HP 22er 21.5-inch LED Backlit Monitor

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I use a MacBook Pro for digital editing, but Ive always resisted buying an Apple external monitor because, well, theyre ridiculously expensive and Im pathologically cheap! This new HP monitor is a brilliant compromise: while it doesnt have the stunning image quality of an Apple screen, its very good and perfectly usable, and its a thousand dollars less (Apple has recently stopped making their monitor.) I was able to hook it up instantly with my MBP - no drivers or software required... not that HP has provided any Mac software for it, all of the utilities for the monitor are Windows based. I was able to calibrate the 23er via the onboard control buttons just fine, no software necessary. The 1920x1080 image is very nice and fairly crisp. The colors and contrast are a little faded compared to the more robust MBP screen, but not enough for it to be a complaint for me. However, if you are a graphic designer it might lack the color accuracy and contrast that you require. Reading on it is absolutely no problem - most fonts are well rendered and none are at all pixellated. It does get a little wispy with black-on-white thin fonts like those in the Apple window menu bar, but not illegible, just a little thin. Ive included some photos that hopefully show the slight difference between the details on my MBP screen and this monitor. Also, in the color "Neutral" setting it skews a little warm. You can bring up the blue by changing the setting from Neutral to Cool, but Im finding I prefer the warmer setting - it seems a little easier on my eyes. In terms of its footprint and form factor, its every bit as slim and low profile as the Apple monitor. The only thing thats missing is the trademark Apple sleekness and designer-influence style - not worth an extra grand in my opinion. For the money this is the perfect monitor for general purpose work. PS - Writing reviews has become an accidental hobby for me, and it always makes my day to know that people find my reviews helpful (and if not, why.) Also, if you have any questions, clarifications, or comments please feel free to leave a comment below. I usually respond pretty quickly and almost always within 24 hours.

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I have mine connected to my iMac as a second monitor. I had an older crappy monitor attached that was making me go blind. The HP was the best, reasonably priced high def device that I could find. We have two larger HP 22er monitors on other computers, so we have become fans of the line. I think my previous monitor was an acer. The acer lit up but was like reading a screen under murky water. The HP is perfect in comparison. The Acer went to the free stuff bin at my town dump. Update 1/24/18 After using this monitor for some time now I had to downgrade the rating by one star. While the image quality remains very high, the monitor continually requires a reset (power off and on) to negotiate the HDMI signal with my iMac. Not sure if this is an apple problem, a cable problem or a monitor problem but searching the inter web I have found quite a few complaints for the same behavior. Not a show stopper but quite annoying as it happens almost daily.

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Clear crisp image, extremely thin monitor. looks space age. I checked it out at Best Buy first (frankly I wouldve bought it there, but the employees were so busy they ignored me and I was like "this is why Amazon is winning," and I walked out of the store and bought it here). I am using two monitors now, so I needed to buy an extra cable, but if you are just using one you just need an HDMI cable. Really a stunning monitor.

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Just the thing I needed to save my sight while post processing photographs on my Surface Pro 3. While my Surface Pro 3 is a great device, the screen is sort of small when it comes to post photography photo processing. The HP 27er produces large clear images and its screen is matte so there is no glare, no eye strain. It works for me. I highly recommend.

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27" monitor review - OK monitor for the price - Terrible for reading but probably fine for gaming and even photo editing. I am impressed by the design and overall it is visually appealing. Also has 2nd HDMI input which I appreciate for adding Roku, etc. Text has a slight grainy appearance that is driving me nuts reading word documents and PDFs so I am returning this. If I sit back 4-5 feet from the monitor it is much better but I bought this for my desk and I just simply cant stand it. Pros: happy with the overall color reproduction, good variety and number of inputs, and the plastic bezel is not as thick as I thought from the stock photo and the monitor actually looks better than the stock photo in my opinion. (the photo does represent the actual viewable area well - most of the black border is actually under the glass and blends into the screen well with a dark desktop background) Cons: Text is painful to read as a desktop monitor in the 27". I cant speak for the 23" but would imagine that would be much better.

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First off: this is not a gaming-optimized monitor. While it does perform pretty well for my (very casual) gaming usage, it lacks gaming-oriented features like a 144Hz refresh rate or VESA adaptive sync . . . so you might want to look elsewhere if youre going to be gaming more than anything else. That being said, without the usage of V-Sync (which is laggy) or Free/G-sync, you will get screen tearing and judder in games on even the highest refresh-rate monitors. That out of the way, youd be hard-pressed to find a better inexpensive screen for mixed usage. Motion handling & response times are more than fast enough for a bit of gaming (or a whole lot of action/sports watching), colors "pop" nicely while remaining true to source material, and black levels are serviceable in normal day-to-day lighting scenarios. Color banding & dithering noise are kept to a minimum as well-- at least in my case compression artifacts in media have been far more apparent than anything brought on by the display. As far as settings go-- you can pretty much get away with tuning the brightness to your lighting. Colors are pretty neutral out of the box (my cheap $100 coloromiter isnt exactly the law of the land, but it measured an average of 6672K on 3 runs in various lighting conditions), gamma seems to track pretty well (averaging 2.17), and thankfully adjusting brightness doesnt screw with color balance to any notable degree. Turning "Video Overdrive" to level 1 or two would probably be a good idea-- it improves motion clarity slightly without messing anything up --and there are multiple sharpness levels depending on your personal preference and eyesight. (Level 2 seems best based on the Lagom.nl monitor tests.) As far as screen reflections go: initially it seemed to reflect a lot more light than my old matte screen, but on closer inspection the reflections are just *clearer* and not brighter. Unlike a full-glossy screen, you dont need a dark room, though I wouldnt put a lamp directly in front of it or face the screen towards a window. Very good for the price, relative to what else is currently out there.

