Jensen wrote on May 13, 2012, 20:48:
I did a lot of research before buying and afterwards on settings. I didn't use a calibration device, but I still expect it to be better than it is, and I doubt calibration would fix the color banding.
Maybe I'm just extremely picky?

My new iPad, on the other hand, looks very similar to the hardware calibrated $1000 NEC ips LCD monitors at work. It has zero banding in gradients. The backlight color is a bit uneven, and it doesn't have quite the viewing angles as a Plasma, but those are very minor issues.