NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi 30" widescreen

Subjective Image Quality Analysis

In addition to the battery of standardised tests, I spent a week using the display as the main screen on my work machine. During this week, I spent time playing various games—but mainly Team Fortress 2—to test a variety of scenarios that you're likely to encounter.

First of all, before I talk about image quality, if you want to play games on this screen at its native resolution, you're going to need a decent graphics card in order to drive four megapixels of goodness at decent frame rates. Don't think you can play Crysis at 2,560 x 1,600 with Very High details without some serious graphical grunt.

With that out of the way, we found that the LCD3090's strong performance in our targeted tests carried over into high-motion tasks like gaming. Not only were the games incredibly crisp and sharp, but colours were also very vibrant too. What's more, the black levels in Doom 3 were some of the best I've seen since playing the game on a 19-inch Sony Multiscan G400 when it first came out – I'd almost forgotten about all that detail hidden in the dark areas.

Team Fortress 2 is a game I love and the NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi reminded me how much I've missed playing the game recently – sadly, I've been doing far too much travelling and just haven't had the time. Colours were incredibly vivid and crisp and the screen's huge presence makes for an immersive experience. What's more, because of the excellent job that Valve has done with the Source Engine, the game ran great at maximum detail with 0xAA 16xAF on a GeForce 9600 GT. Yeah, I was impressed too.


I also played some World in Conflict and although I had to upgrade my graphics card in the process, the game looked incredibly sweet. The God rays peeking through the clouds looked especially awesome and man, landing a triple nuke looked even more incredible than the first time I dropped one of those on a pair of GeForce 8800 Ultras during the multiplayer beta. Panning across the map didn't cause any noticeable stuttering or smearing either – this is down to the low pixel response time and also NEC's Rapid Response technology, which helps to ensure there's no ghosting or blurring.

I then focused my attention on watching high definition video. Now, movie buffs probably wouldn't want to watch scaled HD video on this display, as it rather defeats the point of watching things in HD – scaling ruins a lot of the crispness, but I have to say that the NEC coped incredibly well with even 720p feeds. And some of the higher-quality 1080p content we've got—like Casino Royale on Blu-ray—scaled very well and still looked amazingly crisp.

Colours looked vibrant and were easily defined at both the high and low ends of the scale – something that couldn't be said about the more gaming-orientated AccuSync LCD24WMCX we looked at back in April.

I moved onto looking at some digital photos I'd taken with a Canon EOS400D on a recent trip to Taroko National Park near Hualien in Taiwan. The depth of the images was amazing and I found myself looking back through the hundreds of pictures (around 8GB in total) I took during that trip. Editing images on the screen was every bit as accurate as the LCD2690WUXi sitting next to it right now – but the 3090 had the benefit of more real estate, which made editing images even more of a breeze.

Finally, text in a range of fonts and sizes looked very crisp – reading websites and Microsoft Word documents was problem free, but that's something we come to expect from all monitors these days. Some still get it horribly wrong though, with either too much or not enough sharpness – the great thing about the NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi is that it allows you to adjust the sharpness to fit your own personal preferences.

Conclusions

The NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi is an amazing screen that not only fits the bill for professionals, but will also appeal to those of us that want stunning image quality, a whole host of features and acres of desktop real estate. Of course, the price will undoubtedly put a lot of people off this screen, but I tell you, if I had £1,500 burning a hole in my pocket I know where I'd be spending it. Yes, it's expensive, but then so is a Ferrari F430 Scuderia – it's all about getting what you pay for.

And what you get for your money here is one of the best LCDs I've ever had on my desk. Going back to my Samsung SyncMaster 215TW—even though it's incredible—will be very hard indeed. There's nothing that will replace the sheer size of this display combined with the simply stunning image quality. I'm going to be a very sad man indeed.

• Features
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• Image Quality
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• Value
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• 8/10

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• 10/10

What do these scores mean?