WOW, 10e, your here too. I may have missed your name before, as I tend to skim.
BTW-Iron Man is a great movie. Everyone should buy the DVD release to play on their new monitors! That's me keeping it relevant.
I am going to buy the standard color gamut NEC2490, over the wide color gamut of the NEC2690.
I have been reading up on wide color gamut monitors, and while they are the future, the future may not be here yet. I gather the problem comes from the fact that a lot of software is still not color managed. Standard color gamut monitors have the same basic issue that wide color gamut monitors have, that they don't match colors perfectly without color aware software, but standard color gamut monitors are better at masking the issue by being a close enough hardware match. By improving the color gamut, the colors are better, but you are also changing the hardware, unbalancing your "hardware match", which highlights why software color management is necessarily.
Still, the fact remains that the old way hides this problem better, though you are limiting yourself color wise for increased compatibility. When everything is auto color managed via software in the future, wide color gamut monitors will offer better more accurate color without the headaches of today. Right now, only some of the software is color aware, and that's why we have issues between programs with wide color gamut monitors. But since I don't have a time machine, and can't live in this color utopia yet, I will be going with the NEC2490-even if it means I lose some color gamut. Plus, the NEC2490 is a little cheaper, has a smaller pixel pitch (which I prefer), and is rumored to have less manufacturing defects. That said, I have not used a wide color gamut monitor yet, so I am comparing the two options on paper only.
Did I mention how cool Iron Man was? Batman Begins quality-I kid you not.