Verdict

Back in April I took a good look at NEC’s impressive 26in widescreen display – I could hardly miss it actually – seeing as it was a very large affair offering a bright and sharp picture at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200. NEC monitors tend to be more expensive than most of its competitors, but earn the right to be so thanks to above average image quality. It concentrates on specialist markets such as Public Displays, Medical and high end photographic markets so feels no need to hop on the mainstream bandwagon. As such this is actually its first 24in display that NEC has released and based on our positive experiences of its previous screens, expectations are high. This 24in display is part of its MultiSync range aimed at corporate and SME’s, which as we’ll see later, does have an impact on what the screen can do.

Out of the box, the NEC is immediately notable for how thick the display is, compared to most other monitors its size. It’s almost as deep as old short neck CRTs. If you’re looking for something slim and light to look impressive on your desk, this isn’t it. However, it won’t be an issue once it’s sitting on your desk and as an indicator of how much technology is inside, it bodes well. The NEC comes out of the box in one go, so you won’t have to spend time setting it up. The stand is covered with a cowling that slides upwards and off to reveal clips for cable management should you wish to keep things as tidy as possible.

The display can tilt forward 25 degrees and back five degrees on the stand and also has full height adjustments, so you can raise it up quite high. Once up there you can easily tilt it on its side. Viewing a document and web pages this way is very handy for seeing a web design or in a pre press environment. The stand also goes quite low so you can have it close to the desk and tilting upwards, in a similar way to the Eizo HD2441W. The monitor sits on a circular base, so rather than a mechanism you just turn the whole thing round to make it swivel.

The bezel is actually quite large, and tapers inwards toward the panel. The OSD buttons sit beneath the bezel in the centre and uses NEC joystick, which has an expensive feel to it. It work well: press menu and then navigate via the joystick. You can manually adjust brightness and contrast and move between five image presets – Standard, Text, Movie, Gaming and Photo. You can quickly switch between them by pressing one of the buttons on the front. By default it switches to Standard, which I found to be way too bright for use in the office, unless you happen to work wearing sun glasses. This more that justifies the claimed 500cd/m2 figure and would explain the size of the screen – the lamps inside must be larger than average. So if your work requires a very bright screen, this NEC delivers. I however, found the more mutes text mode far more comfortable to work with.

The bezel is actually quite large, and tapers inwards toward the panel. The OSD buttons sit beneath the bezel in the centre and uses NEC joystick, which has an expensive feel to it. It work well: press menu and then navigate via the joystick. You can manually adjust brightness and contrast and move between five image presets – Standard, Text, Movie, Gaming and Photo. You can quickly switch between them by pressing one of the buttons on the front. By default it switches to Standard, which I found to be way too bright for use in the office, unless you happen to work wearing sun glasses. This more that justifies the claimed 500cd/m2 figure and would explain the size of the screen – the lamps inside must be larger than average. So if your work requires a very bright screen, this NEC delivers. I however, found the more mutes text mode far more comfortable to work with.

The panel is an S-PVA, so is a true 8-bit panel, and NEC quotes a decent 1000:1 contrast ratio. Viewing angles are a strong point and the figure quotes is 176 degree in both the horizontal and vertical plane. What more this figure is pretty much spot on. Even right from the sides the image barely changes in brightness and intensity, from the sides or above. If you’re in an office environment and need to show your latest designs to a group, you don’t have to worry about the people at the sides not being able to see it. You also won’t have to bend down to get the best eye line either. The response time is clearly stated at 6ms for grey-to-grey and 16ms for full Off-on-Off. Hats off for being clear and precise about this, unlike the vagueness that many manufacturers offer in their manuals.

The other main option in the OSD is the ability to choose between several colour temperatures, – 9,300k, 8,200k, 7,500k, 6,500 (sRBG) and 5,000k. There an option for adjusting Sharpness and Off timer, and even an option for adjusting the brightness of the small LED at the front. A key option is labelled Expansion Mode, which if you turn it off, essentially gives you 1:1 pixel mapping. The Aspect option will zoom up but keep the ratio, while Full does as it suggests.

The NEC is equipped with two connectors, DVI and VGA, the former of which is HDCP enabled. There are four USB ports – two at the sides and two at the rear with one upstream port for connecting it to your PC. There’s also an input for connecting up the optional sound dock. As ever, testing began by standard Windows use, and the NEC drew admiring glances from around the office for its pure white, sharp text and high brightness. The solidity of the image indicates that there are high quality lamps and circuitry containing behind the panel.

DisplayMate was rolled out to test and the NEC put in an exemplary performance. Grey scales were very good with each stage able to be picked out even in difficult office lighting conditions. The colour ramp was as good as it gets, as was colour accuracy, intensity and purity. This helped it to achieve a convincing black level when watching video content, with the darker scenes always solid and full of detail. Motion was smooth, and colours, blues, greens, yellows, all vibrant without being oversaturated.

The 1:1 pixel mapping feature is always of interest to us as it could mean a great solution for connecting up consoles such as a PlayStation 3. As Hugo insists on leaving his in the office it was only fair that we hooked up the NEC to it. Playing the 1080p Ninja Gaiden we found the 1:1 pixel mapping worked perfectly, giving us black bars at the top and bottom but not as the sides. However, we found something very peculiar when trying to play a Casino Royale on Blu-ray disc – it wouldn’t work – the screen would just go black. This made us suspect that perhaps the NEC was actually HDCP compliant, but this was proved not to be the case when we hooked it up to a HD DVD HD-XE1, and played two HD DVD discs without any issues. I have to admit that we were therefore all baffled by this, but that what happened. Technology, dontcha just love it. Another minor issue is that that the monitor powered itself off a couple of times when we were switching cables and wouldn’t turn on if the DVI port was plugged in first.

This screen then isn’t quite perfect for console gamers but if you were to fire up a PC game, you’d find a very capable screen, as a session of Counter-Strike emphatically proved. However, there was tearing that I was used to, which would hint at the 16ms frame rate having some impact.

However, we don’t think that many gamers will be buying this monitor, which at over £523, (the cheapest I could find it by far), is far more expensive than our current favourite, the better featured BenQ FP241W.

For business use though, this is a truly excellent 24in display. It will look good on the desk, despite its chunky side profile and is sharp, bright backlight and very accurate colours will ensure many happy hours of Excel spreadsheet work, power point presentations and Photoshop work.

”’Verdict”’

NEC monitors may be thick from the side, but they’re certainly not stupid. NEC delivers another master class in vibrancy, colour accuracy and viewing angles, making this a fine choice for office or photographic work. Grumbles such as its lack of HDMI or component, and some minor other issues, mean it’s not ideal for the gamer, though the price would probably be enough to put them off.

Trusted Score