Now that Apple is out of the 30” display game, Mac fans have to search a little to find the right giant, pro-grade monitor. Thankfully, NEC has stepped up to the plate with its tongue-twisting 30” Widescreen Color-Critical Desktop Monitor with SpectraViewII ($2,449, aka LCD3090WQXi). Sure, it’s more expensive than the $1,799 Apple was charging for the 30” Cinema Display before the behemoth was discontinued, but the enhancements NEC includes for graphics professionals may very well be worth the extra cash to you.
This monitor has the same 2560 x 1600 resolution and 16:10 widescreen ratio as Apple’s unit—a little higher-res and taller than the 27” iMac and Cinema Display screens used today. If you’re expecting the same kind of thinness, though, this display is not for you. It’s for pros looking for radically enhanced color performance: NEC’s monitor includes several technologies that are designed to make sure that the colors and brightness are even across the panel, which is an IPS active matrix LCD.
The color gamut is an impressive 97.5% coverage of AdobeRGB color space—about 25% better than that of the 27” iMac, and way higher than what you’d get from any of Apple’s laptops. Video, publication, and other visually-intense editing tasks are easier and more accurately handled on a screen with this sort of color fidelity, and NEC packs in a colorimeter to make sure that the colors are accurate and repeatable over time.
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