In summary
Buy this monitor if:
– You want a high-quality screen for image and video editing.
– You need a screen that is easily profiled.
Don’t buy this monitor if:
– You really must have a screen that can display most of the Adobe RGB colour gamut.
Full review
Most serious photographers aspire to own an Eizo monitor at some time in their careers and it’s no secret that this brand is preferred by professional photographers, largely because Eizo monitors are renowned for colour fidelity. So it’s great to see an Eizo monitor at a price a keen photographer can afford. Selling for AU$566.50, the FORIS FS2333 shares many features with the FlexScan SX2262W monitor.
Front view of the Eizo FORIS FS2333 monitor. (Source: Eizo.)
Rear view of the Eizo FORIS FS2333 monitor. (Source: Eizo.)
Despite its affordable price tag, the FORIS FS2333 is slightly larger than the FlexScan SX2262W. The table below compares key specifications for both monitors.
|
|
FORIS FS2333 |
FlexScan SX2262W |
|
Panel Size |
58 cm (584 mm diagonal) |
56 cm (558 mm diagonal) |
|
Panel Type |
IPS |
VA (with overdrive circuit) |
|
Active Display Size (H x V) |
509.8 x 286.7 mm |
473.8 x 296.1 mm |
|
Pixel Pitch |
0.265 x 0.265 mm |
0.247 x 0.247 mm |
|
Viewing Angles (H/V) |
178/178 degrees |
|
|
Brightness |
250 cd/m |
280 cd/m2 |
|
Contrast |
1000:1 |
|
|
Response Time (Typical) |
Grey-to-grey: 3.4 ms |
Grey-to-grey: 6 ms |
|
Native Resolution |
1920 x 1080 pixels (16:9 aspect ratio) |
1920 x 1200 pixels (16:10) |
|
Display Colours |
16.77 million from a palette of 1.06 billion |
DVI: 16.77 million from a palette of 68 billion; DisplayPort: 1.07 billion from a palette of 68 billion |
|
Wide Gamut Coverage |
sRGB |
Adobe RGB: 95% |
|
Video Input Terminals |
PC: D-Sub mini 15 pin, DVI-D 24 pin (with HDCP); PC / AV: HDMI x 2 |
DVI-I 29 pin x 2 (with HDCP), DisplayPort (with HDCP) |
|
Power Consumption |
42 W (maximum), 22 W (typical), less than 0.4 W in Power Save Mode |
80 W (maximum), 45 W (typical), less than 0.9 W in Power Save Mode, 0W when power is switched off |
|
Height Adjustment Range |
60 mm |
174 mm |
|
Tilt / Swivel |
25 degrees Up, 0 degrees Down / 172 degrees right & left |
30 degrees Up, 0 degrees Down / 172 degrees Right, 172 degrees Left / 90 degrees |
|
Dimensions (W x H x D) |
With Stand: 545 x 390 – 450 x 200mm; Without Stand: 545 x 348.5 x 54mm |
With Stand: 511 x 347.5 ““ 521.5 x 240.5 ““ 256 mm; Without Stand: 511 x 333 x 85 mm |
|
Net Weight |
With Stand: 5.4 kg; Without Stand: 4.2 kg |
With Stand: 9.6 kg; Without Stand: 6.6 kg |
|
RRP |
$566.50 |
$1700 |
Features
The FORIS FS2333 is an IPS monitor, which means it uses In Plane Switching, a technology that supports wide viewing angles, fast response speeds and consistent and accurate colour from all viewing angles. These panels are generally considered the best for applications which require accurate and consistent color reproduction.
The panel also features a mercury-free LED backlight plus an overdrive circuit that minimises the incidence of streaking and ghosting. Couple that with a very fast 3.4 millisecond grey-to-grey switchover and you have a screen that is well suited for displaying moving images in movies and video games. A special integrated circuit ensures signals fed into the monitor are displayed with negligible input lag.
On paper, the FS2333 has plenty of desirable attributes for photographers and can match much more expensive monitors in viewing angle and brightness, with only a marginally larger pixel pitch and slightly lower maximum brightness (although you wouldn’t pick the last when viewing the screen). It works with both Windows and Mac operating systems and a DVI-D connector allows the monitor to be connected to PCs with a digital graphics board, while a second connector is available for computers with analog graphics boards.
The interface panel on the back of the FS2333. (Source: Eizo.)
Two HDMI ports are provided for connecting devices like cameras, Blu-ray disk players and gaming consoles. A line output jack allows a speaker with built-in amplifier to be connected to the monitor to output sound, along with a headphone jack.
