 A rich tapestry of aesthetic choices marred by choice of TN panel Strengths: Nice aesthetics; power consumption levels; bright view makes color pop; usb port; WONDERFUL scaling
Weaknesses: horrendous viewing angles stem from TN panel; charcoal black; mediocore text performance that comes from the VGA port; blacklight bleeding; intermittent buzzing; speakers are a joke
Summary: HP have joined a legion of computer manafacturers that has diversified into making flat screen panels. For this specific monitor, HP has partnered a mediocore substance with exemplary style. The lackluster performance stems from this choice which takes away from an excellent all-purpose monitor.
Needing to consolidate my digital home office into a more utilitarian space, I decided to get rid of my Sony Bravia XBR LCD 720p TV to this monitor. I wanted more resolution for Aperture manipulation as an external monitor for my macbook and a full hd monitor for the occasional PS3/Blu-ray experiences.
The best things about this monitor is that if you are in the sweet spot of the LCD panel, you get all that the marketing blitz has promised. I don't buy into marketing jargon like 92% color gamut and whatnot, so my REAL-world experiences are as follows: Manipulating RAW files in aperture at the full resolution 1920x1200, I see very nice color rendering on photographs. My ps3 on the HDMI picked up the 1080p resolution and there was no handshake HDMI issues to speak of. The scaler built into the monitor worked well with the 720p PS3 games like Ratchet, Hot Shots, GTA4, and Metal Gear 4. However, the majority of the PS3 for me has been viewing the occasional Blu-ray when I'm typing reports. Casino Royale and Ratatouille were the discs I've been dying to try it with the "Full-HD" and when pixel mapped 1:1, it was more smooth. This is through my eyes but both movies benefitted from the smaller screen with more dense pixels. Turning the scaler up to "fill screen" exhibited none of the resolution loss associated with scaling. I can attest to the perfect job of the scaler.
The negatives crop the merits of the monitor. The TN panel has horrendous angles. Looking down on my monitor outside of the viewing distances turns contrast and colors into a 1980s circa haze of colors. Murky, muted, and inaccurate comes into mind. Be sure to set the monitor on a eye level with your eyes or you will regret it. Darkroom manipulation of black and white or dark scenes bled the screen. The blacks are not true blacks and black light bleed,which minor, is excessive enough to be annoying. Using my DVI to VGA adapter from my Macbook, the VGA port on this monitor (HDMI has replaced DVI as the only other display options) produced woeful text performance. Finally, if you are close enough to the monitor, there is a persistent buzzing sound emanating from the back of the screen. It will fade into the background but for those who are near a controlled silent environment, it will be another nagging annoyance. Finally the speakers. The first thing I did was turn it down to "0%" after hearing 1 minute of it. For those that don't want to hook up speakers for your ps3, it will do an emergency job like those $10 iPod speakers.
This monitor is not perfect. It performs well at the described tasks I put it through but as an everyday panel, stick with a panel not made from TN. HP did all it can to dress up the monitor but the internal component choices hold this monitor back from becoming classic.
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