Eizo CE240W 24" LCD Display

The Eizo CE240W 24" LCD Display is the epitome of LCD display excellence. Not only do I have no reservations about giving the Eizo five stars, but I sincerely wish I had more stars to award it. Sure the Eizo is not cheap, but there is nothing, and I mean nothing low end about the CE240W. If there were ever a poster product for you get what you pay for, Eizo has it right here. I have yet to see a display with better specs anywhere, and if you know one let me know because I have to see it!

Features of the Eizo CE240W 24" LCD Display

The features of the Eizo CE240W 24" LCD Display read like a geek's wish list. The native resolution is 1920x1200 with a contrast ratio virtually unheard of for an LCD monitor of 1000:1. Wow, most high end monitors have a contrast ratio of between 500:1 to 800:1 at best. For comparison the mighty Apple 30" Cinema display only has a contrast ratio of 700:1. The Eizo has a great contrast ratio, no doubt about that but what about brightness? How about a stellar 450 cd/m²! The aforementioned Apple 30" Cinema Display has a brightness of 400 cd/m² as comparison and the brightest monitor I have reviewed recently was the Viewsonic VX2025WM 20" LCD that sported a 300cd/m² brightness. This is a rare occasion for me when the product I am reviewing is better than the measuring stick I typically use. The Eizo ColorEdge CE240W is raising the bar significantly.

Eizo also has great viewing angles on the CE240W of 178 degrees horizontally and vertically, you almost have to be behind the monitor before the image is greatly affected. The CE240W's weakest point for gamers will likely be its gray-to-gray response time of 8ms. While certainly that is no slouch of a response time, faster monitors can be had, but at a huge hit in image quality. The viewable image size is 611 mm diagonally and the color pallet is 16.77 million. Both analog VGA and digital DVI-I connectors are included.

Eizo also included a built in USB hub on the side of the monitor that has two ports, one downstream and one upstream. The monitor stand on the CE240W is perfect and offers adjustability in most every angle you can think of. Height adjustability has long travel over a range of 95mm. The tilt for the monitor can go 60 degrees up and 5 degrees down. As you can see from the image above, the CE240W can almost lay flat for viewing while standing. You can also easily swivel the Eizo up to 172 degrees both right and left. The one thing the Eizo can't do is rotate for portrait viewing, which in all honesty I have never wanted to use. If that is a factor for you, Eizo has monitors that will do that.

One of the best things for design pros and business users about the Eizo ColorEdge CE240W is the included color calibration software making the act of calibrating the CE240W quick and easy. If you use a hardware calibration tool, the software will interface directly with Eye-One, MonacoOPTIX and Sypder2 calibration devices. Ambient light calibration is handled easily with the software allowing you to set the monitors white point to ensure that what you see on screen is what you end up with in print.

The CE240W is a wide aspect ratio monitor at a true 16:10. The aspect ratio allows you to have two documents side by side in popular office applications like word and even run multiple programs on the screen at once. I was able to run four web browsers when working with no problems at all reading the text in each window. This is a huge time saver. Color accuracy is boosted with Eizo's stock 14-bit color processing that provides for smooth gray transitions and midtone transitions as well.

Eizo CE240W in Use

I can sum my time with the Eizo CE240W up in one word, stunning! There is simply not a better monitor to be had on the current market than the CE240W. No matter what you plan to do with it, it just excells. Movie watching on the Eizo was the best I have ever seen. The dark scenes in my test movie, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, were so much clearer and sharper than with any other monitor I have used there was no comparison. Sometimes I see pixelation and dithering in the gray tones especially on lower end monitors, I didn't see any of that with the CE240W.

Gaming on the Eizo CE240W is hard to describe. The image quality response of the monitor to rapidly changing colors and quick motion is the best I have seen yet. No ghosting or smearing on games or movies was noticed. Gamers if your in the market for a high end monitor like the Apple 30" Cinema Display or the 30" Dell, seriously consider giving up the six inches in screen real estate and going with the superior specs of the Eizo CE240W. That said, I am seriously hoping Eizo has a 30" display to pull out of their hats. I'll be the first in line to buy!