The remote control can be used from distances up to seven metres from the sensor and up to five metres at angles up to 30 degrees on either side of the middle screen. It gives you one-touch access to the menu, mode, EcoView and Smart settings, making it easy to set, adjust and operate the monitor without having to fiddle with difficult-to-see buttons on the bezel.
A cable clip that screw into the base is provided for securing cables connected to the monitor. Supplied red, blue and grey stripes allow you to personalise the monitor by sticking them to the front bezel. Although mainly useful to gamers for identifying individual screens, they add a smart and modern look.
Power consumption is relatively low so the FS2333 qualifies for an Energy Star rating. Eizo includes a Power Manager in the setting menu that enables users to determine when the monitor enters the power saving mode, based on the state of external devices connected to it.
Special ‘Eco’ settings, accessed via the remote control, allow users to check The Eco View mode on the remote controller Power Reduction, CO2 Reduction, and Eco Performance Level. The more indicators light up representing the Eco Performance Level, the higher the power saving level attained. Users can also enable and disable the automatic brightness adjustment, which sets the screen brightness at the optimum level for the ambient lighting and engage the EcoView Optimiser, which sets the white level of the input signal.
Interestingly, this monitor was designed primarily for gaming and developed in collaboration with Fnatic, one of the world’s leading eSports organisations. But Eizo’s colour management dealers quickly recognised that it was colour accurate (unlike some gaming monitors), which meant it was usable for photo/imaging applications. That’s good news for Photo Review readers.
So, what’s the hitch, you might ask? The feature that may concern most photographers is the wide gamut coverage. The FORIS FS2333 is an sRGB monitor, just like most of the monitors on sale today.
[But check the results of our tests, below, and you will be surprised at the breadth of the FS2333’s colour capability, even though our measurements show it only covers 77% of the Adobe RGB colour gamut.]
By way of comparison, even the FlexScan SX2262W, which sells for three times its price and was reviewed in March 2010, only covers 95% of the Adobe RGB colour gamut. It’s certainly wider than the FS2333’s, although not necessarily more usable for many photographers.
sRGB Benefits
There are some persuasive reasons for using sRGB as your shooting colour space:
1. sRGB is the default colour space for the internet and almost all digital cameras and printers (photo and commercial). For most of these devices, it’s the only colour space available; Adobe RGB is only offered in sophisticated digital cameras, usually those with raw file support.
Editing and outputting sRGB images will ensure consistent colour and tonal reproduction across a wide variety of output devices. If an image looks good on your monitor ““ and your workflow is properly calibrated and profiled ““ it should look the same on any other calibrated monitor and will print out with the same colour and tonal values on any profile-enabled printer.
2. sRGB is better for portraiture as it delivers more natural-looking skin tones.
While some landscape photographers will demand a monitor that can display most of the Adobe RGB colours, they will pay dearly for it. But it’s not essential; there are plenty of landscape photographers editing their images and producing excellent prints with sRGB screens.
There’s no reason why you shouldn’t capture images in the Adobe RGB space and edit them on an sRGB monitor. While saturated blues and greens (the only colours affected) may look slightly flat on screen, with a good inkjet printer, these colours should bounce back, demonstrating that only the monitor display is being clipped; not the file itself.
The colour gamut of a screen will only be important when the screen is the primary display device for images. When you make prints, both the colour gamut and dynamic range of digital images are compressed as part of the printing process. Regardless of which colour space is used at point of capture, you must become accustomed to the way the colours displayed on your screen relate to printed output in order to judge the extent to which any image must be adjusted.
The FORIS FS2333 has an advantage over most other sRGB monitors; it uses 10-bit colour processing instead of the regular 8-bit processing. This means it’s working with 1024 tonal levels of each colour (red, green and blue), compared with 256 levels for an 8-bit screen, The result is smoother tonal rendition, better colour accuracy and superior reproduction of image detail.
When you use a monitor with a wide gamut but 8-bit processing, it’s difficult to control the display colours when they are very bright. Even with images that have been edited in Photoshop, saturation can be difficult to manage and banding can occur, particularly after calibration. You’ll obtain better results when editing on an sRGB monitor with 10-bit processing that on a wide-gamut monitor with an 8-bit processor.
Setting Up
Setting up the monitor is simple. First you remove the accessories (remote control, power cord, DVI and stereo cables and plastic bag with the setup guide and utility disk) from the packaging and lift out the stand base. Then you raise the lower edge of the monitor (still in its protective wrapping) until you can slip the stand base onto the tab at the base of the monitor and, using the supplied fitting screw, attach it tightly.
