Back to the boards then. Hi Zebo. Hi xtknight. Hi guys.
Sorry for leaving the boards just after my last upgrade so abruptly, sorry for having X unanswered PMs in my inbox. My life has been quite interesting and turbulent lately - I changed my job, etc.
Long overdue - my impressions regarding the 90GX2 monitor made by NEC.
NEC MultiSync 90GX2
Looks, build quality, ergonomy
The monitor looks very nice. Black, high quality plastic with a silverish frame around the screen. Nicely designed, sleek buttons, dimmable blue LED. Classy.
No rattles, no squeaking, base is pretty stable but adjustment options are very limited. No pivot (not that I care), no height adjustment, just tilt and swivel. I was afraid of having no height adjustment first but it turned out to be a non-issue. The solid viewing angle + tilt clearly make height adjustment redundant in my case.
Viewing angles
Very good for a TN panel. Surprisingly good. At extreme lateral angles, the screen gets a bit yellowish but you can even watch movies with friends, and no one should complain. It's really good. Vertical is TN-typically narrower but still suprisingly good. Incomparably better than my old laptop's screen and all TN LCDs of my friends. Playing slower paced games like Secret Files Tunguska or Heroes V, I have the tendency to slide down my chair a bit and look at the screen from slightly below the optimal point. No problem. The 90GX2 is really a damn good TN in this area.
Backlight uniformity, black levels and dead pixels
I had the luxury of being able to cherrypick my LCD directly at my vendor but he showed me the first one, and I knew I didn't have to look further. Backlight is close to perfect, very homogenous. Just along the lower edge of the screen, there is a very, very faint trail of light but it's barely visible, even in very dark games or when watching movies. Brightness out of the box was eye-burning so reducing it further improved the already solid blacks and backlight impression. Blacks are of course LCD-like and not as deep as my Trinitron CRT's but fine. No dead pixels, just a flawless screen.
Colors and OptiClear
The specsheet says 16.77M colors. Weird since all other TNs are 6 bit + dithering = 16.2M. It must be true though. I compared this LCD to ViewSonic VX922, and the difference was stunning. First off, the glossy OptiClear surface really seems to animate and saturate all the colors. Second, the NEC had far less banding, colors seemed more natural and not washed out. In this area, it must be really the best TN panel out there. I don't know which tricks NEC used to make it display 16.8M colors, but they work. The colors are really awfully close to 20WGX2, the model based on AS-IPS. Quite impressive.
As for OptiClear, it can be a bit annoying to users who are used to non-glossy LCDs. Coming straight from a CRT, it doesn't bother me. On dark backgrounds, sometimes you do see your face or room but no problem, as I play in a darkened room anyway. I have a window behind my back so any other option would be out of question. In normal every day use (like now - incandescent light), the glossy finish does not make ANY trouble at all. It's really fine, I didn't even have to get used to it.
Video performance
LCD-like. Noise is OK but noticeable, movies did certainly look a bit better on my CRT. No ghosting, nice colors but slight noise, "blockbuilding". No huge artifacts. In general, solid performance but not stellar. Some slower displays w/o overdrive might be better here.
Gaming performance
Superb. No perceptible input lag, very good blacks, colors and most importantly, no ghosting. As for blur, it took me a while to get used to it, since I'd been a hardcore CRT gamer, but after a while I adjusted to the slightly different feeling. Some minor ghosting only appears on bright (e.g. light grey) backgrounds, some transitions are simply longer. On the whole, you won't notice any problems in games. FPS games are pretty damn perfect, even Q3 CPMA feels fine. Strategies and RPGs of course flawless. Racing games and space sims are great as well. You have to accept a bit of blur in sports games (like during fast camera swings in FIFA or PES) but after a while, you don't even notice it anymore, just the first few hours after a switch from a CRT require an adjustment.
Overall, whatever I throw at this LCD, it handles the game with ease.
In a nutshell:
+ great colors
+ solid blacks
+ fantastic panel speed
+ nice looks
+ awesome gaming
- OptiClear may annoy some users in some situations
- still not a CRT in some ghost-prone moments
- no pivot or height adjustment for those who care
- large dot pitch may require some time to get used to
- video performance just OK
I can recommend this monitor to any gamer out there, even to a CRT user. However, you may want to wait for the slightly improved 90GX2Pro, boasting a bit better theoretical contrast, viewing angles and reaction time, or the probably stellar 24WGX3 (24" fast AS-IPS widescreen) which should be released in Q1/Q2 2007.
