NEC 2690WUXi mini review
Disclaimer: this is not a comprehensive review. Due to time constraints, I?m just sharing a few impressions, in a brief but fairly structured manner. If you want ?pro? user reviews, read xtknight?s review or one of the 3 user reviews on widescreen gaming forum. This mini review evaluates the LCD from a general user/gamer perspective.
Packaging
The box is enormous. It?s particularly wide (or ?thick?) since the monitor?s stand is not detached inside. In general, the NEC is well protected there. What surprised me a bit, was the lack of soft polishing/cleaning cloth inside, an item that?s commonly found in most LCD packages nowadays. Cables are solid, the manual as well.
Overall build quality, connectivity, ergonomics and OSD
Solid metal stand, a thick, massive back cabinet but with a slim bezel. Tilt, swivel, pivot, height adjustment. Only DVI-D, DVI-I and D-sub. No HDMI or component, etc. Connectivity is limited but the OSD is IMO great. Simple menu, advanced menu, tons of options including light sensor, backlight uniformity compensation and overdrive. It?s strictly my PC monitor so I don?t really mourn the lack of some connectors. No audible buzzing sound BTW, unless someone really touches the monitor?s back with an ear
Contrast, black level and backlight uniformity
Contrast is more than sufficient, better than on my previous LCD (TN panel). Blacks are better as well, maybe not much deeper but less prone to bleeding light and discoloration. No black crush effect makes me gladly accept the slightly inferior blacks in comparison to S-PVA. Uniform backlight when displaying black screens, even at night. The A-TW Polarizer makes black look good even from angles.
Colors and gradients
Awesome colors. After just brightness and contrast reduction to tolerable levels, colors are juicy and vibrant without being oversaturated. Sure, some reds or greens are very pronounced but I didn?t even feel the need to switch to sRGB mode ? it made colors look paler and a bit washed out. Photos and movies look great, with no reddish faces and the like. White is true ?alpine? white. Games look awesome ? not oversaturated but very vivid. Without calibration, colors may not be extremely accurate, but I don?t care. They do look quite natural, balanced and vibrant, and this is enough for me as a general, non-professional user. Grays and other gradient transitions are smooth, without even faint banding. The great thing is that unlike on some cheaper monitors, brightness and contrast settings really make it possible to achieve a tolerable luminance without losing darkest or brighest gradients.
Viewing angles
Oh my goodness, what a relief in comparison to my old TN. No yellowish hue and abrupt contrast loss horizontally. No crazy darkening when moving my head down slightly. In LotRO, I can still see stars at night when lowering my line of sight. Colors stay true, I?m no longer a slave of the perfect ?straight on? sitting position. Plus, when viewing the screen straight on, no more vertically shifting gradient on uniform surfaces. Once IPS, always IPS, I guess (no rhyme intended )
Text quality and scaling
Sharp text, adjustable from absurd blurriness to absurd sharpness A perfect setting is around the default 26.2%. Fonts are large thanks to 0.287 mm pixel pitch. Great readability and viewing comfort. Much better than on 24-inchers for prolonged text/spreadsheet use or even gaming where 2D elements tend to be small (maps, chat logs, icons, etc.). Scaling is great as well, image stays surprisingly sharp in lower resolutions. Scaling is also fully customizable, 1:1 pixel mapping works flawlessly, you can even specify whether the borders should be black or dark gray (adjustable).
Pixel response
Before gaming, I turned overdrive on in the advanced OSD. I switched to 2690WUXi from a 2 ms rocket, namely the 226BW. The monitor is better than I expected in terms of responsiveness. It doesn?t ghost, OD doesn?t produce artifacts, it?s just smooth sailing. It handles dark-dark transitions exceptionally well. Motion blur is more pronounced than on 2 ms TN, which is visible in some games (some racing or FPS games) but in others, I could barely tell the difference. Anyway, it?s not intrusive and it doesn?t hamper pure gaming pleasure. It?s also a bit amplified by the sheer size of the monitor. IMHO, all games are fully playable, including FPS.
Input lag
On paper, same as on the best 24? S-PVAs (around 2 frames on average). In practice, I definitely felt it more on PVA (NEC 2470WNX and Eizo S2431W, which I also tested). On the NEC, the lag is perceptible in some games and some situations, but it?s not anything that would spoil my gaming. On the desktop, it?s practically not there. In shooter games, it?s so faint it?s barely noticeable. Online play works OK, I didn?t feel like ?too late at the trigger? despite being a former Q3 CPMA hardcore gamer. I won?t claim the lag doesn?t exist but I really doubt anyone (maybe except for professional cyber athletes sticking with CRT or gaming on strictly zero-lag LCDs) would be bothered.
SUMMARY
One of my best PC-related purchases ever and worth every penny (and there are quite a lot of them to pay). Awesome size, image quality and really good responsiveness as well. I think I won?t even look at non-IPS screens anymore. This LCD should be my perfect bridge to new technologies like OLED, SED or whatever. I was a bit afraid of input lag, wide gamut issues and subpar panel speed, but the 2690WUXi literally crushed my fears. It?s a fantastic allround monitor that can be used for gaming. Sure, there IS room for improvement in some areas, but no perfect LCD exists, and having tested multiple monitors recently, this one seems like a really good decision
Disclaimer: this is not a comprehensive review. Due to time constraints, I?m just sharing a few impressions, in a brief but fairly structured manner. If you want ?pro? user reviews, read xtknight?s review or one of the 3 user reviews on widescreen gaming forum. This mini review evaluates the LCD from a general user/gamer perspective.
