Hanns.G HG281DJ review

When sourcing these monitors we requested they sell for less than £200 exc VAT - which the HG281DJ doesn't. But we just couldn't leave out Hanns.G's newest monitor. For those of you - and us - marvelling at 24in monitors falling below that price threshold, the fact that this mammoth 28in display is so close in price is staggering.

In terms of design and features it offers little more than any other cheap monitor, with merely a choice of HDMI or D-SUB ports, along with a pair of 2.5W speakers that are decent enough without convincing us to dump our external speaker sets. The bezel is bland, the rubber caps over empty port bays show its roots as a more advanced monitor stripped of all extras to hit a price point, and the use of the same 1,920 x 1,200 resolution as the average 24in TFT means the pixel pitch is way off the rest of the TFTs in this group.

But that's missing the point somewhat: the HG281DJ is a 28in display at just £228, so we'd put up with it punching us in the face every five minutes as long as it did its job properly.

Unfortunately, this is where the Hanns.G's grip fumbles. The backlight is one of the worst we've seen, with severe crescents of light blooming from the four edges in a competition to reach the centre - not so noticeable on the bright desktop, but fire up a movie and it's as if someone is shining lamps on the screen from behind your head.

The brightness is tremendous, but our gradient ramps showed almost no black in them at all, with minor banding visible and a totally uneven spread from the top to bottom of the panel. The colour accuracy wasn't bad at all, but that backlight gives darker colours an odd purplish tint from anywhere but dead-centre.

Of the colour settings available we stuck with Nature as the best, but we had to significantly lower the brightness and contrast to get anything we considered usable. The buttons are terribly positioned on the right edge, out of sight with no visible labelling, and the OSD is wordy and cluttered.

In short, yes, the Hanns.G HG281DJ is a phenomenally cheap route to a huge desktop, but if you're hoping to enjoy anything more than web browsing and Word we'd strongly advise you aim a little smaller, or a little dearer if size is what matters.

Author: David Bayon