EIZO’s Boundaries Reached: The CG318-4K Reviewed

EIZO ColorEdge CG318-4K Monitor Review

Max Wales

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

EIZO ColorEdge CG318 is one of the most powerful 4K monitors in the market that has impactful specifications with feature rich design. Video and Broadcast producers will find this monitor excellent with impressive visual specs and the CGI and VFX setting options. This wide monitor has maximum screen size of 31.1 inch where 4K resolution can be maintained with 4096 by 2160 pixels. It is perfect combination of all high end capabilities like self adjusting settings for display, improved pixel density and built in type color sensor. With lots of professional editing features, this monitor can be recommended for office editing needs as well as for studio applications. The article below contains detailed review of EIZO ColorEdge CG318 so spend few minutes here to read the information that can help you to make decision about buying your next monitor.

Pros:

• It offers impressive refresh rate settings.
• Contrast ratio is simply awesome.
• Lots of input connectivity options along with DisplayPort 1.2
• It offers true 4K results with 4096 by 2160 pixels.
• You will definitely appreciate its wide color range support.
• It offers highly accurate Delta E color response.

Cons:

• HDMI 2.0 port is missing.
• Response time is quite slow with 9ms rating.
• You will find this monitor highly expensive.

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Hardware Design

1.Design Style

When EIZO ColorEdge CG318 comes out of the box then very first thing that buyers notice is its large display. You must be interested to know about the flexibility options associated with this larger monitor. The best part to discuss here is the adjustment and movement options. Users can easily make adjustments for height this screen to keep it at level of eyes because it offers easy movements in up down motion. It is also possible to rotate this monitor via base and column so that it can be easily aligned with other display screens in the office or studio. You will find its thin panel size very useful as it allows easy placement over smaller desk and you can find enough space to place other essentials like mouse, keyboard and the color grading panel. You will be glad to know that manufacturers at EIZO have finally decided to use touch sensitive control buttons instead of those old fashioned physical buttons.

2. Ports and Connectivity

EIZO ColorEdge CG318 offers the standard package for connectivity that can work well for most of office needs. On this 4K monitor, you will find 2 DisplayPort 1.2 Ports that assists in management of 60Hz frequency range for 4K content while ensuring higher smoothness. As, market is loaded with numbers of graphic cards that support 60Hz frequency range so you will not find any trouble to mange this setting. This monitor also consists of one USB port and 3 separate USB 3.0 ports. You will also find two HDMI 1.4 ports that allow easy connectivity with third party devices. The most disappointing thing about EIZO ColorEdge CG318 is missing HDMI 2.0 port that could otherwise assists in 60 Hz viewing experience but with this monitor you can only rely upon DisplayPort 1.2. Also, it does not contain SDI connection that may disappoint the video professionals.

Feature and Performance

1. Color

EIZO ColorEdge CG318 contains lots of interesting features to ensure higher color accuracy. Along with the wide connectivity options, this monitor also handles self adjustment color calibration with ease. This monitor can deliver perfect color setting for sRGB color spectrum, Adobe RGB leads to 99% accuracy and DPI-P3 ensures 98% digital color delivery. You will rarely find DPI-P3 setting in current 4K monitors but ColorEdge has received greater boost for color accuracy with this technology.

If we talk about the contrast ratio then it is 1500:1 for EIZO ColorEdge CG318; you must be aware about the fact that even the high end monitors are able to maintain half of this contrast ratio hardly or they can somehow manage to reach 1000:1 only. Thus you can expect perfect adjustment for darker and brighter tones of this 4K monitor. This 4K monitor also has impressive addition of software to improve overall quality. The most interesting one is ColorNavigator Network Software that assists in time to time activation or deactivation of various color features while managing the calibration modes to perform different tasks.

In terms of accuracy for color reproduction and management of wide color range, EIZO ColorEdge CG318 performs perfectly fine. The sRGB results in 100% color gamut coverage whereas Adobe RGB leads to 99% accuracy. This monitor is not just limited to production of color ranges rather it focuses more on higher accuracy. The tests were performed while measuring the color accuracy levels with Delta E settings and it was observed to sit around range of 0.60 to 1, this is really good for most of color applications.

2.Self Calibration

Till now you might have seen most of the display screens that demand huge efforts for calibration but here in case of EIZO ColorEdge CG318 you will be happy to know about it’s built in automated calibration adjustment abilities. This automatic setting helps to provide efficient results as compared to other competitive models and it will also save much time of users. The calibration sensor for this 4K monitor is hidden below top bezel of screen and it simply swings down on screen when calibration task is running. When this sensor is not in use then it automatically swings back to its normal position. As this monitor is designed with very slick design so it would be quite difficult to use any calibration instrument over it. Thus automated adjustments suit it better.

Users can set schedules calibration timings for this monitor and when that schedule needs to run then your standby monitor will wake up automatically and it will spend few minutes for automatic calibration. Once this task is completed then it normally goes back to sleep mode. This is really an intelligent feature for a 4k monitor and assists professionals in easy management of screen settings for their various projects. The build in sensor ensures perfect optimization for calibrated screen. You will find its Color Edge Navigator Software tool easy to setup and it can assist users for their video and photography needs. It managed automatic switching of desired color specific features as per need of current project running on screen.

Professionals who need to work on Cinema settings or Broadcast applications will find preset modes of EIZO ColorEdge CG318 very interesting. The range of modes includes DCI, SMPTE-C, REC. 709 and EBU. These settings assist users to enjoy gamma value adjustments and color specs with ease. If you need more efficient color settings for some high end projects then the built in type calibration sensor and advanced software tool can help you to manage brightness settings for each preset. Thus it is possible to optimize everything as per specific workflow.

Conclusion

If you are thinking about buying a new 4K monitor for your photo editing needs then EIZO ColorEdge CG318 can be best choice for you but to avail best performance you need to use fast graphic cards with this monitor. All other features are quite impressive along with 60Hz frequency rate setting for 4K content that can be delivered via DisplayPort. However, missing HDMI 2.0 port may be a issue for few professionals but the impressive calibration features and higher color accuracy of this monitor make it standout between all big brands.

Max Wales

Max Wales is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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