Overview
It isn't too often that a professional LCD appears on the market. Most pro LCDs don't even offer anything too attractive to consumers. They may suffer from slow response time while costing an arm and a leg. Besides, you may be able to get the same performance by calibrating a typical LCD. So, what does NEC have on the table to change our opinion of professional flat panel monitors?
The 25.5” LCD2690WUXi sports an H-IPS panel with fast response time and a color gamut that caters to publishers and demanding home users. It also offers everything you'd expect from a professional LCD, like built-in color correction and quality compensation features. Should your unit arrive with an uneven backlight, the ColorComp feature can correct it to within a few units of brightness. The built-in, configurable gamma correction lookup table (LUT) allows the monitor to be calibrated in hardware, ensuring consistent calibration across all applications displayed on the LCD.
Its connection options are more limited. There is no USB hub and the only inputs offered are DVI-I, DVI-D, and VGA. This still means you can hookup consoles, but it may require an extra adapter depending on what outputs your console offers. For the connections it does have, it provides built-in resolution scaler with customizable screen expansion and aspect ratio options. This is useful when using resolutions lower than the LCD's inherent, native resolution.
A standard matte, anti-glare coating is used, as in ninety percent of computer monitors. This is in contrary to NEC's gamer-oriented GX2 series which offer a glossy panel that makes colors more vibrant. Will owners of NEC's flagship, glossy 20.1” 20WMGX2 be disappointed in the bigger screen?
Its recent price drop to around $1,200 USD makes it more enticing as an alternative to other 27” and 30” panels. Let's take a look at how the LCD26 performs and whether it can satisfy professional and typical home users alike.
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