EIZO FlexScan S2243W Review

EIZO FlexScan S2243W

A monitor that’s designed to maximise desk space but provide quality results

EIZO makes a collection of monitors especially designed for digital artists and photographers, looking to create with on-screen colours and print material that is as true to life as possible. The FlexScan S2243W is a compact 22-inch display, which boasts the same quality as a 24-inch from EIZO but with a more economical footprint. This machine is suitable for artists with limited desk space and provides the quality you can expect from higher-end models. Considering the cost of professional monitors – often rising into the thousands – the S2243W comes at a price that’s easier to swallow. The S2243W has a screen resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, which makes a visible difference to on-screen crispness. It’s vital if you work with each pixel in Photoshop at a close distance, ie photo retouching and photomanipulation projects. The clarity of this display makes editing far easier.

Brightness: With a brightness level of 350cd/m, the monitor makes working in either bright ambient lighting or dim conditions comfortable. In EyeCare mode, the brightness level is lowered to 3cd/m for a very dim output

From the offset, the S2243W monitor looks bright, sharp and rich in colour – generally a great package for enthusiasts and professional digital designers alike. A contrast ratio of 1,200:1 helps divide on-screen exposure into glorious gradients – managing monochrome and coloured imagery. When converting to greyscale or using the Desaturate adjustment in Photoshop, a good balance of midtones is maintained. Where shadows and highlights are at risk of losing detail, the monitor does well to keep control.

The 350cd/m brightness value relates to the intensity of the monitor’s backlight. This aids the S2243W’s ability to cope with glare from natural light. If you work in brightly lit studio conditions, you can turn up the backlight using the Brightness control to compensate. Environment-conscious users can alternatively turn on the Auto EcoView. This power-saving mode assesses the surrounding ambient lighting, using receptive front panel sensors and reduces the brightness output to a level that’s also easier on your eyes. The ‘M’ button on the front of the monitor cycles through its display modes, including EyeCare. This particular mode reduces its brightness down to an extremely low 3cd/m, as opposed to the maximum 350cd/m. EyeCare aims to help prevent fatigue when working in extremely dim ambient surroundings.

Multiple inputs: The EIZO FlexScan S2243W allows you to connect with up to three PCs via the monitor’s D-Sub (analog), DVI-D (digital) and DisplayPort (digital) input terminals. DisplayPort is next generation connectivity that transmits both video and audio signals

Mainly in digital SLR cameras, the colour setting can be switched between sRGB and Adobe RGB. The difference is how much of the visible spectrum is captured for each image. Adobe RGB captures more shades of cyan and green than sRGB, making for a more dynamic capture. But the trick is trying to reproduce the same level of colour on your monitor to then be able to work within Photoshop. The S2243W has a colour gamut that covers 95 per cent of the Adobe RGB colour space – so it displays nearly all the colours that are captured in-camera. For Photoshoppers, it’s important to see as many shades of colour as possible and although these variations are subtle, they can make a big difference to your end results.

To calibrate the colour output of the S2243W and to ensure that what you see on screen is what you see in print, EIZO has the great optional extra – EasyPIX. This is colour-matching software with a sensor that saves a profile of the colour and brightness readings for you to use when editing artwork. Place the colour sensor over your screen to run tests, save the results and then open up the profile in Photoshop to use when you come to print Monitors of a similar price bracket can sometimes be victims to a vignette on all four corners. This defect is a faint black shadow coming in from the corners, which is most noticeable if you place a white canvas to the edges. Happily the S2243W doesn’t suffer from this vignette, and instead you’ll find brilliant edge-to-edge brightness. We were highly impressed with the monitor’s performance in both colour and black-and-white management, as well as the fact that it keeps the environment close to its heart. Overall, the S2243W is an efficient monitor that strikes a fine balance between price and quality.