Datacolor SpyderX Elite review

Datacolor reinvents its monitor calibrator line-up with new tech that promises faster, more accurate colour calibration

Digital Camera World Verdict

You may need a bionic eye to notice the improvement in calibration accuracy offered by SpyderX, but if you've got a need for calibration speed, Datacolor's latest Spyder doesn't disappoint and is a quantum leap over the outgoing Spyder5.

Pros

  • +

    Nearly 3x faster than Spyder5 Elite

  • +

    Packed with features

  • +

    Software suits all abilities

Cons

  • -

    Software could use a styling update

  • -

    Pricey compared with Spyder5

  • -

    Marginal calibration accuracy improvement

Why you can trust Digital Camera World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out how we test.

You can go to great lengths to ensure accurate in-camera white balance and consistent color in software raw processing, but all this effort is wasted if your monitor is deceiving you by displaying incorrect color.

Fortunately there's a quick, easy and effective fix for this: monitor calibration. Spend a couple of minutes calibrating your monitor and you'd be amazed at the color transformation many monitors are capable of, and how a screen you once thought was accurate is revealed to have been displaying a pronounced color cast all along.

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Ben Andrews

Ben is the Imaging Labs manager, responsible for all the testing on Digital Camera World and across the entire photography portfolio at Future. Whether he's in the lab testing the sharpness of new lenses, the resolution of the latest image sensors, the zoom range of monster bridge cameras or even the latest camera phones, Ben is our go-to guy for technical insight. He's also the team's man-at-arms when it comes to camera bags, filters, memory cards, and all manner of camera accessories – his lab is a bit like the Batcave of photography! With years of experience trialling and testing kit, he's a human encyclopedia of benchmarks when it comes to recommending the best buys.