I will have to shun the "true pro" section for now.
FWIW, Tom's actually has a new review out just today:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/08/four-wide-screen-19-monitors-compared/
I do plan to add the NEC 26" as soon as I get a chance to look up some more info about it. I hope I answered your question. I intend to keep the prosumer section as accurate as possible. I also intend to somehow satisfy the increasingly small population who wants photo editing LCDs. I'm all about trying to make everyone happy and unfortunately that is unfeasible at the moment. Right now I can not think of exactly how I will satisfy this particular sector, but it probably won't be by recommending specific models. We'll see there, you've certainly got me thinking.