Attaching the stand to the monitor.
The monitor comes set to its lowest height. To raise it, you must pull out the pin on the back of the stand, allowing the screen to be raised and lowered. The pin should be kept in a safe place so it can be re-used when you wish to move the monitor.
Once the stand is attached you can link up the screen to the mains power and your computer, using the supplied cables. The HDMI/DVI connector you use will depend on which port on your computer you wish to connect the monitor to. We used the supplied FD-C39 DVI cable, which is the same as the cable used for the FlexScan SX2262W.
Eizo doesn’t supply HDMI cables with this monitor. You don’t really need them for image editing, although a high-speed HDMI cable may be preferred for gaming. However, a stereo mini jack cable for connecting a speaker with a built-in amplifier is included. A handle on the back of the monitor allows it to be moved easily and the packaging in which it comes is robust enough to protect the monitor when it is used for location work.
Our Windows 7 computer recognised the monitor immediately and integrated it into our set-up without requiring drivers to be installed. Other operating systems will probably do likewise since the software disk doesn’t appear to include drivers.
The Eizo LCD Utility Disk supplied with the monitor contains a detailed Users’ Manual in PDF format plus software programs covering various adjustments. Screen adjustment pattern files are used when adjusting the image of analog signal input manually; ScreenManager Pro for LCD (DDC/CI) is a Windows-only application for adjusting the screen using the mouse and keyboard, while EIZO ScreenSlicer (also Windows-only) allows users to divide a screen and lay out multiple windows efficiently. (You don’t need any of these applications for image or video editing so we won’t report on them here.)
Features
The FS2333’s menu is accessed by the remote control and straightforward to use. Pressing the Menu button opens an initial screen with six sub-menus. The Colour setting is the one you’ll use most.
The Menu screen.
The Colour page accesses a Colour Mode function that allows the user to select the display mode that best suits different end uses. Options available include:
– Eco, which prioritises power saving ““ and slightly reduces the brightness of the screen.
– User 1 and User 2 are two settings for user-defined parameters.
– sRGB, which is used for colour-matching the display to sRGB-compatible peripherals.
– Paper, which simulates printed paper and is used for displaying images from documents and books.
– Game produces a ‘clear-cut’ view for displaying game images.
– Cinema simulates a movie-screen display and is used for playing back movies.
All the necessary adjustments for monitor calibration are available via the menu, including brightness, contrast, colour temperature, black level and gamma. The first four are located in the Colour settings, while gamma adjustment is accessed via the Advanced settings on this page.
The Colour menu.
The Advanced Settings page in the Colour menu accesses the gamma adjustments as well as the Smart Functions that cover certain automatic adjustments.
Eizo also includes proprietary ‘Smart’ technology, which automatically adjusts images according to different user requirements. Smart Detection is used primarily for animated images. It allows you to select the area on the screen to which the ‘Smart Resolution’ or ‘Smart Insight’ setting is applied. Two settings are available: video and full screen.
Smart Resolution tweaks the perceived resolution of the images in order to reduce blurring and enable images to be displayed clearly and vividly. It covers a range of five adjustment levels and includes two options: a Skin Tone Enhancer and a Text Enhancer for different image types.
Smart Functions available through the screen menu.
Smart Insight analyses the image and corrects the brightness for each pixel to make the dark areas of images more visible. It helps to reveal detail in shadows. However, changes may be slow to take effect, particularly in movies. The Smart functions are disabled in the Eco and sRGB modes.
An ambient light sensor on the front side of the monitor detects the environmental brightness and uses this information to adjust the screen brightness automatically by using the Auto EcoView function. It can work with the EcoView Optimiser to create a comfortable level of brightness and minimise glare.
The EcoView menu allows you to check Power Reduction, CO2 Reduction and Eco Performance Level at a glance. Indicator lights display the Eco Performance Level attained.
The remaining menu pages cover the monitor settings and information about the monitor. The latter covers the monitor’s serial number, hours of usage and input signal.
Calibration and Testing
Despite its fast response times, the FORIS FS2333 takes about 30 minutes before its internal electric components stabilise and calibration shouldn’t be attempted before this time has elapsed. This is normal practice.
The optional Eizo EasyPIX Colour Matching Tool (which we reviewed in June 2011) (INSERT LINK) provides an easy way to create colour profiles that can be used by editing and printing software. However, we opted to use the more powerful Datacolor Spyder4 Elite (reviewed in March 2012) (INSERT LINK) because it supports more in-depth testing, the results of which are shown here.
