EIZO ColorEdge CG241W

By far the best monitor I have ever used. I am a color critical freak that has been in the graphic arts business for over 20 years. When I viewed this monitor alongside the Apple Cinema my jaw dropped. The Eizo was stunning. Made the Apple Cinema look like a toy. If you are a pro looking for pro equipment - this is it. Hardware calibration seems to made all the difference. Almost no banding, very accurate color from edge to edge and great shadow detail. Needless to say I'm sold.

I just bought a ViewSonic "professional monitor" for my home studio and although it's an okay monitor it can't hold a candle to the Eizo.

The previous reviewer mentioned he was unable to calibrate his monitor properly but I personal have calibrated at least 15 of these monitors without any issues. It's possible he was experiencing a bug in the Mac software, but the PC version of the software works perfectly. Best part is, once you calibrate the monitors, it doesn't matter what OS you are running. I calibrate them using a windows laptop but the main OS I use is RedHat 5.3. I use this to calibrate my entire facility and while it's not as good as $3000 calibration system, it's pretty darn close. I still use a analog HD broadcast monitor for true reference but these monitors come pretty close to matching. Plus they support a 58Hz refresh rate which is useful if you're using software that requires a 24P playback mode.

I bought this monitor for professional photography retouching, and it was used relatively lightly - and never moved - but died within one year of the purchase date. It it completely unresponsive and now I must ship it back to Eizo in CA at my own expense for repairs which will take up to two weeks. This is unacceptable for a 'professional' monitor at such a price point. My advice would be to think very carefully about buying a monitor from Eizo unless you don't mind being without one for a few weeks, or can afford two for when one breaks.