ColorMunki Display (Mac/PC)

Got this on a prime day for about 90 pounds , the reason i got this over the spyder is that its actually a superior device and reads darker colors more accurate, this was really important to me as my new monitor is a VA panel and can drop backs really low. Also everytime i run a calibration i get exactly the same result which makes it super reliable.I calibrated my Z35P and my samsung pls display and its really impressive , the colors looks as close as its possible to each other! Especially for the Z35p worked unrealistically good , the colors were really washed out and the gamma way too high , the result was like i bought another display. Colors now can be described as vibrant , more saturate and definitely accurate.I did not use the x-rites software but the free DisplayCal software that is superior and bug free to both the spyder's software and x-rites.I would definitely recommend this for everyone , i am not a professional and i firstly thought that it was an exaggeration to get a colorimeter just for gaming , movies , animes and regular stuff but it actually proved to be an absolutely NECESSARY purchase.

Having read a lot about colour and the human eye's perception of it I decided the only way I could have confidence in my pictures and art was to calibrate my monitors.Regarding my perception of monitor colour - If you think you can set your monitor accurately by eye you are wrong (at least I was) As a test for myself I set my main monitor to what I thought was perfect colour and after 15 minutes of use I changed the monitor colour temp to the most different visual setting my monitor would allow (from 6500k to srgb in this case) as soon as I had changed it the screen had a colour cast and looked wrong, I left the room at this point and returned after a couple of minutes or so and amazingly the monitor looked fine. I then did a change back to the original setting which I had thought initially to be excellent and lo and behold my current setting looked right and the original (perfect) setting had a colour cast and looked wrong. Having read up this is something to do with how the brain perceives colour and looking at my monitor my brain adjusts to the slightly different settings making them appear the same to me. This was the main reason I decided to spend what is a large amount of money on a colour calibrator.Packaging - The colormunki comes double boxed, the first box is a black taped up box with the company logo on it. Inside is the shrink wrapped display box as per the item picture, the item is in a slide out plastic tray with a multi language instruction booklet and an installation disc.Installation and set up of the Munki - I downloaded the most up to date softeware for my platfoem (windows 7 64 bit). I disabled my antivirus (as recomended) and installed the software, all apeared well until I tried to plug in the hardware at which point I could not get the device to register at all with the installed software. A bit of internet digging later and I discovered that a number of peoplehave had problems getting the colormunki to install and operate correctly under Windows 7 64 bit. I had to trawl through the x-rite website and found my answer was another piece of software which when run completed/corrected my hardware install and allowed the unit to operate. So not the easiest set up I have ever hadUsage and results - once installed setting up a monitor profile was easy, run the software follow the instructions save the generated profile and you are done. I have 2 monitors on my PC, both were calibrated in around 10 minutes (5 each, the monitor selection is done via a check box as the first step in the calibration process. Now when I had both my monitors set to their factory setting prior to calibrating my HP monitor showed a definite green case and lower luminance in comparison to my viewsonic. Upon completion they are as near to identical as I would think it is possible to get two very different monitors to look, they are infinitely better matched than I could get them by performing manual adjustment. I have left the colormunki plugged in and it will perform samll adjustments based on the local light source.I have yet to do my laptop but it will be getting adjusted.Overall - An easy to use item that does what it says it should, the only downside is the software which seems to have problems with its unsigned driver. Taking into account the price of some of the competing brands I am happy with my colormunki.

I was looking for a colour display calibration device without any prior knowledge. It was difficult to make sense of the existing reviews for the main products available: The Datacolor Spyder range and the X-Rite range. There were a lot of complaints about variation of results.I realised that the bad reviews for these devices were primarily about the bundled software. Those who had used DisplayCAL instead had rated the devices higher. So I purchased the cheapest device recommended on the DisplayCAL website, which was this one.I have since calibrated my Windows 10 HP laptop and 2015 Macbook Air in a few hours with no problems. I have also calibrated my Samsung Smart TV. This took slightly longer, due to it being the only device which could complete the manual adjustment (white space) stage. It is important to understand that you will get better results with a display that has these manual hardware controls. Most laptops (including my own) don't have these, which limits the outcome. In DisplayCAL, you would need to deselect or skip the interactive display adjustment.There has been a definite improvement in line with expectations. Both my laptops have a sRGB gamut coverage of about 60% and so can't display the rich deep colours from the sRGB gamut. The main effect the calibration has had is to tone down the blue tint (which I had got used to and so now looks yellow to me instead). My Samsung Smart TV has a sRGB gamut coverage of 94%. You can see this difference by eye easily just by running the calibration side-by-side with a laptop screen.Overall, this product did what it was made to do quickly and easily (minus the bundled software, which I haven't touched). However, the results are limited by hardware factors including the gamut coverage of the display and the absence of any manual controls.

I know this is highly rated by others but I found the colour to differ slightly each time I did the calibration process. The process is easy enough but lends itself to interpretation which can lead to drastically different colour results. I have read reviews and tried different settings in an attempt to achieve maximum colour control and expectation but I still don't feel confident that what I see is accurate.