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I purchased this monitor through Office Depot locally, for an older 2012 model HP Elitebook that I use for software testing/coding. The screen resolution on this HP monitor is phenomenal. I am extremely impressed with its display, and recently made another purchase of 2 of them for my primary work PCs docking station. Ive owned several different home PCs and various monitor technologies in the last 20 years, and this is the best looking display Ive ever purchased, to date. Update: 5 months later I have three of these monitors connected together on the same PC and the video quality has been perfect since the purchase date. I havent had any issues with color or brightness, and they are still the best monitor purchases Ive made to date. Ive never owned an Apple PC or Apple monitor, and Ive seen other reviews hold the apple displays at a higher bar. That being said, I am not looking for a better monitor, as this model has already reset the bar standard for me.

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I cannot express how happy I am with this monitor. Its the perfect size for my application, and the speakers arent "horrible". For the money, I dont think there is a better monitor you can get. The viewing angles, the color accuracy, and the SUPER THIN bezels are worth way above this price range. I got it on sale around Christmas time for like $130, and its bound to be on sale for that again. Ive had this monitor for over a year, and had zero problems or complaints. It integrates well with my MacBook Pro, and is fast enough to play games on (I play League of Legends and the Witcher 3 mostly). If I could muster one complaint, its that it is not VESA compatible. Honestly, this is not really a big deal for me, but it would be a nice inclusion. My roommate has the same monitor, and he actually purchased two of them. The first one he damaged while cleaning, but loved it so much that he bought another one. As a disclaimer: he damaged it by using glass cleaner on an LCD, which is a sure-fire way to damage the panel. Its thin, like... really thin. I doubt its more than ¼" thick from the ports up. This is a nice aesthetic, but not completely necessary to me. I also have the 27" version, and Id say save the $40-$50 and stick with this 24" version unless you REALLY need the extra space. The 27" starts to get really pixelated, and the bezels are larger.