Packaging
The box is enormous. It?s particularly wide (or ?thick?) since the monitor?s stand is not detached inside. In general, the NEC is well protected there. What surprised me a bit, was the lack of soft polishing/cleaning cloth inside, an item that?s commonly found in most LCD packages nowadays. Cables are solid, the manual as well.
Overall build quality, connectivity, ergonomics and OSD
Solid metal stand, a thick, massive back cabinet but with a slim bezel. Tilt, swivel, pivot, height adjustment. Only DVI-D, DVI-I and D-sub. No HDMI or component, etc. Connectivity is limited but the OSD is IMO great. Simple menu, advanced menu, tons of options including light sensor, backlight uniformity compensation and overdrive. It?s strictly my PC monitor so I don?t really mourn the lack of some connectors. No audible buzzing sound BTW, unless someone really touches the monitor?s back with an ear
Contrast, black level and backlight uniformity
Contrast is more than sufficient, better than on my previous LCD (TN panel). Blacks are better as well, maybe not much deeper but less prone to bleeding light and discoloration. No black crush effect makes me gladly accept the slightly inferior blacks in comparison to S-PVA. Uniform backlight when displaying black screens, even at night. The A-TW Polarizer makes black look good even from angles.
Colors and gradients
Awesome colors. After just brightness and contrast reduction to tolerable levels, colors are juicy and vibrant without being oversaturated. Sure, some reds or greens are very pronounced but I didn?t even feel the need to switch to sRGB mode ? it made colors look paler and a bit washed out. Photos and movies look great, with no reddish faces and the like. White is true ?alpine? white. Games look awesome ? not oversaturated but very vivid. Without calibration, colors may not be extremely accurate, but I don?t care. They do look quite natural, balanced and vibrant, and this is enough for me as a general, non-professional user. Grays and other gradient transitions are smooth, without even faint banding. The great thing is that unlike on some cheaper monitors, brightness and contrast settings really make it possible to achieve a tolerable luminance without losing darkest or brighest gradients.
Viewing angles
Oh my goodness, what a relief in comparison to my old TN. No yellowish hue and abrupt contrast loss horizontally. No crazy darkening when moving my head down slightly. In LotRO, I can still see stars at night when lowering my line of sight. Colors stay true, I?m no longer a slave of the perfect ?straight on? sitting position. Plus, when viewing the screen straight on, no more vertically shifting gradient on uniform surfaces. Once IPS, always IPS, I guess (no rhyme intended )
Text quality and scaling
Sharp text, adjustable from absurd blurriness to absurd sharpness A perfect setting is around the default 26.2%. Fonts are large thanks to 0.287 mm pixel pitch. Great readability and viewing comfort. Much better than on 24-inchers for prolonged text/spreadsheet use or even gaming where 2D elements tend to be small (maps, chat logs, icons, etc.). Scaling is great as well, image stays surprisingly sharp in lower resolutions. Scaling is also fully customizable, 1:1 pixel mapping works flawlessly, you can even specify whether the borders should be black or dark gray (adjustable).
Pixel response
Before gaming, I turned overdrive on in the advanced OSD. I switched to 2690WUXi from a 2 ms rocket, namely the 226BW. The monitor is better than I expected in terms of responsiveness. It doesn?t ghost, OD doesn?t produce artifacts, it?s just smooth sailing. It handles dark-dark transitions exceptionally well. Motion blur is more pronounced than on 2 ms TN, which is visible in some games (some racing or FPS games) but in others, I could barely tell the difference. Anyway, it?s not intrusive and it doesn?t hamper pure gaming pleasure. It?s also a bit amplified by the sheer size of the monitor. IMHO, all games are fully playable, including FPS.
Input lag
On paper, same as on the best 24? S-PVAs (around 2 frames on average). In practice, I definitely felt it more on PVA (NEC 2470WNX and Eizo S2431W, which I also tested). On the NEC, the lag is perceptible in some games and some situations, but it?s not anything that would spoil my gaming. On the desktop, it?s practically not there. In shooter games, it?s so faint it?s barely noticeable. Online play works OK, I didn?t feel like ?too late at the trigger? despite being a former Q3 CPMA hardcore gamer. I won?t claim the lag doesn?t exist but I really doubt anyone (maybe except for professional cyber athletes sticking with CRT or gaming on strictly zero-lag LCDs) would be bothered.
SUMMARY
One of my best PC-related purchases ever and worth every penny (and there are quite a lot of them to pay). Awesome size, image quality and really good responsiveness as well. I think I won?t even look at non-IPS screens anymore. This LCD should be my perfect bridge to new technologies like OLED, SED or whatever. I was a bit afraid of input lag, wide gamut issues and subpar panel speed, but the 2690WUXi literally crushed my fears. It?s a fantastic allround monitor that can be used for gaming. Sure, there IS room for improvement in some areas, but no perfect LCD exists, and having tested multiple monitors recently, this one seems like a really good decision