NEC MultiSync EA305WMi Professional Monitor With ControlSync Review

The EA305WMi has a basic, kind of beefy black bezel and stand, but the monitor is an eye-catcher by virtue of its sheer size. And don’t get us wrong: we like nearly everything about the EA305WMi’s design. What the bulky stand lacks in swagger it makes up for with sturdiness and range of movement. The stand adjusts horizontally 130mm, tilts 30 degrees, and swings into portrait mode. Moving the display in any of these directions requires just a touch, and the monitor stayed in place throughout our (admittedly unscientific) “shake the desk” test.

A single USB 3.0 port and a headphone/mic jack sit on the left side of the EA305WMi, with two more USB 3.0 ports and another audio input tucked just underneath the display on the same side. The monitor also has a DVI port, an HDMI port, two DisplayPorts, the ControlSync in/out ports and the power port along the bottom of the display.


You can keep cables out of sight by routing them through dual cable trays at the back of the monitor’s stand. Plenty of monitors have a simple loop, leaving the cables largely exposed to anyone facing the back of the monitor. That’s no problem when the monitor’s against the wall, but if your monitor faces into a room, you’ll appreciate NEC’s attention to detail here. 


The monitor’s bezel is extremely clean, with only the aforementioned sensors and a series of buttons for the on-screen display (OSD). The touch-sensitive OSD icons give the bezel a much cleaner look than ordinary buttons do.

The OSD menu is easy to navigate and has plenty of tools for fine-tuning the monitor. This is also where you’ll find the Carbon Savings monitor, which displays your savings in dollars.


Setting up ControlSync is a piece of cake. Connect the two monitors with a DisplayPort cable and the ControlSync cable, then open the OSD menu on the first monitor and select a setting. As soon as you adjust the Brightness setting, for example, you’ll notice the change on the other monitor. We were able to set up both monitors and use ControlSync to adjust the settings within minutes. And unlike some large monitors, the EA305WMi and the EA275WMi ship with their stands already attached saving you an installation headache.