Sorry for leaving the boards just after my last upgrade so abruptly, sorry for having X unanswered PMs in my inbox. My life has been quite interesting and turbulent lately - I changed my job, etc.
Long overdue - my impressions regarding the 90GX2 monitor made by NEC.
NEC MultiSync 90GX2
Looks, build quality, ergonomy
The monitor looks very nice. Black, high quality plastic with a silverish frame around the screen. Nicely designed, sleek buttons, dimmable blue LED. Classy.
No rattles, no squeaking, base is pretty stable but adjustment options are very limited. No pivot (not that I care), no height adjustment, just tilt and swivel. I was afraid of having no height adjustment first but it turned out to be a non-issue. The solid viewing angle + tilt clearly make height adjustment redundant in my case.
Viewing angles
Very good for a TN panel. Surprisingly good. At extreme lateral angles, the screen gets a bit yellowish but you can even watch movies with friends, and no one should complain. It's really good. Vertical is TN-typically narrower but still suprisingly good. Incomparably better than my old laptop's screen and all TN LCDs of my friends. Playing slower paced games like Secret Files Tunguska or Heroes V, I have the tendency to slide down my chair a bit and look at the screen from slightly below the optimal point. No problem. The 90GX2 is really a damn good TN in this area.
Backlight uniformity, black levels and dead pixels
I had the luxury of being able to cherrypick my LCD directly at my vendor but he showed me the first one, and I knew I didn't have to look further. Backlight is close to perfect, very homogenous. Just along the lower edge of the screen, there is a very, very faint trail of light but it's barely visible, even in very dark games or when watching movies. Brightness out of the box was eye-burning so reducing it further improved the already solid blacks and backlight impression. Blacks are of course LCD-like and not as deep as my Trinitron CRT's but fine. No dead pixels, just a flawless screen.
Colors and OptiClear
The specsheet says 16.77M colors. Weird since all other TNs are 6 bit + dithering = 16.2M. It must be true though. I compared this LCD to ViewSonic VX922, and the difference was stunning. First off, the glossy OptiClear surface really seems to animate and saturate all the colors. Second, the NEC had far less banding, colors seemed more natural and not washed out. In this area, it must be really the best TN panel out there. I don't know which tricks NEC used to make it display 16.8M colors, but they work. The colors are really awfully close to 20WGX2, the model based on AS-IPS. Quite impressive.
As for OptiClear, it can be a bit annoying to users who are used to non-glossy LCDs. Coming straight from a CRT, it doesn't bother me. On dark backgrounds, sometimes you do see your face or room but no problem, as I play in a darkened room anyway. I have a window behind my back so any other option would be out of question. In normal every day use (like now - incandescent light), the glossy finish does not make ANY trouble at all. It's really fine, I didn't even have to get used to it.
Video performance
LCD-like. Noise is OK but noticeable, movies did certainly look a bit better on my CRT. No ghosting, nice colors but slight noise, "blockbuilding". No huge artifacts. In general, solid performance but not stellar. Some slower displays w/o overdrive might be better here.
Gaming performance
Superb. No perceptible input lag, very good blacks, colors and most importantly, no ghosting. As for blur, it took me a while to get used to it, since I'd been a hardcore CRT gamer, but after a while I adjusted to the slightly different feeling. Some minor ghosting only appears on bright (e.g. light grey) backgrounds, some transitions are simply longer. On the whole, you won't notice any problems in games. FPS games are pretty damn perfect, even Q3 CPMA feels fine. Strategies and RPGs of course flawless. Racing games and space sims are great as well. You have to accept a bit of blur in sports games (like during fast camera swings in FIFA or PES) but after a while, you don't even notice it anymore, just the first few hours after a switch from a CRT require an adjustment.
Overall, whatever I throw at this LCD, it handles the game with ease.
In a nutshell:
+ great colors
+ solid blacks
+ fantastic panel speed
+ nice looks
+ awesome gaming
- OptiClear may annoy some users in some situations
- still not a CRT in some ghost-prone moments
- no pivot or height adjustment for those who care
- large dot pitch may require some time to get used to
- video performance just OK
I can recommend this monitor to any gamer out there, even to a CRT user. However, you may want to wait for the slightly improved 90GX2Pro, boasting a bit better theoretical contrast, viewing angles and reaction time, or the probably stellar 24WGX3 (24" fast AS-IPS widescreen) which should be released in Q1/Q2 2007.
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