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Monitor arrived, unboxed and plugged in. All the reviews are right, out of the box the brightness is somewhere the wrong side of looking directly at the sun. After setting the desktop resolution I reduced the brightness to 10/100, then further to zero. Yes, I put brightness to minimum to get a comfortable level. I think the high brightness is more suited to a TV application than a monitor.

Still have to fiddle with the colour/contrast/etc. to get it "just right". The colour evenness reported seems to affect my sample. The right third of the screen has a faint but just noticeable warm tint compared to the mid and left thirds. Will see how that goes.

Other quick impressions are - have I gone too far? While I welcome the resolution, I think I would have preferred a smaller surface area. I didn't tidy my desk so it doesn't fit in the gap left by the old one, and is higher up to clear the space than I'd normally have it. I need more space to the sides.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Sounds interesting, mind posting some pics? Also would you recommend it based on your first 24HR impression!

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Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
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I did a check for stuck/dead pixels, and that passed 100%. There is some minor backlight bleed, particularly around the edges, but not of concern to me.

I also overlooked one thing, it doesn't have any speakers! I know panel speakers will never replace hifi, but every TFT I've owned so far as proved adequate for the odd computer noise. So I'll have to find an alternative there.

Purely on the pink tint issue - I wouldn't recommend it yet. I just did another search on the net, and reports vary with some suggesting it diminishes over a few hundred hours of usage. Others say they had to return it multiple times to get a good one. The negative side is reports are still being posted of it. On one hand, I can't believe it is that big an issue else it would be fixed. The costs of not doing so would kill them if it was that common. So either it isn't that common, or isn't big enough to most to return.

For the record, mine is a GIG068 firmware, build GIG143 from Czech. The power LED off works.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

A quick update. I'm on 68 backlight hours now. The pink band has faded a bit compared to fresh out of the box but is still noticeable if there is a lot of flat colour on the screen. I can't see it even when looking for it if the display is showing a complex image.

I still think this monitor is too bright. I now have it set to 0 out of 100 and it is still a bit bright for my tastes. Conversely, this might make it a good choice if you work in bright light.

There is one other minor annoyance. Every time you turn it on, it scans all the inputs before displaying anything. I haven't found a way to bypass this yet by stabbing the front panel buttons, but to be fair I haven't read the manual at all.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.