MONITOR - EIZO Foris FS2333 Review

[WereCat]

Hi, I decided to do another review. This time it is my monitor I have been using for about 3/4 year now. It is EIZO FORIS FS2333. Please have in mind that english is not my main language and therefore you can notice a lot of mistakes while reading. I hope that it wont make your reading too much uncomfortable. Lets get into it then:

First of all I would like to mention that this is my first personal experience with IPS monitor. We have plasma TV in living room and my previous monitor was old SONY CRT 15" with 1024x768 resolution. Also all my friends are using TN panels and they are not even FullHD. So I really cant compare this to anything I previously owned but I will try to keep objective opinion.
I choosed this monitor because I want as much eye candy as possible if it is while playing games or watching videos. Also I wanted best possible gaming experience with IPS panel and this monitor offers a lot of features for gaming as well.

1920x1080 pixels (FullHD)
23" (58cm) IPS panel 60Hz
Response time 3,4 ms GTG (Gray to gray)
Viewing angles 178/178 degrees
Brightnes 250 cd/m2
Colors 16,7 milion (8-bit)
In build speakers

Connectors and accessories:
2x HDMI (1x HDMI cable included)
1x DVI-D (1x DVI-D cable included)
1x VGA 15pin D-Sub (no cable included)
1x 3,5 mm audio input/output (1x 3,5 mm jack/jack cable included)
Power cable (included)
Remote controller for setting up monitor (included + battery)
Colored stripes (3x included, one for each color - red/blue/white)

Power Consumption:
Maximum 42 W
Typical 22 W

Stand:
Tilting (front/back): 5/25 degrees
Adjustable high

On front of monitor we can see screen (obviously), LED indicator, Infra red receiver for remote controller and 4 buttons.
Buttons are in this order - SIGNAL, Vol-, Vol+, OFF/ON (everything else is adjustable via remote controller).
LED Indicator: Blue (monitor is in usage), Orange (Standby mode), Red (soft-off mode). You can also turn off LED indicator in OSD (On-screen display) but that does apply only if monitor is in use, in other modes this setting is ignored.

Image quality on this monitor is really good. Monitor is calibrated right outside the box (while using User1 and User2 mode, more about modes later). I was able to increase color accuracy a little bit more because it was very slightly oversaturated. Black levels and Contrast are ideal on stock settings (value 50) increasing it or decreasing it only by a 1 point had negative impact on blacks and white levels (at least for me). But blacks and whites on default look really good so there is no need to mess with this setting (unless you are hardcore photographer in which case you will aim for completely different monitor).
I have no equipment for measuring collor accuracy so I can only tell you if it looks good or bad but on internet I found these numbers: (sRGB 96,6% accuracy).

Backlight is good. You can see slight bleeding when screen goes black in bottom right corner but otherwise you cant see it at all so I wouldnt say it is an issue.

I dont really want to go through all settings because they are standard things (language, brightness, contrast, ... etc) but there are things that are a lot more interesting than that and they are also reason why I choosed this monitor.
There is 7 modes: ECO, User1, User2, RGB, Paper, Game, Cinema.
Out of these 7 modes only 2 are fully adjustable (User1, User2). ECO is for power savings, RGB (Basic setting for monitor but not very well calibrated), Paper (I have no idea why would anyone want to have yellow image), Game (Good but not calibrated at all), Cinema (its blurry).

User1 and User2 are best options because they are calibrated out of box (almost perfectly) and are fully adjustable. Other mods can be adjusted too but only in the way they are intended for. I was planing on using Game mode but it is very oversaturated so I made my own Game mode out of User2 mode. And that brings us to...

I have read a lot about SMART functions on other monitors and people usualy said that it is only some kind of filter and it actualy makes image worse. But in this case there are no filters applied, instead monitor is actualy analyzing displayed content for noise and blur. It ensures the noise is not accentuated while correcting the blur to the extent needed to sharpen the image. In games it makes content more vivid, in photos and web pages it distinguishes skin tones and text and enhances how they are displayed.
Setting this functions is pretty easy and straight forward. It is very, very, very sensitive and you can see huge differences betwen values. I found that every setting enabled on lowest value is best for me, except Smart Insight which I have OFF.
Smart Insight makes objects or opponents that are hidden in the darkness much easier to see. In Smart Insight settings you can even set for what genre you want Smart Insight enable (RTS - LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH / FPS - LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH / COMBINED). This is huge and unfair advantage in multiplayer games and thats the reason I dont use it. Basicaly... for example in ARMA II, Smart Insight FPS HIGH options makes day out of night. You can see everyone and noone can see you.
Smart Resolution on its lowest setting looks great. It adds little details to image or enhances some aspects of it (mainly shadows) but increasing value of this setting too much makes image looks very cartoon like which is only benefit in games like League of Legends or Borderlands. In other games I find that having value of this setting set to 1 is best.

Here are some photos I took with my phone as I cant screenshot it because it is monitor setting.  There is Smart Resolution off vs Smart resolution on its max setting vs Smart Resolution off + Smart Insight on maximum setting comparison.

Please note that on photos it does not look exactly as it is actualy. This is just to show what it does. In reality it looks actualy a lot better.

I havent tested speakers on monitor, I havent even unpacked jack/jack cable to start with because I have my own dedicated speakers and headphones and I dont think that anyone will be using monitor speakers. I suppose that they sound OK but I cant really tell so sorry for that.

Overall I think that this monitor is great. It is definitely not for everyone. For price 300€ I dont see many people buying it especialy now when 4k is comming and 1440p is a lot more popular. But thats mainly for US, for EU there still may be enough people interested in this monitor mainly because prices of 1440p monitors are still high + you also need better GPU for it if you want to play games.

If you are gamer and you are OK with 60Hz and want as much eye candy as possible, then go for this monitor, you wont regret it at all. If you are photographer beginner then also you can use this monitor without a doubt. I personaly am really happy with this monitor and I am glad that I decided for it. I havent encountered any problems with it so far.

 

For everyone who got to the end.. Thank you for reading, I hope that I covered everything important!

[Fred Castellum]

Good review, that's a impressive response time for a IPS panel. 

I'd need something that's at least 24" though.

[WereCat]

Good review, that's a impressive response time for a IPS panel. 

I'd need something that's at least 24" though.

Thank you.

Yes, I dont know how they managed to get such a low latency for IPS panel but its great.

 

Also I forgot to mention that monitor comes with 5 year warranty.

[JAKEBAB]

i love this monitor i was going to get it back when this forum first started its ips but has an onboard chip to help with latency i really hope they make a 4k version that isnt super pricey i would so get it this monitor was pretty pricey at the time i think it was like 5 or 600 Aud which u could get 2 or 3 1080p monitors for that price so if they do make a 4k model i doubt it will be cheap lol but nice review i havnt seen much on this monitor i dont think many people have it.