[geeks] Spyder 2 Express

[Shannon Hendrix]

I ordered a Spyder 2 Express monitor calibration tool for $50 the  
other day.

The good points:

This is a *very* good unit.

It did a far better job than i did at color calibration.

The positives are pretty short, not because unit has few, but because  
when something works exactly how it should, there isn't much to say.   
Stuff that works is boring... :)

The unit is a little slower than some calibrators, taking as long as  
10-15 minutes to do calibration, but still fast enough that doing  
monthly calibration is no big deal.

I'm quite happy with the results and the unit works exactly how the  
company claims.

I thought I came really close calibrating my monitor by hand, but I  
was actually pretty far off.  The images now have a lot more pop, and  
I can see details even in the Mac UI that I had not seen before.

I was complaining about the new Leopard shadows the other day, and it  
turns out it was my faulty calibration.

The bad points:

The basic bad point is that the Express version of the software is  
crippled too severely.  It is crippled to the point where even casual  
users are affected, and I think the limits actually make the product  
useless to a lot of common users.

I got around the problem because I know how to fool the software, but  
for most users this would be a big turn-off.

Here they are:

You can only create a single profile, and you cannot name it  
yourself.  The software also places it in a location hard to get so  
you cannot easily rename it yourself, and I've not found any tools to  
do that anyway.  For some maddening reason, Apple's ColorSync tool  
doesn't let you edit a color profile.

Shame on Apple and Colorvision both.

You can only pick a single color temperature: 6500K.  This obviously  
could be a problem for even basic users, since some people either  
cannot use that setting, or their display can't or does it poorly.   
6500K is common enough I can almost forgive them for this, but only  
almost.  I think they should at least support selectable temperature.   
Reserving RGB editing for the Pro version is fine, keeping people from  
doing basic color temp is not.

You cannot calibrate more than one display, without using some tricks  
to fool the software into looking at your other monitors.  Spyder 2  
Express will only look at your primary display.

This is why they put in the limit of not letting you name your  
profiles, since that would let you work around the single display limit.

The trick is to find and rename the profile, using a binary editor,  
and then swap your monitors so the other ones you want to calibrate  
are primary.  Ugly, but doable.

Really, what were they thinking?  Not being able to name a profile is  
a serious problem, and multiple monitor use is increasing and common  
even among very low end computer users.

It's asking a lot to have to pay double the price for the Pro version  
to get base level features that are necessary for even basic users.

Several other reviewers noted the same problem and had the same  
criticism, so I knew this when I bought it and decided the hardware  
was worth it.  I may upgrade to the Pro version later.

Conclusion:

Despite the software limits, I'm pretty happy.  This unit does a very  
good job of calibration, and you can routinely find the Express  
version for $50, and then upgrade  your software to the Pro version.

I plan to write the company about the crippling of the Express  
version, because it really does make the package almost useless, and  
maybe they would be willing to at least put multiple display support  
and/or ICC profile naming in the package.

I highly recommend the Spyder 2 hardware, and recommend the software  
with the above caveats.


-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."