Product Reviews

Not a company previously known for its monitors, HP has thrown the curtains wide to reveal the huge L2335, a monster of a TFT with a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 and viewable diagonal of 23in.

Comments around the PC Pro office included remarks about it being the perfect size for a display, although if you're sitting close to the screen you'll actually need to move your head to scan all the way across.

Inputs are comprehensive: in addition to the usual D-SUB and a DVI-I connector, SVideo, composite and component video inputs are to be found at the rear. AV facilities include P-in-P (picture-in-picture), available instantly from a dedicated front-panel button and in

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a choice of three sizes.

The backlight lacks the intensity required for real impact, but PC DVD playback benefits from excellent contrast and a surprisingly smooth response for a 25ms panel.

Over both analog and DVI-D inputs, colour linearity is extremely accurate, with red, green and blue fading uniformly, and subtle variations in intensity being discernable at both ends of the scale. For a screen of this width to really work, however, viewing angles need to be exemplary. Unfortunately, apparent intensity drops off quickly as you move off-centre, and even from a standard viewing position brightness isn't uniform: the extreme left and right edges are noticeably duller than the centre.

Image controls are limited to brightness, contrast and colour temperature. The base is height adjustable, and allows for swivelling into portrait mode; ending up with a portrait screen that's nearly half a metre high.

You could view the L2335 as costing about £600 more than a 1,600 x 1,200 panel for a mere 0.4 megapixels extra - and you could buy two 1,280 x 1,024 panels for that amount. Nevertheless, the L2335 is a great technology demo, and a tantalising glimpse of things to come. But the price needs to come down before we'd recommend it without reservation.