Manufacturer: Eizo
Model: CG301W display
Price: £2676 (£2277 ex VAT)
www.eizo.com

LCD screen technology has improved immensely over the last five years.

For professionals who demanded a good quality monitor, this has not been an easy transition to make. Not so long ago, only Cathode Ray Tube displays such as the Sony Artisan and Barco Calibrator were regarded as suitable for high-end image editing. The Eizo 21 inch ColorEdge was one of the first LCD screens to offer an acceptable, wide gamut display for colour retouching work, and Eizo has now released the EIZO CG301W.

This is a 30 inch display that ensures uniform and stable brightness across the whole screen area, can reproduce 97% of the Adobe RGB gamut and comes with ColorNavigator hardware calibration software that can work with calibration devices such as the Eye-One display.

The hardware calibration should not be confused with the usual monitor calibration process because the ColorNavigator software is using 12-bit hardware calibration to adjust the monitor’s internal look-up table.

The benefits can be seen as soon as you turn on the computer. Many photographs will appear much more colourful on the screen, especially those that have deep blues or greens and colour matching between the monitor and print is much more predictable process.

In fact it is disconcerting to see how some familiar items appear quite different when viewed on the CG301W.

Verdict:
This is an expensive piece of kit. Saying that, however, it’s one of the biggest and best LCD displays you can buy.

Pros:
Wide gamut, outstanding clarity performance

Cons:
Expensive

What Digital Camera Score: 89%