The Perfect Monitor

I’ve been searching for a new monitor for quite some time and may have finally found the perfect solution.

I’m one of those old school hold outs that up until a few weeks ago still had a giant CRT display taking up my entire desk and threatening to collapse it. I put up with the beast as long as I did because it still looked sharper and provided more accurate color than any of the slim and sleek looking LCD displays I had a chance to preview.
I knew there were brands such Eizo that produced LCD monitors suitable for professional graphic design and photography work but I also knew they carried a huge price tag. To be honest, I had finally given up on ever owning one. I thought that perhaps I’d go with an Apple display on my PC.  Yikes! The reviews of Apple displays immediately scared me off. Then I started looking at NEC and LaCie models as legitimate options. I was about to purchase the LaCie324. Then I saw a blog entry on ShootSmarter with the tile “It’s Here.. the PERFECT Monitor!”. Sure enough, they were referring to an Eizo. The Eizo CG 222W. The catch? This model costs $1,300. That might sound expensive if you’re used to standard consumer models but it’s a bargain for a monitor that meets high end benchmarks. With in a few minutes I was on B&H ordering one.

I’ve now been using this display for about a month. It’s awesome! I was initially worried that it might be too small. They call it a 22″. The viewing surface is 18.5 inches wide, and 11.5 inches tall. I’m working at wide-screen resolution of 1680×1050. It’s plenty or real estate for design and photography work. Email and Pandora are perfectly happy living on secondary monitor. Color calibration is easy with the included software. This is the first LCD monitor I’ve owned that gives me confidence I’m working with super accurate color representation. Fine tuning photos in Lightroom no longer feels like a guessing game. Developing color palettes for new design or identity projects is no longer such a daunting task.

If you aren’t a professional designer or photographer I think you’d probably be crazy to spend more than a thousand dollars on a monitor. However, if you make a living working on color critical projects this monitor is a great addition to your work flow.

Here’s the product description on Eizo’s site.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 2:59 pm and is filed under equipment, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.