Thanks for all the well considered replies.

So, there is a dividing line here it seems. Perhaps wide-gamut is a relative term without an objective reference and is being thrown around too loosely (i.e. marketing teams)?

The idea that only LED is wide gamut further confuses things. But, I can understand the point being made...and perhaps the terms has been applied too loosely?

Apple's monitor line hasn't been updated for a while and rumors abound about a new generation of Apple LED monitors. Even speaking of vaporwear, I imagine the first gen will be pricey as are all other LED monitors on the market. Maybe the price will come down if it is marketed widely...but this is all speculation at this point. I could get a smaller (maybe used) Apple Cinema Display to tide me over and see what the market brings in the next 6 months. But I think LED monitors will just be out of my price range.

The other issue and I suppose this goes for the 'almost' wide gamut monitors as well, like the NEC 2690/2490, is the limitations in Apple's computer hardware & Pshop to really take advantage of true wide gamut monitors. A few years back Karl Lang wrote the an article about this. I'm a little lost in the technicalities and have not kept abreast of them, so I have to ask, has the hardware/software evolved since then to accommodate the monitor technology?:

< http://www.outbackphoto.com/tforum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=170 0>

"A wide gamut LCD display is not a good thing for most (95%) of high end users. The data that leaves your graphic card and travels over the DVI cable is 8 bit per component. You can't change this. The OS, ICC CMMs, the graphic card, the DVI spec, and Photoshop will all have to be upgraded before this will change and that's going to take a while. What does this mean to you? It means that when you send RGB data to a wide gamut display the colorimetric distance between any two colors is much larger. As an example, lets say you have two adjacent color patches one is 230,240,200 and the patch next to it is 230,241,200. On a standard LCD or CRT those two colors may be around .8 Delta E apart. On an Adobe RGB display those colors might be 2 Delta E apart on an ECI RGB display this could be as high as 4 delta E.
It's very nice to be able to display all kinds of saturated colors you may never use in your photographs, however if the smallest visible adjustment you can make to a skin tone is 4 delta E you will become very frustrated very quickly.

....and...

Only the Eizo 210, 220 and NEC2180WG have 8-10-10 paths. If you really want to know... the path in the Eizo is "8-14bit3D-8-10bit1D-10" go figure that one out ;-) The 2180WG has an actual 10 bit DVI interface with a 10-10-10 path but nothing supports it so you can't use it yet - but for $6500 your ready when it does ;-)"

Any comments on that? I certainly do not want this to evolve into a dissertation : )

Real world, is the NEC 2490/2690 worth the price?

Still gathering opinions, so keep any ideas/recs coming if you have them.

Thanks again,
Lovegasoline

cosmos

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