Eizo HD2441W

When it comes to monitors, manufacturers have mostly been content to add a few more pixels here or an extra input there, with a bit of styling thrown in for good measure. So it’s a refreshing change to discover a model that doesn’t just add a few extra doodads, but attacks feature complacency head on.

The Eizo HD2441W is based on a similar panel technology to the 1,920x1,200 24-inch S2411, which makes it good for colour critical work after profiling. Accuracy is a step short of Eizo’s very high-end models, but if you’re not running a full-blown colour repro studio these two models will be good enough for most proofing and design needs. Visually they’re a pleasure to work with, boasting vivid colour saturation, deep blacks and creamy, even whites.

The HD2441W goes a step beyond the S2441 by packing in plenty of extras. If design is your main interest, the S2441 will probably suffice, and you’ll save yourself £200 or so. But if you also work with video, the extra features in the HD2441W may just tempt you. First off is a true 16:9 mode, which eliminates widescreen overscan and clipping. This means you get all your video on to the screen without losing anything at the edges. There’s also a midtone booster circuit that tries to minimise ghosting by reducing mid-tone pixel drag to 6ms. This isn’t a unique feature, but when we tested the HD2441W it handled video noticeably better than most of the competition.

This can be further improved by the sharpening and dynamic contrast – tagged OutlineEnhancer and ContrastEnhancer, in Eizo-speak. OutlineEnhancer offers either softening or an unsharp-mask effect. It’s not very helpful on text or design work, but adds extra sharpness to video to help reveal compression, artefacts and other flaws. ContrastEnhance also has to be used carefully with still images, but comes into its own with video offering deeper blacks and punchier whites than you may be used to from a monitor. These and other optimised settings can be stored for easy switching.

The design and ergonomics pack in plenty of extras, too. The OSD, with its new slidebar feature, was the one area that we weren’t quite convinced by. OSDs aren’t usually ergonomic marvels and this one is no exception – it does the job, but you won’t want to use it much. Elsewhere there are four inputs – two HDMI, one DVI and one VGA. A Picture-in-Picture feature means you can keep an eye on a video stream while working on something else. Finally, there are two separate USB hubs, so you can switch the same keyboard and mouse between two PCs.