NEC E232WMT 23-Inch Touchscreen Monitor Review

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When Windows 8 added 10-point multi-touch support, we expected a flood of desktop touchscreen monitors to hit the market. That hasn’t happened yet but NEC is making maximum effort with the E232WMT. Today we check it out in our lab.

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Results: Grayscale Tracking And Gamma Response

Our grayscale and gamma tests are described in detail here.

Grayscale Tracking

If you don’t plan to calibrate the E232WMT, we recommend sRGB mode as the most accurate. To adjust the white balance, you have to select the User mode, which is based on the non-adjustable Native mode shown below.

This is how the monitor shows up from the factory. The blue-green tint pervades all brightness levels starting at 30 percent. If you select User, you see the same result before calibration.

sRGB is the best fire-and-forget mode on the E232WMT. It still has visible errors starting at 40 percent, but in our opinion provides the best uncalibrated image. The tint leans toward blue and rises in intensity up to the maximum level.

The RGB sliders are a little coarse in operation. Fortunately, we still achieved good results with our calibration. There are slight spikes at 40, 50, and 100 percent, but they aren't visible. Accuracy is obviously not the primary design goal. Still, this panel performs well indeed.

Here is our comparison group:

Among business-class screens, the E232WMT lags in its out-of-box performance. A 4.60 Delta E measurement reflects what we see from Native mode, and switching to sRGB only improves the average error to 4.29. We definitely recommend calibrating this monitor for the best picture quality.

Adjusting the RGB sliders takes the E232WMT to a fairly high level of accuracy. We always shoot for an average error of less than one Delta E, so 1.02 only misses that mark by a hair.

Gamma Response

The E232WMT’s gamma performance is consistent in every color mode whether you calibrate or not. There is a dynamic contrast option that skews our findings significantly, but if you leave it off, you’re rewarded with near-perfect tracking. Our only beef is that there are no other gamma presets available. If you want something other than 2.2, you’re out of luck.

Here is our comparison group again:

Gamma tracking is super-tight at only a .14 variance from lowest to highest. In output terms, it never varies from the standard by more than 1.65 cd/m2. That's excellent.

We calculate gamma deviation by simply expressing the difference from 2.2 as a percentage.

The E232WMT misses the 2.2 average value by a scant .0204. Even the most sensitive eyes won't see a problem. We’re glad to see that gamma doesn’t interact with any of the monitor’s image adjustments.

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Christian Eberle
Christian Eberle
Contributing Editor

Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He's a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors. Christian began his obsession with tech when he built his first PC in 1991, a 286 running DOS 3.0 at a blazing 12MHz. In 2006, he undertook training from the Imaging Science Foundation in video calibration and testing and thus started a passion for precise imaging that persists to this day. He is also a professional musician with a degree from the New England Conservatory as a classical bassoonist which he used to good effect as a performer with the West Point Army Band from 1987 to 2013. He enjoys watching movies and listening to high-end audio in his custom-built home theater and can be seen riding trails near his home on a race-ready ICE VTX recumbent trike. Christian enjoys the endless summer in Florida where he lives with his wife and Chihuahua and plays with orchestras around the state.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • joravecz
    Christian, you apparently didn't do your homework. There are multiple touchscreen models available from Viewsonic, Acer and others. To say the NEC is the second touchscreen after Dell looks incorrect to me. I've been waiting for reviews of those other models, but if you don't know they're out there I guess I'll be waiting for a while.
    Reply
  • blackmagnum
    I have never thought that business-consumer minded NEC would sell touchscreen models. The FAR reaching effects of Windows 8!
    Reply
  • therogerwilco
    LOL
    since the two major operating systems, OS X and Windows
    So that means the two major phone OS's are Android and Windows phone!
    OSX isn't a major OS. It's at 6.74% right now.
    Reply
  • xenol
    The expensive con sort of irks me. Not that it's a con, but it just feels generically placed. Expensive compared to what? Someone may find all monitors over $200 too expensive, regardless.

    I dunno, just nitpicking.
    Reply
  • qlum
    LOL
    since the two major operating systems, OS X and Windows
    So that means the two major phone OS's are Android and Windows phone!
    OSX isn't a major OS. It's at 6.74% right now.
    It would probably be a lot lower if you disregard laptops. Maybe the Linux distros even surpass is then.
    Reply
  • Karsten75
    Can anyone say "gorilla arm?" LOL
    Reply
  • gc9
    "OSX isn't a major OS. It's at 6.74% right now."

    So by that reasoning, what do you think about the USA, which holds less than 4.5% of the world population? Higher spending customers are more important for some.
    Reply