Huey Pantone Pro + MacBook Pro + Cinema Display 23" Review!

OK, so this review won't be nearly as fun or in depth as the MacBook Pro 17" review, so for that I apologise (I don't like you all that much, to be honest).

So today's review is the Huey Pantene Pro, which is a hair product that will give you the shine you've been looki....... Eh? Wait a sec....

*scurries off*

Sorry, Pant one Huey Pro, which is a .. er... screen calibration doohickey of some sort, for Windows and OS X (10.3 or higher, apparently).

First impressions are good. Box is nicely packaged. I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I took a picture of it, and you can see on this site what it looks like some more, and how it works exactly:



http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/pantone_huey_pro.html

The procedure for calibrating is simple. You attack the doohickey to your display with the suction cups (which won't hurt anything, relax), and then run through the color calibration in the software. Basically, the optical reader on the doohickey reads the colors being cycled by the display, and then calibrates your screen at the end of it so that colors look...umm...well....natural.

Except, in my Huey's case. They look crap. I won't get into the really technical stuff, but D65 is supposed to be a nice, midday-like color temperature, D50 is warmer, and D75 is cooler. D65 is really the standard.

However, when calibrated (numerous times) with my Apple 23" display, D65 just looked awful. Difficult (for me anyway) to take pictures, but here's a before calibration and after calibration picture set. Yuck.

Before:



After:


D75 looks cooler, but still pink-ish.

Now, I won't argue with you here. Before looks too blue/green, but After looks so brownish/pink I want to gouge my eyes out. Needless to say, I've gone back to the "Before" color scheme until my Spyder2Pro calibrator arrives on Monday.

I read on some forums that Hueys have some pink/magenta casting issues, but I guess I didn't realize just how bad they would be. The sad thing is you can't adjust the colors in the Huey-calibrated image to fix the pink, and heck, I don't trust it at all now.

Just an FYI, I took the Huey downstairs and plugged it into my wife's Samsung 24" 1920x1200 245BW (TN panel), and had the exact same results. A pinkish/brownish tinge to the image. Just ick! It's gross. It's like you're in grade-school and a hot girl wants to make out with you. Just... ew.

So, a new calibrator will arrive on Monday, and I shall report back on that when it does. For now, though, give the Huey a miss. You're better off washing your hair. You'd be more successful.

 

Different brand calibrator next time?

 

Yep. Spyder2Pro on Monday.

 

Hope the new one works out better.

 

I have seen people with quite a bit of success with the Spyder 2, but the best results I have personally seen come with more expensive systems.

but honestly if you are not using it for printing reasons, most screens look just fine, and from my experience with Apple Cinema Display's and my MBP (non LED) has been quite possitive, in terms of color temperature.

 

circa86, once you see how the Huey (sort of) works, you'll never understand how you could live with the Apple Cinema Display uncalibrated. It's ghastly. Then again, the Huey's pink cast killed my enjoyment. I really hope the Sypder2Pro works out...

 

You write very useful and funny reviews,...Spyder2pro eigh?
Thanks

 

Cool. I use Spyder2Express and have been pretty happy with it.. Looking forward to your update

 

What's the difference between the Spyder2Express and Spyder2Pro because price? Is it definitely worth it to get the Pro?

 

I want that 30 cinema!

 

Pro and Express use the same colormeter device. The only difference is the software. I hear that with Pro you get more advanced options and that you can save multiple profiles so that you can have two monitors running together from one computer.. I think to get around that in Windows you'd just rename the profile "spyder2express" so that it doesn't save over it but I haven't figured out how to do it on the Mac..