Sorry I am a bit late posting this.
Thought this was an interesting thread, so here's a little info I got from NEC's website in Japan:
Taking the current 25.5 inch LCD2690WUXi2 (which I own - very nice) as the base spec, adding the following gives you the LCD-PA241W:
10 bit P-IPS Panel (P = Premium it seems, and is above S-IPS - what about H?)
14 bit LUT
360cd/m2
USB hub: two up, three down
Screen saver (a bit unusual for a professional monitor - I wonder if this isn't just standby to save power - since this monitor is supposed to be more 'green').
A display port with 10bit support
It states 'LED brightness feature' for better control of the backlighting in dark rooms, however this does not appear to be LED backlighting, and I also found the same feature on an 2 year older NEC PVA display. If this was LED backlit you can be sure they would advertise it as such).
Here's the link (in Japanese):
http://www.nec-display.com/jp/display/professional/lcd-pa241w/index.html
Their site also says that it is on sale from the 22nd of February in Japan.
I've read elsewhere that it may be on sale in other countries from March - I can't imagine this is far off.
The current price on kakaku.com (a well respected Japanese price guide - extremely useful for saving yen) is:
¥131,317 (about £900, $1455 US)
This will likely drop within a month or two. I suspect the average price will be something like ¥115'000.
The LCD2690WUXi2 is currently floating around ¥108'000, and the LCD2490WUXi2 around ¥76'000.
The price in the UK (based on this) will probably be something north of £1300 - ouch!
Hope this fills in some gaps.
EDIT - A correction on pricing:
It occurred to me later that the current price is probably based on the RRP [sorry, I should have considered this before].
Since the 2490wuxi (24 inch) is ¥89'000 at reasonable places and is IPS, I can't help wondering if the actual sale price for the PA241W (a VA monitor) will end up somewhere like ¥90'000 ~ ¥100'000 because it's new (about £700). Since the UK is usually more expensive though, perhaps something like £850~£950?
So, my apologies for not thinking of that earlier