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Ive purchased 2 of these, once in late 2016 and again this month. Ive replaced the 2nd unit with another, and units made in the May 2018 batch are quite a bit more mediocre than my original model from December 2016. [Cons] [*]Awful Gamma Tracking. My colorimeter is known for having issues with low end measurements so those I take with a grain of salt. However, compared to my 2016 unit, both 05/18 units are basically an inversion of an ideal SRGB gamma curve. The low end is even darker than my 2016 unit and the high end is way higher than it should be. At first the image seems to have a lot more depth than it should given an IPS panel, but thats because the dark detail is being crushed and the light detail brightened. It isnt anywhere near accurate. This cannot be calibrated out without an ICC profile without wrecking contrast. ICC still reduces contrast a bit. (And will only benefit you in if the program in question doesnt mess with the GPU LUT tables ) [*]Uneven RGB levels Not nearly as much of an issue on my other unit. The only way to reasonably get close without a tint basically destroys the contrast ratio if you want to calibrate it out using the display controls. An ICC profile will fix it easily. [*]Poor light uniformity. The entire right side is off by ~20% average at 100% white. Which is really visible. Lower left hand corner is off by over 20% as well. while the rest of the display averages about 10%. This cant be calibrated out. [*]A lot of backlight bleeding. The after mentioned lower left hand corner is the worst on both 2018 units I have used. Its visible in anything resembling dark content. This isnt IPS Glow (Totally normal level of that). But actual backlight bleeding, and there are several places all over the display, several spots on the bottom, one on the middle left hand side on my first 2018 unit. The upper part of the display(On first 2018 unit). But the lower left is by far the worst on both. To coincide with that spot, on part of the back assembly in that area, there is a part of the display that has a gap and isnt totally flush and you can actually see the light from the backlight leaking out. This happens on both 05/18 units. And doesnt occur on my 12/16 unit. A bias light greatly mitigates most of this. (Sans left corner, unless you set your light output to 80 cd/m2 , which makes that bleeding near invisible with a bias light) [*]Stand with no VESA compatibility. Want VESA compatibility? This monitor is now 30$ more expensive. [*]VGA, but not DisplayPort or DVI ? Look I get businesses still cheap out and use VGA cables for their monitors(Even when HDMI/DVI is available on said PCs) but VGA has no purpose being on a digital display. Its an analog signal and isnt hard to have some kind of interference issue. Which brings me to. [*]HDMI causes lots of problems for RGB monitors like this. For whatever reason, they also include compatibility for dumb HDMI Video EDID standards that cause nothing but problems for PCs. Any piece of consumer equipment that uses HDMI for video purposes also more than likely supports a full RGB 0-235 signal. Theres no reason to force the EDID to signal that it supports HDTV resolutions, limited range video (WHY), YCbCr or even overscan(again, no purpose. This isnt a TV). You just send the proper signal and theres never an issue. This leads to so many numerous problems. 1. Display and GPU driver may default to limited range for no important reason. Changing it to full may not stick properly. 2. Video standards dictate 59.94Hz, leaving you with 59 and 60 hz resolutions. Guess what? 3. Games may automagically choose the 59hz option with no way to change it. Which means it tells the display to not use 1920x1080 32-bit RGB mode. But 1920x1080p59hz limited range HDTV YCbCr mode.(Or just limited range RGB mode if you edit out YCbCr). 4. There is an HDMI bug in some games that will cause it to default to the lowest refresh rate. Normally that means 24hz, but no support for that here. (The one use of HDMI EDID standards that would have actually made sense for this display). Instead it will drop to 50hz HDTV mode. Have fun with that. 5.Other standard resolutions that this display supports (quite a few), get stuck in HDTV scaled equivalents. (limited range) Windows and GPU vendor drivers need the option to completely disable any HDTV EDID standards support in their respective settings. But a decade later, here we are with the same problems. Of course this could have all been avoided by simply offering a DVI input option. (DP can suffer the same issues as HDMI)You can trick the monitor into thinking it is DVI over HDMI though. More on that in a second. So the easiest way to fix all of these problems for ANY HDMI/DP monitor. Is to create an EDID override using CustomResolutionUtility by ToastyX (Google it) All changes are easily reversible. But basically, you need to completely remove support for HDTV resolutions, overscan, and YCbCr. And extra resolution entries. This EDID has no less than 3 copies of the same sets of resolutions and they just create problems for each other. If you remove all of them but ONLY the one main copy of 1920x1080 in the first "Detailed Resolutions" box, the device will properly detect all of the other supported resolutions in proper RGB 0-255 modes even though they are missing. If you want to go full monty and make the monitor think it is connected via DVI. (Why not? Theres no speakers here and leaving HDMI support in still leaves limited range as an option. You do not want that) Open up the extension block and delete *EVERYTHING*. But leave the extension block type as is. Restart your PC or your GPU drivers via "Restart64.exe". An there you go. No problems. This applies to ALL HDMI/DP monitors. (With variation) [*]Black bezel should be a lighter more grey shade so it doesnt hamper black depth [Pros] [*]Great glossy low haze finish increases clarity. Hard to find a non grainy matte display these days and this is a nice middle ground between full on glossy and not. However it is still highly reflective and this can make dark content less visible as you try to discern through the glare. Even in a controlled environment with only a bias light, reflections are still visible to a degree. You really have to control the lighting well. [*]Vibrant and consistent color once calibrated. With coverage that actually exceeds SRGB in some areas, this monitor definitely feels extremely vibrant and after calibration, slightly less vibrant because of having to reign in the higher range. But it looks *correct*. The red is probably the biggest offender. [*]Best viewing angles for average light and bright APL content. [*]Excellent design language. I love the overall design of the monitor itself, the silver band at the bottom is a great touch. A black one would only further contribute to harming perception of black levels. The panel itself is ridiculously thin, and feels very fragile. But it looks great. [*]You can toggle off the power LED! More monitors need this. I dont like having to tape over them. [*]You can use DDC/CI to directly control the display adjustments from within Windows to make calibration of the monitor itself much much less tedious. Google "SoftMCCS" for a great program to use for this. It will even expose hidden controls like the RGB low level sliders. However not useful in this case due to bad Gamma tracking on this unit. [*]External power supply reduces bulk. This review might seem overly negative, but overall I really like this monitor mostly. Just wish I could get another good unit.

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This is the second HD monitor that Ive purchased and Im immensely satisfied with my purchase. Unit comes packaged in a secure box with plenty of styrofoam cushioning. Included is an HDMI cable, power adapter, and power cable. Set-up is extremely simple and took less than 5 minutes. I LOVE the color scheme of the monitor. Matches my mostly Apple set-up very nicely. This monitor actually looks like a product Apple would produce. This monitors colors are so rich in comparison to my MacBook Air screen and my other monitor Ive owned. Im not a graphic designer or photographer, so I wouldnt be able to tell you exactly how good it is, but as a frequent computer user, it looks pretty dang nice. Monitor is pretty bright out of the box, but the on-screen menu is easy to use and finding the brightness setting was a piece of cake. Just got done watching some YouTube on this monitor and by golly its a beauty. Again, I dont have much I can compare it to, but compared to my MacBook Air Screen, its gorgeous.

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