16 out of 17 people found this review helpful.
A tiny, inexpensive, desktop must-have.
Date of Review: Mar 23, 2006
The Bottom Line: For the price, it's impossible to say anything bad about it. It performs as advertised, and this makes up for all shortcomings.
First, let me start by discussing the problems with Huey. Don't think I'm bashing the little guy, I'm just getting the downside out of the way first. It's small and cheap. Meaning that it's easily knocked aside. It rests in a base to monitor ambient light and the base should have a rubber bottom to hold it from sliding. The cord is impossibly thin, and Pantone seems to know this, as they design it to be replaceable: the actual cord is at most 18 inches long, and then a supplied USB extension is used to connect Huey to your computer. How thin is this cord? I replaced the extension in under 24 hours of ownership because my cat thought it looked like a toy and severed it with one chomp. I will get to the other issues later.
Now I will discuss what I like about Huey.
For years, I've used Adobe Gamma to color correct my screen. I turned my desktop to 50% grey and eyeballed it best I could. I often spent what felt like 15 minutes tweaking the blue gamma, then the green gamma, then the red gamma, then the blue . . . well, you get the idea. In under 5 minutes, Huey did a better job than I ever could have.
Is it accurate? To my eye, absolutely. To another colorimeter? I have no idea. If I had $200+ to spend on a proven colorimeter, I would not have purchased Huey. Herein lies the issue. Is it better than nothing or your own effort? Yes, yes, yes. For its level of accuracy, is it worth the cost savings? Yes. I think it's fine to sacrifice a 1-3% level (my guesstimate) of inaccuracy to save a hundred dollars, especially when I might never notice the difference. So, yes, it does feel kinda cheap, but that's the point. It is, but it still does the job, just as it claims to.
How it works:
Uninstall whatever softwear you're using (in my case, delete Adobe Gamma from my PC's startup folder)Install the softwear, and connect Huey. Run Huey. I lovely graphic screen appears and talks you through setup. The directions to manually adjust contrast and brightness could be clearer (it says to turn Contrast to 100% and Brightness to 50% and then turn it down until a specific graphic looks a certain way, but it never explains which "it" it defines - brightness or contrast. The next screen, which adjusts Brightness uses the same faulty wording. Still, you can get a decent result eyeballing it here). Then it asks to put Huey on the screen. It has a few mini-suction cups to adhere it to your CRT - for an LCD, tip the screen back and rest Huey on it - never press it against an LCD. Now, I've read a few reviews elsewhere, and in my own experiments on my CRT, the lighting in the room will effect the results. Close the shades and shut the lights. Huey is small and reflections from within the room do throw it off. Then the screen flashes different colors and Huey acknowledges. Once it's done, you can see a corrected/uncorrected comparison. Then you have a usage option. Huey offers you various situations that effect the color of the display. They include Gaming, web surfing and photo editing, video editing and graphic design, and then warm with low, med, or high contrast, and cool with low, medium or high contrast. I am a photographer, and found that cool, high contrast is the best setting for me, offering the most color accuracy. Web Surfing and photo editing is just way too magenta. Then you can set if you want it to adjust for room lighting and how often it should do that. I use 2 minutes. Every 2 minutes, Huey fires up its lights, and if I turn this or that light on in the room (or the sun is setting), I can see the change. Unfortunately, I also leave my computer on most of the time, and Huey does not recognize that my monitor has gone to standby. It's a simple click to turn off the monitoring, as I don't want Huey to run when the computer is idling and I'm asleep, but it's a problem Pantone should fix. But as you may know, tungsten light is yellow, halogen is blue-ish, the setting sun is rosey, and Huey ever so noticeably adapts your monitor to these situations as you work.
Overall, I am happy with it. For what it costs, I believe I got a lot for the money, enough to overlook the foibles I spoke about in the beginning. If you've been wanting to get some sort of calibration device and have held back because they were just too much money, now's the time to think about Huey.
