HP L2045w

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Good
Colour sensitivity	Good
Design	Excellent
Ease of use	Very easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	resolution, flexible stand, portrait mode, price
Disadvantages:	dynamic range could be better

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

My trusty 17inch TFT monitor has done sterling service over the years and dates from a time when a 17inch TFT screen was a serious investment. As I'm doing a lot more web work these days, I needed something with a better horizontal resolution - certainly better than the 1280 pixels my current monitor offers.

As always, things have moved on and I recently heard about this monitor which is on a special offer until the end of April 2007. Basically, you can buy the monitor for a little over £200 and then get £50 back from HP via a cashback promotion making it just £150 for a 20inch TFT. One vendor, it247.com has the claim form available online as a download.

Of course I bought one!

The monitor is of the widescreen persuasion with a resolution of 1680x1050. I'd have preferred a few more pixels in height but the 1680 was good enough to warrant the upgrade. My current monitor does 1024 pixels vertically so I can put the two monitors side by side and sort of have things match.

The stand is quite good in that it allows the monitor to have its height changed over a wide range, even allowing it right down to deck if you like looking down at your monitor. It also allows it to swivel 90 degrees in to portrait format making it great for seeing a whole page on screen without having to scroll up and down. Make sure your graphics card supports this feature though. You can optionally hang it on the wall too but I haven't tried that so can't comment.

Basic specs are 1680x1050 pixels at 60Hz which is good although the contrast ratio (the difference between the darkest and lightest pixels) at 600:1 isn't the best in its class making the images a little less vibrant than some other monitors. For me it's more than adequate though in that department. The response time is 5ms which is very good, making this a decent monitor for games as it won't blur as much as some with fast moving action. Most modern monitors are fine in that department though apart from the budget end.

It also sports both DVI and VGA connectors at the back although sadly it only included a VGA cable in the box so I had to go and buy a DVI cable myself and that added a bit to the price as a decent one isn't cheap. DVI is preferred over VGA because it's a digital connector and offers improved image quality and colour fidelity so if your graphics card has DVI output, I'd say it was worth paying for that extra cable. That said, the VGA quality wasn't too shabby either and I used that for a couple of days initially without being too concerned about the image.

The monitor also has a USB hub to give you an extra connector in a hopefully convenient place.

If colour fidelity is important, particularly if you edit video or photos, you'll appreciate the ability to change the colour temperature of the monitor although to be fair, I'm yet to find one that doesn't offer that feature these days. The black levels are also good, even at the default settings. LCDs tend to be poor at showing absolute black because they need to be lit to show an image at all so very dark grey is usually the best you can expect. The HP does seem to be darker than my existing monitor. On the downside, the 600:1 contrast ratio does mean the whites aren't as brilliant as they could be but they're not that bad either.

The monitor also comes with a generous 3year warranty so you know you;re not going to have to cough up for another any time soon.

Conclusion

Even at its normal price of a shade over £200, I'd have been happy with this monitor. The good horizontal resolution and ability to be used in portrait mode have made my working life much easier. The fact that I was able to claim back £50 was the icing on the cake. If it only had a better contrast ratio, it would be a truly stunning monitor, as it stands, it's still a fine monitor.