Great pictures but a little on the small side for text...

With it's bright view screen, 5ms response time, and 1000:1 contrast ratio this monitor produces gorgeous imagery. However this wouldn't be much of a review if I didn't share with you a few key issues that I found with it that may end up saving you time. I have broken this review up into easy to follow sections for those of you that want to skip around to the sections that matter most.

Understanding the basics:

Brightview technology- Lol, is just a fancy name for anti-glare screen. On a more serious note it makes a night and day difference. What it does is allow your eyes to see more of the picture by blocking out glare caused by ambient light. More picture translates to more colors and less strain on your eyes. This coating is usually only found on expensive laptops but has now found a home with desktops as well.

Contrast ratio- In simpler terms it translates to how bright of an image you will see. Average lcd monitors produce contrast ratios in the range of 500:1. This monitor does 1000:1 which is in the range of midrange high definition televisions. A higher contrast also can mean less glare and combined with the brightview technology we mentioned above really is what sets this monitor apart from other monitors. Think of it this way... less unwanted light coming in thanks to the brightview technology and the little that is left is finished off by the bright images coming from the monitor.

Response time- Simply means how fast a monitor can change from one scene to the next. As a general rule you want anything less than 8-10 ms (miliseconds). The reason why is that when you watch movies or play games you will experience a term called "ghosting". Ghosting just means that parts of one scene will remain on the screen while newer scenes are being displayed. If someone is running really fast in a movie you will sell parts of the last image during those fast scenes and it will look like a shaddow or "ghost" is following that person.

Resolution- Means how fine of an image can be displayed.
1680x1050 is the highest resolution this monitor can display. That translates to about 1.7 million pixels or 1.7 megapixels. Most standard monitors and regular high definition tvs can only display about 1.1 million pixels or 1.1 megapixels. That means that you are seeing more of a
picture than a regular high definition tv!!! However, not to confuse you or take anything away from this monitor or other monitors it will not do 1920x1080 or 2 million pixels
(2.0 megapixels) which is what the new HD tv sets will do.


Issue 1: The optimal resolution and the only one that displays a clear image is 1680x1050 and is a little too large for this size of a monitor. I have high end ATI video card with both vga and dvi outputs. I tried both cables and tried just about every setting, however, this monitor only displays sharp images at that particular resolution. Try it in the store or ask a sales person to help you and you will see just how bad it can be.
What this means is that you will have to sit closer to the monitor and if you surf the web or multitask expect enlarge the text and or to zoom in a lot. I found it hard to read text on MSN without having to put it on the largest text setting. The problem is that the larger text option doesn't work all the time on some of the other sites and you will have to zoom in and out a lot or sit really close.

Issue 2: The stand is really basic and does not adjust very high compared to it's bigger brother the w2207.
If you have a desk that is lower to the ground or are tall or both this may cause problems for your neck. It might have been cheaper for HP just make the same stand for all their monitors and provide the better one.



Conclusions:

The bottom line is if you like to sit back in your chair and surf the internet you will find it extremely difficult with this monitor without having to adjust your settings every so often. If you sit close and don't multitask this monitor will produce gorgeous images. A lot better than the samsung and gateway monitors I researched. The Samsung looks better on paper but is too harsh on the eyes compared to the HP.