Customer Reviews

NEC DiamondPro DP2060U Flat 22" CRT Monitor

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an awesome monitor! It's exquisite! Before I got it I bought the NEC FP1370. It was terrible (see my review on it). This monitor, although from the same company (NEC Mitsubishi), uses a different technology, DiamondTron, and in fact, the picture is diamond!

Text & Graphics:
I did some research before getting it because it seems that most 21"+ monitors have focus and geometry problems. I am very picky because I need lively graphics colors, correct geometry, and at the same time crisp text. Some people don't care about text because their main purpose is graphics design or playing games. I do that in addition to writing code and reading a lot. Most monitors in this class have some convergence problems, where text looks crisp in some parts and blurry in others, even if the dot pitch is uniform across the grill.

This monitor is ace both at text and graphics. It even has an option where you can optimize it for Text, Normal, or Graphics mode. Text is crystal clear in all areas of the screen, even at very high resolutions.

Configuration & Geometry:
This monitor has more configuration options than any nag-ass might ever want. You can get the geometry almost perfect. The geometry out of the box wasn't correct. The easiest way to fix it is to choose your ideal resolution and refresh rate, apply the auto-correct mode, and start adjusting from there. The screen surface is 100% flat; Mitsubishi calls it Natural Flat (NF), which means the optical image beam is corrected before it hits the screen surface.

Other nice features:
I was impressed with the screen coating. Other monitors, especially Sony, have a smudgy coating. This monitor has a "dry" coating, where you can clean the screen without creating "rainbow smears." It also has a built-in USB hub, and you connect the data cable vertically, so that you can flush the monitor to the wall. The monitor is also remarkably light and has a small footprint. It has almost the same weight as my old 19" Sony monitor. The visual area of the screen is 20", bigger than that of most other 22" or 21" monitors, which is 19.8".

Cons:
The On Screen Menu (OSD) controls are a bit more awkward than other monitors. It also doesn't have BNC connectors, which is a bummer for a monitor of this quality. But the data cable that comes with it is sturdy and isolates EM interference very well.

Conclusion:
If you're looking for a 21" or 22" monitor, with a perfectly flat screen, with a uniform .24mm dot pitch grill, with excellent text, graphics, and geometry, then you should seriously consider this monitor.

The monitor is dazzling. It has near perfect text focus and convergence in all corners even when stretched to the max. Unlike the sony cpd e540, it actually has sharp text at its recommended rez (1600x1200), though it's sharper at 75hz than at 85hz.

UNIFORMITY
It's purity is nearyly perfect, even though I have a huge non-shielded subwoofer about 2 feet from it. It's geometry was near perfect out of the box and is correctlable, if needed, with the multitudinous adjustments. It's text is clear everywhere. Moire is present only in very fine stripe patterns (like those in calibration screens). I don't adjust this unless I have to since text will get very slighlty fuzzy.

COLOR/BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
Very good, though very slightly washed (especially blacks) out compared to sony at 1600X1200. At lower rez, it looks much brighter. The contrast/brightness can be increased by increasing the RGB colors (together will result in more white), though increasing it too much (~90) will result in color bleeding.

FLATNESS
Not as flat as sony, but not curved by any means, hence NF (natural flat).

STABILITY
Image stability is great. I've notice that with ANY aperature grill, when looking very close to the screen, a flicker or a moving moire like effect occurs. Shadow mask don't display this. This is just a general note about AG, not the dp2060u. Also, larger monitors show this more than smaller monitors. Perhaps, the filaments quiver ever so slightly. No dancing pixels are noticed at all.

CONTROL EASE
Too many buttons to navigate...but who cares? The image is everthing!

BOTTOM LINE
The best monitor I have owned. My only wish is an absolute flat screen, but no one notices but me. It's rated by displaymate as second only to the sony gdm f520 which costs twice as much!

BTW, I coating is the same type as sony's. If you touch it, it will show irridescent streaks.

This monitor is absolutely wonderful. I upgraded from a (non-flat) Gateway V900 19" monitor that came with my computer when I went off to college. My 2060u had some very slight distortion problems on the bottom part of the monitor, but they were easily fixed using the numerous geometry (distortion) adjustments on the monitor. The picture is fairly bright (not quite as bright as the sony models, brighter than the 21-22" NEC displays) but very crisp (much more so than the sony models). I was able to find it for a decent enough price to make me choose it over the comparable Samsung 1200NF (2060u was...more). I usually run at 1600x1200@85, but I occasionally run it at 1920x1440@75 when I have multiple applications open and need the space. The text (for me) is still readable at that res and I wouldn't say I have extraordinary vision. My only (very small) gripe really has nothing to do with the monitor. My Geforce 2 won't do 2048x1536@75Hz in 32bit color (It will at 16-bit). I recommend popping on over to [a]link to check out the manual and features...

I am extremely picky about my monitors. I looked at the fastest LCDs I could find (17 ns) before this screen, but with the dead pixels and lack of color accuracy, I was turned off. I found that LCDs always have a lot of color "pop" to their displays--sometimes so much that you have to squint to look at them--but with the current technology, they also have muddy dark tones which obscure the detail in the shadows of pictures.

When I fired up the Diamond Pro 2060u, I was not particularly impressed with the screen brilliance. Yes, the screen was color accurate and sharp throughout, but there was very little intensity. I had the contrast at 100%, the brightness at 35%, and the color temperature at 9300K. I could turn up the brightness and the light areas of the screen did become brighter, but the black level was then destroyed and blacks became dark greys. I was so upset that I nearly gave up.

I then stumbled on the RGB color controls that allow one to dramatically intensify the beams. Where the 9300K setting would set the RGB color sliders to around the 50% levels, I cranked them up to 90%. Suddenly, the monitor became a brilliant, beautiful display! It is PERFECT! It is brilliant, color-accurate, and extremely sharp with a perfect black level. Once adjusted, the convergence is perfect throughout and there are no noticeable moire patterns even given the worse dithering. Of the dozens of monitors I've looked at under 1K, this is by FAR the best.

There are two tiny flaws to the screen, both are side effects of the aperture grill and evident on all monitors using that type of mask: one is that there are two very faint horizontal gray lines crossing the screen at the 1/3rd and 2/3rd distance from the top/bottom edge. These are horizontal dampeners that stabilize the aperture grill's vertical elements. These faint lines don't bother me, and compared to LCD dead pixels, they are no big deal for certain. The second imperfection is a barely perceptible pixel shimmer throughout the screen. This is heat-of-expansion-derived kinetic energy transfered to the aperture grill via the electron beam as it passes by (most of the kinetic energy is eliminated by the dampeners already mentioned). The shimmering effect is extremely subtle and is actually difficult to see much less notice during regular use. I don't think anyone would find it distracting.