I've been using a 19" CRT for the past decade or so and finally decided that I needed to replace it. I ended up buying the NEC LCD2490WUXi-BK; it just arrived today and so far I'm pretty pleased with it. However, since I just got it and I have a 15-day window in which I can return it, I've been scrutinizing it for flaws and have discovered a few things. Being new to LCD use I'm not sure what problems are normal and what problems might be cause for RMA, so I'd like to hear any LCD users' views on them.
The monitor is set to factory settings except 0% brightness, and 43.9% contrast. The DVI cable is plugged into the DVI-I port on monitor. I also changed LED color to green and 30% brightness.
Issues:
-The screen appears slightly pincushioned along left side and top. That is, the left side seems to bow slightly inwards at the center-top and center-left of the screen relative to the left and right-top and top and bottom-left. It's not terrible but I wonder if it's normal.
-The left side of the screen has a slightly cooler color (bluer) color cast whereas the right side has a slightly warmer (yellower) color cast, which is noticeable when the entire screen is set to a solid color between mid-greys to white. For example, it's noticeable on the anandtech.com screen that I'm typing this post into right now. Turning on ColorComp doesn't change this.
-At a relatively narrow range of solid mid-greys (i.e., entire screen set to solid block of mid-grey) my eyes pick out a slight light fluttering moving up the screen. Here is an animated gif that somewhat conveys what I'm seeing, though in reality it's even fainter than this and is not uniform across the entire screen. At least, it doesn't appear to be uniform: my eyes pick out the fluttering at different parts at different times. Maybe related to refresh rate?
-While making the above animated gif I encountered some strangeness. In Photoshop I created a 1920x1200 file and filled the screen with a repeating pattern of 1px white/1px black horizontal bars. So it looks like a black-and-white interlaced screen pattern. First of all, I have Photoshop maximized but the window for the file isn't, so there is some horizontal and vertical screen space outside of the file window. Now, when I zoom in to 200% the striped pattern extends vertically (not horizontally) beyond the boundaries of the file window. The pattern is very faint, but if I look very closely I can see it below and above the window in Photoshop's application background, which is set to a solid mid-grey. It doesn' extend to the left or right though, only up and down in line with the file window. It's also visible at 600% zoom; I haven't noticed it at other zoom levels.
Even further, when I zoom in to 300% the monitor emits a faint, fast high-frequency chirping/whining tone, and again at 400% although at a slightly different pitch, and at 500% yet again at a slightly different pitch. At 600%, 700% and 800% the tones get even louder, and are different at each zoom level. Then at 1200% there is no noise. If I use the mouse wheel to zoom at odd zoom levels (like 114.23% or something) and go all the way from 100% to 1600% I get a progressively lower range of pitches emitted. I can't hear most of the noises when my head is a normal distance from the monitor, but 600%, 700% and 800% are audible even if my head is several feet from the monitor. 800% is definitely the loudest. Changing the monitor's brightness doesn't lessen the noise, although reducing the contrast does, but only when the contrast is so low as to be unacceptable. My final observation about this is that the greater the contrast between the stripes, the louder the tone. So it's loudest when it's black and white, and gradually fades to nothing when either the white stripes are darkened or the dark stripes lightened (either by changing the colors in Photoshop or adjusting the monitor settings).
Any insight into any of these issues would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
The monitor is set to factory settings except 0% brightness, and 43.9% contrast. The DVI cable is plugged into the DVI-I port on monitor. I also changed LED color to green and 30% brightness.
Issues:
-The screen appears slightly pincushioned along left side and top. That is, the left side seems to bow slightly inwards at the center-top and center-left of the screen relative to the left and right-top and top and bottom-left. It's not terrible but I wonder if it's normal.
-The left side of the screen has a slightly cooler color (bluer) color cast whereas the right side has a slightly warmer (yellower) color cast, which is noticeable when the entire screen is set to a solid color between mid-greys to white. For example, it's noticeable on the anandtech.com screen that I'm typing this post into right now. Turning on ColorComp doesn't change this.
-At a relatively narrow range of solid mid-greys (i.e., entire screen set to solid block of mid-grey) my eyes pick out a slight light fluttering moving up the screen. Here is an animated gif that somewhat conveys what I'm seeing, though in reality it's even fainter than this and is not uniform across the entire screen. At least, it doesn't appear to be uniform: my eyes pick out the fluttering at different parts at different times. Maybe related to refresh rate?
-While making the above animated gif I encountered some strangeness. In Photoshop I created a 1920x1200 file and filled the screen with a repeating pattern of 1px white/1px black horizontal bars. So it looks like a black-and-white interlaced screen pattern. First of all, I have Photoshop maximized but the window for the file isn't, so there is some horizontal and vertical screen space outside of the file window. Now, when I zoom in to 200% the striped pattern extends vertically (not horizontally) beyond the boundaries of the file window. The pattern is very faint, but if I look very closely I can see it below and above the window in Photoshop's application background, which is set to a solid mid-grey. It doesn' extend to the left or right though, only up and down in line with the file window. It's also visible at 600% zoom; I haven't noticed it at other zoom levels.
Even further, when I zoom in to 300% the monitor emits a faint, fast high-frequency chirping/whining tone, and again at 400% although at a slightly different pitch, and at 500% yet again at a slightly different pitch. At 600%, 700% and 800% the tones get even louder, and are different at each zoom level. Then at 1200% there is no noise. If I use the mouse wheel to zoom at odd zoom levels (like 114.23% or something) and go all the way from 100% to 1600% I get a progressively lower range of pitches emitted. I can't hear most of the noises when my head is a normal distance from the monitor, but 600%, 700% and 800% are audible even if my head is several feet from the monitor. 800% is definitely the loudest. Changing the monitor's brightness doesn't lessen the noise, although reducing the contrast does, but only when the contrast is so low as to be unacceptable. My final observation about this is that the greater the contrast between the stripes, the louder the tone. So it's loudest when it's black and white, and gradually fades to nothing when either the white stripes are darkened or the dark stripes lightened (either by changing the colors in Photoshop or adjusting the monitor settings).
Any insight into any of these issues would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.