Verdict

Pros

• Unsurpassed colour accuracy
• Superb overall image quality
• Excellent stand and ergonomics
• Easy-to-use built-in colorimeter

Cons

• Connectivity is limited
• Contrast is a touch low
• A big ugly brute of a display

What is the Eizo ColorEdge CG277?

The CG277 is Eizo’s flagship non-4K monitor, offering the absolute finest in image quality. It boasts 99% sRGB and Adobe RGB coverage, a built-in calibration sensor, a 10-bit display with 16-bit lookup table and even includes a monitor hood that works in both portrait and landscape.

Costing a whopping £1,400, the CG277 isn’t for the casual user looking to take a step up in image quality. Rather, it’s for the most discerning professionals for whom it delivers in spades.

Eizo ColorEdge CG277 – Design and Features

The CG277 is unapologetically utilitarian in its design – this is a professional tool and it shows. The panel itself is nearly 3in thick and sports a fairly chunky bezel, and the buttons sitting along the front of the monitor are hardly what you’d call stylishly integrated either. The overall grey plastic finish that’s peppered with ventilation grilles is a far cry from the smooth lines of the Samsung UD970, for instance.

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As you’d expect, though, all this bulk makes for excellent build quality, with the entire unit feeling really solid and secure.

Adjusting the stand is effortless, with the rotating base spinning round with just the push of a finger. Likewise, it’s a cinch to flip the display into portrait mode. Height adjustment requires a bit more force, but is still relatively easy.

We’d have liked a slightly taller maximum height, though: it doesn’t even cater for spinning the display into portrait. You need to pull the bottom of the panel outwards to swing passed the base. It drops low, though, so shorter users are well catered for.

Eizo’s monitor is ready to go straight out of the box, with the stand already fixed in place, which is convenient. However, you can remove the stand and fit a 100x100mm VESA monitor arm if you wish.

The hood is quite the complicated thing but is sturdily made. It includes black flocking on its inside edges to keep reflections to a minimum.

In the box you get an AC cable, video cables (DVI-D and mini-DisplayPort), USB cable, a setup guide, Eizo’s LCD Utility Disk (ColorNavigator software, PDF user’s manual), adjustment certificate, screen cleaner, monitor hood, quick-reference guide and a warranty card (5 years).

Connectivity is actually fairly limited with just a single DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort, alongside a couple of USB ports. In comparison, the NEC EA244UHD has two of each video connection plus it includes USB 3.0. In fairness, the CG277 is a little long in the tooth, and Eizo has just announced its flagship 4K monitors do include similar levels of connectivity to the NEC.

The CG277’s 27in panel has a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, which is ideal for this size of display. Indeed, it’s telling that Eizo’s new 4K monitors are in 31in and 24in formats, hinting at how that resolution either needs an even larger screen to be viewed at native resolution or you’ll want a screen size that suits the 1080p resolution – 4K is double the resolution of 1080p.

While the panel’s matt finish helps to keep reflections to a minimum, this is the least of this display’s capabilities. The IPS panel has a 6ms grey-to-grey response time and its backlight system ensures absolute uniformity such that brightness drops by a maximum Delta E of only 3.

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The CG277 also boasts a maximum brightness of 300 nits and a contrast ratio of 1,000:1. All this is joined by the utmost in colour accuracy and colour coverage, with 99% Adobe RGB, 99% DCI-P3 and, of course, sRGB is fully covered. It also uses a 10-bit panel with a 16-bit lookup table for the ultimate in colour accuracy; it can display 1.097 billion colours from a palette of 278 trillion.