Sony VGP-D24WD1: 24″ LCD Monitor
Bland but simple. Sony and expensive. $1060 expensive, according to Akihabara via Engadget. You can get the Samsung SyncMaster 245BW 24″ LCD monitor for about half that price at Dell.com or opt for Dell’s 27″ offering for about the same price. So what’s so special about Sony’s VGP-D24WD1? The 1000:1 contrast ratio, 1920 x 1200 pixel format, 400 cd/m2 brightness, 6ms response time and two HDCP-DVI ports are all fairly within the realm of normal. You could say that having two HDCP-DVI ports is somewhat special, but still they’re DVI, not HDMI or DisplayPort. In my opinion, the only thing special about Sony’s really expensive 24″ LCD monitor is the 92% NTSC color gamut that is the result of wide color gamut CCFLs (WCG-CCFLs). The only problem of having a wide color gamut is that it messes up folks (for a few minutes) that work extensively with color: the color on the screen versus what you expect to get via printer will look a little different than before, but in a good way since whatever is displayed on the monitor will actually look a bit closer to what you’ll get printed out. I’m not one of those folks that work extensively with color and this is purely “theoretically speaking”. Although I am a fan of Sony’s industrial design, sometimes I wonder whether the premium price is worth it: in this case double the price of a very good Samsung? I try to maximize bang for my hard-earned buck, and this one makes me pause.
Technorati Tags: Sony, Wide LCD Monitor, LCD Monitor, 24″, 1920 x 1200, Wide Color Gamut, WCG-CCFL
Actually got the color issue backwards on the wider gamut monitors. It messes up normal users. Why? Because the default for Windows, games, the Web, 99% all of PC content is sRGB (72%). Both sRGB and the wider gamut of these 92% monitors are still 8 bits which means you have the same number 16.7 million colors on screen at a time. The result, 99% of your PC content ends up being over saturated or the wrong color.
Right now this effect is some what subtle but as the gamut rises (102-120% into next year) unless these manufactures start changing how the firmware handles the gamut, they are going to start looking really bad with colors completely blown out and cartoonish.
So when folks say their colors are more vivid on a wide gamut monitor, effect they are not, they are over saturated due to the colors being mapped wrong. Its the same number of colors just plotted wrong because the same RGB value means a different shade in each gamut.
Aside from that this will need to be an IPS panel or it way over priced.
Thank you blackjackskanz for your comment. I do believe you are correct in saying that without some type of color management system from content to display, the content on higher-than-72% NTSC monitors will looks weird: “over saturated or the wrong color”. Again thanks!