Hands on: Eizo FlexScan EV3240X review
This review first appeared in Issue 357 PC Professional Edition.
Sometimes numbers don’t do a product justice. In fact, if you judge this monitor Based on numbers alone, it wouldn’t even win an award, let alone a Lab Winner Award. No matter how well it performs in technical tests, one number always determines everything: price. More than three times more expensive than the award-winning one Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5even though they share the same 4K The resolution and 31.5-inch screen diagonal scored similarly in our tests.
We think the Iiyama is great and an amazing value, but the Eizo will wow you like no other monitor tested here. This is largely due to a combination of the 2,000:1 contrast ratio and the color characteristics of the IPS panel. Aside from the mini LED panel, we’ve never had such a strong hit while viewing photos or movies. Combined with the gorgeous whites, this is the best all-around image quality we’ve seen in a monitor this size.
Of course, you can also benefit from the extra features offered by Eizo monitors. Let’s start with the OSD, because not only is it very intuitive and fast – Eizo offers the best OSD by some margin – but it also offers the ability to adjust colors to fine edges. For example, go into the advanced settings and you can control hue, saturation, and gain.
However, you may find it easier to switch between presets. These are sRGB, Paper, Movie and DICOM (for medical environments), as well as two user-defined slots. The sRGB preset is particularly impressive, locking the panel to exactly 94% of the color gamut without any spillover and with an excellent (though not exceptional in this month’s company) average Delta E of 0.61. Switch to movie mode and its DCI-P3 color gamut coverage jumps from 66% to 87% with no leakage and high accuracy.
While you don’t get the high-end color control offered by the Eizo ColorEdge monitor and its ColorNavigator software, Eizo’s InStyle software is worth the 6.6MB download. Connected via USB-C or USB-B, you can save your color preferences (useful if you’re connected to different Eizo screens in a hot-desking office) and activate circadian dimming options – which change the lighting throughout the day. Gradually change the color temperature. A separate InStyle server tool provides some basic functionality IT management Same goes for Teams, as long as the monitor is connected via a wired network port. Useful if you want to prevent users from turning the brightness too high or control how quickly battery saver mode kicks in.
There are also many ways for users to control how much energy this monitor consumes. Activate EcoView mode in the OSD, it will change the brightness according to the ambient light conditions, if you want to control it manually, then it will adjust from 1cd/m all the way to2Up to 400cd/m22(Although its official peak value is 350cd/m2).
Like the ColorEdge, you also get a generous five-year warranty, with the promise of on-site replacement if something goes wrong. We also like how easy it is to set up the Eizo monitors: They come already assembled, so just lift them into place.
Here, despite looking like a pair of fixed feet, stand Provides tremendous flexibility. You can swivel it 45° in either direction, tilt it up 35°, adjust the height to a staggering 195mm, and rotate it 90° into portrait mode (imagine two of these monitors side by side). We also like the stylish bezels, which give the display a more modern feel than previous Eizo screens.
Eizo offers plenty of ports, including a pair of HDMI inputs and a DisplayPort, as well as USB-C. Two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports are also located on the back, along with one next to the USB-C downstream port for connecting peripherals. It delivers up to 15W of power, while the main USB-C connector delivers up to 94W.
There’s even a pair of 3.5mm jacks, one for microphone The second one is for headphones. You’ll probably never need this, though, as an impressive pair of 2W speakers round out the FlexScan’s capabilities. While they don’t have the wonders of delivering strong bass response, they are a great choice for listening to music. You may even decide you don’t need a separate pair speaker.
Granted, this £50 saving is a fraction of the nearly £1,500 you’d have to pay for this monitor. While the FlexScan EV3240X has many advantages over Iiyama’s much cheaper rivals, it’s hard to justify it. But trust us, if you have the extra budget to invest in this monitor, you’ll be grateful years after the pain of paying bills is gone.