Advanced Analysis of the FS2333 with the Spyder4 Elite showed it to be a very good performer overall, with perfect scores for the gamut, tonal response and contrast tests and 4.5 out of 5 for white point, colour uniformity and colour accuracy. Luminance uniformity was rated at 3.5, giving an overall rating of 4.5 out of a possible 5. (This is not surprising as many screens show variations in brightness between different areas.)
The results of the tests are presented below.
The overall rating, based on the Datacolor analysis.
The graph above shows the colour gamut of the display. The green triangle shows the boundaries of the sRGB colour space, while the purple triangle delineates the Adobe RGB colour space. The red triangle shows the measured colour space for the monitor, which actually covers a larger colour space than sRGB in red and green and is only marginally deficient in blue.
The graph of the measured gamma shows it to be identical to the standard 2.2 gamma curve, which is ideal for image editing with Windows PCs.
The Screen Uniformity test checks the colour consistency and brightness consistency of the display in nine sections of the screen, at various luminance levels. The graphs above show the results obtained with the brightness set at 50%, which was the optimum setting for calibration, determined by the Spyder4 Elite.
The ‘before’ (top) and ‘after’ (below) displays produced by the Spyder4 Elite showing the effects of calibration. The close similarities between these displays shows the FORIS FS2333 ships with excellent colour settings.
Conclusion
The Eizo FORIS FS2333 represents excellent value for money in both build quality and performance. It ticks just about all of the boxes and should meet the needs of most photo enthusiasts for image editing and printing. Its fast response times and negligible input lag make it particularly well suited for video editing.
The FS2333 complies with current industry standards, including VESA and CEA-861 and is usable with computers running Windows XP, Vista and 7 or Mac OS X. Eizo supports this monitor with a five-year warranty that covers malfunctions and damage that occurs when the monitor is used in accordance with the instruction manual.
Buy this monitor if:
– You want a high-quality screen for image and video editing.
– You need a screen that is easily profiled.
Don’t buy this monitor if:
– You really must have a screen that can display most of the Adobe RGB colour gamut.
SPECS
Panel Size: 58 cm (584 mm diagonal)
Active Display Size (H x V): 509.8 x 286.7 mm
Panel Type: IPS
Pixel pitch: 0.265 x 0.265 mm
Viewing Angles (H/ V): 178/178 degrees
Brightness: 250 cd/m
Contrast: 1000:1
Response Time (Typical): Grey-to-grey: 3.4 ms
Native Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels (16:9 aspect ratio)
Pixel Pitch: 0.247 x 0.247 mm
Display Colours: 16.77 million from a palette of 1.06 billion
Video Input Terminals: PC: D-Sub mini 15 pin, DVI-D 24 pin (with HDCP); PC / AV: HDMI x 2
Digital Scanning Frequency (H / V): HDMI: 15 – 68 kHz, 49 – 61 Hz (VGA Text: 69 – 71 Hz); DVI: 31 – 68 kHz, 59 – 61 Hz (VGA Text: 69 – 71 Hz)
Analog Scanning Frequency (H / V): PC: 31 – 81 kHz, 55 – 76 Hz
Audio Input/Output Terminals: One 3.5 mm stereo jack & two HDMI / 3.5 mm stereo jack, 3.5 mm headphone jack
Sound Adjustment: Volume, Mute, Sound Level, Power Save, Source (HDMI)
Preset Modes: PC / AV: ECO, User1, User2, sRGB, Paper, Game, Cinema
Auto EcoView / BrightRegulator: Yes (Default: Disabled)
Power Consumption: 42 W (maximum), 22 W (typical), less than 0.4 W in Power Save Mode
Height Adjustment Range: 60 mm
Tilt / Swivel: 25 degrees Up, 0 degrees Down / 172 degrees right & left
Dimensions (W x H x D): With Stand: 545 x 390 – 450 x 200mm; Without Stand: 545 x 348.5 x 54mm
Net Weight: With Stand: 5.4 kg; Without Stand: 4.2 kg
Supplied accessories: AC power cord, signal cable (DVI-D – DVI-D), audio cable, EIZO LCD Utility Disk (PDF user’s manual, ScreenManager Pro for LCD [DDC/CI], EIZO ScreenSlicer software), cable holder, colour sheets (red, blue, and gray), setup guide with warranty card, 4 screws for mount option, remote control with battery
Warranty: Five Years
RRP: AU$566.50
Distributor: EIZO Oceania, (02) 9462 7500; www.eizo.com.au
Rating
RRP: AU$566.50
- Build: 8.8
- Ease of Use: 9.0
- Viewing quality: 9.0
- Features: 8.8
