The monitor has 100% brightness and 75% contrast by default. I achieved a 100nit white by selecting 22% brightness and 25% contrast. The brightness is regulated by means of backlight modulation at a frequency of 179Hz.
Color gradients are reproduced normally at the default settings but become somewhat striped at reduced values of contrast.
The color gamut is similar to the one of the SyncMaster 2043NW. Well, it’s normal for the manufacturer to use the same matrix in so similar models. Compared with typical LCD monitors, blue is going to be lighter and less deep on the screen of the 2043WM.
The average white brightness uniformity is 6.0% with a maximum of 14.9%. For black, the average and maximum are 5.8% and 20.1%, respectively. The numbers are not quite good. The pictures show that the left part of the screen is darker than the rest of it.
The green and blue curves go higher than the ideal one at the default settings. The red curve almost coincides with the theoretical one.
It’s all the same at the reduced brightness and contrast except that the red curve goes higher now, too. Thus, the monitor’s gamma is higher than necessary, yet this is going to be inconspicuous in practice. Both darks and lights are reproduced without problems.
Well, you can improve the gamma value by using the monitor’s own settings. Choose Gamma3 in the menu and you’ll have almost ideal gamma curves as shown in the diagram above.
The color temperature setup is not perfect, though. There is a large difference between gray and white (this can be corrected by lowering the contrast setting in the monitor’s menu) and also between the levels of gray: over 1000K even in the Normal mode. Moreover, the monitor yields a very cold image. The Warm mode is more or less acceptable for typical ambient lighting while the Normal mode is going to look bluish to most users.
The brightness and contrast ratio are close to the results of the SyncMaster 2043NW. Well, these models surely have identical matrixes. The contrast ratio is rather average as today’s matrixes go.
