Sorry, but it would be like buying a car for half price and then find out that it came without an engine, which if installed doubled your cost. The NEC Spectraview displays are sold separately because some users already have the NEC Spectraview 2 software and sensor. And if you have one Spectraview 2 system you can use it with more than one display, if it is an NEC that is compatible.

If the car you bought cheap without an engine was a Honda, would you go to Toyota for an engine?

Your Spyder 2 Express is made to calibrate and profile a display with 30% less color, so the sensor is not filtered for the extra color the P221W produces, and you would get a skewed measurement reading. I found this out the hard way trying to use an early Spyder3 with an Adobe RGB display, so I had to go to DataColor and order a new sensor, and it works fine.

But the NEC P221W is a proprietary system, the software (Spectraview 2) adjusts, calibrates and profiles the display through an exclusive DDC connection that is part of the DVI interface. Other brand products don't work with NEC's DDC connection.

So the bottom line is, if you want the full performance I reported in my review you need the whole system, the Spectraview software, NEC sensor and the display, not just half the package because it's cheaper.

OK that clears things up, P221W with Spectraview II package it is. I do have a question about connection. My PC does not have a DVI port, only VGA and HDMI. Which should I use? Will an adapter from HDMI to DVI work OK, and which adapter would I need? Adding a DVI port is probably not pratical as this is on a laptop. I know you prefer Mac but since my day job is as an industrial electrical technician all my work is PC/Windows/DOS based and it would be impratical to deal with a new hardware and OS format. The laptop is HP dv7, with Intel Core i5, 6g ram, Windows 7 home premium 64bit. Graphics card is Nvidia GeForce G105M.

I have used the opposite direction with an HDMI/DVI cable to the LCD display from a DVI port, so why not the other direction? These cables are readily available at Amazon.com and other outlets for computer/TV accessories.

No, I find it is really quite simple, I use an Apple Mac and also run Windows on it with no problem, and can add DOS or run Unix with it. All computer systems are very much alike as the logic is the same, just each has a slightly different language dialect. But I started in the 80's with a mainframe and then IBM clones with DOS and a modem connection with the mainframe, Then did Windows for a decade when I lived in Seattle,and Oregon.