Product Reviews

Eizo has never had a reputation for producing cheap tat, and from the looks of its new ColorEdge CG241W monitor it's not planning to change its image any time soon. This display is a new Premium Edition member of its already high-end Graphics Monitor range, and is aimed at the very topmost professional user, who has a budget to match.

The CG241W has an extremely high specification. Like other members of Eizo's CG range, it uses an IPS panel - in this case with a 24in diagonal. An overdrive system is incorporated to improve the response rate. The ColorEdge manages 6ms grey-to-grey pixel response, which is pretty much standard for a good 24in panel these days. Its 300cd/m2 brightness and 850:1 contrast ratio are also pretty much par for the course.

It's the underlying circuitry that makes the CG241W special. The display performs internal image processing at 16-bit with a 12-bit lookup table. To put this into perspective, most mainstream 24in panels use PVA technology with 8-bit colour, and cheap TN displays use 6-bit colour dithered to 8-bit. So in theory, the Eizo's much higher processing enables it to discern many more shades of grey and colour, which is clearly what you want if you are a design professional or you use scientific or medical applications.

Eizo quotes a gamut coverage of 98% sRGB and 96% Adobe RGB. Most everyday panels offer only 72% of the sRGB gamut, and even the latest wide-gamut technology increases this to just 92%, so the Eizo is well beyond the norm. If you want to calibrate your monitor precisely, ColorNavigator CE software is provided for use with the 12-bit calibration hardware and a measurement device.

In practice, the Eizo's high-end innards make themselves very apparent. We used a number of test patterns to examine the CG241W's performance, and we're not exaggerating when we say that it aced every one. In our greyscale

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gradient tests this TFT showed that it can discern between shades of grey that are very close to black or white, and the same is true with colours.

When we turned to digital photo editing, the visible dynamic range was astonishing. A good IPS panel such as Apple's Cinema HD 23in will produce rich colours, but the Eizo really brings out every nuance. The range spans from true black to brilliant white, and every colour in between is vibrant and faithful.

Although this monitor isn't primarily intended for multimedia use, we tried some moving-image tests to see if it could cope as well with these as it did with static pictures. After all, you may want to use it for video editing, 3D animation or other full-motion professional applications. When we played a commercial Blu-ray movie on the Eizo, we saw no sign of ghosting or any other motion artefacts. The video was crisp, smooth and stunning. The CG241W clearly lived up to its specification's 6ms response time. Some of Eizo's non-Premium CG monitors have response rates as slow as 30ms, so they are really only suited to static image reproduction, but the CG241W is clearly much more flexible.

Unlike most general-purpose TFTs, the Eizo is fitted with twin DVI ports. However, these are of the DVI-I variety rather than DVI-D, so both ports will accommodate an analogue VGA signal as well as a digital DVI-D one if you use the appropriate adaptor. A convenient two-port USB 2 hub is built in too, so you can plug in your USB peripherals more easily.

The Eizo also allows you to make every type of physical adjustment you can think of. You can raise the height by up to 82mm, tilt the viewing angle upwards by 40-, and swivel the panel on its stand by 35- left or right. You can also rotate the panel 90- into a portrait orientation. Just to underline the top-quality specification, the CG241W comes with a five-year warranty as well.

It would be easy to look at this Eizo's astronomical price and run a mile, or at least as far as your nearest Apple store. After all, for this much money you could purchase two 23in Cinema HD Displays and still have change. But while these are lovely panels for everyday use, and can also cut the mustard in many professional contexts, they really pale beside the Eizo - almost literally. For those who want the ultimate image quality possible in a 24in panel, the ColorEdge CG241W is peerless. Just be prepared to take out a second mortgage for the privilege of owning one.