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HP ZR24w review

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Verdict

Great build, great image quality and a 16:10 ratio panel - HP's ZR24w will win many friends

Review Date: 4 Jan 2011

Reviewed By: Sasha Muller

Price when reviewed: £260 (£312 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
4 stars out of 6

Image Quality
5 stars out of 6

HP's gargantuan ZR30w won us over with its 30in panel and stunning image quality, and now it's the turn of its little brother, the 24in ZR24w. It costs less than a third of the price of its 30in sibling, yet still manages to pack in a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, 16:10 ratio S-IPS panel.

It's well-equipped too. The wide base keeps it firmly planted to a desk, and the fully adjustable stand rises, swivels and rotates. In addition, DVI, D-SUB and DisplayPort inputs are accompanied by a four-port USB hub, with two USB ports at the rear and two more on the monitor's left-hand side.

Colour accuracy is superb and, without any tweaking at all, our test photographs and movie clips were rendered beautifully. Avatar's tricky palette of blues and greens was reproduced well, striking a fine balance between neutrality and eye-popping vibrancy.

The only weakness that we noted showed up in dark scenes: the ZR24w's greyish blacks and seemingly modest contrast ratio produced a less well-defined, less punchy image than some of its rivals.

Testing with our X-Rite colorimeter backed up our observations: a measured Delta E (a measure of colour accuracy) of 1.1 and a maximum of 3.1 are simply stunning. But all isn't completely rosy, and the measured contrast ratio of 619:1 is middle of the road.

The problem is that, at its default settings, the HP's measured black level of 0.53cd/m2 stays fairly static as you reduce the brightness setting, so contrast gets worse as the panel gets dimmer. Increasing the contrast to 90 helps immeasurably, though, improving the black level significantly and keeping the contrast ratio constant as the brightness is reduced.

With 16:9 panels proving cheaper to make, the cost of this 16:10, 1,920 x 1,200 resolution panel inevitably makes it look like poor value compared to some of the 23in competition. But, if you crave the extra desktop space and have the necessary cash, don't be dissuaded: the HP ZR24w is a serious contender.

Author: Sasha Muller

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Comments

User comments

Finally

A decent new 24" panel. I'm getting sick of the 24" panel market being taken over by "television" panels.

I work on my computer and the vertical resolution is more important to me than watching films with as small a black band as possible.

We bought some new monitors a couple of weeks back and I think we went through around 40 models, before we found a reasonably priced 24" monitor in 16:10 format, the rest were "TVs"...

By big_D on 4 Jan 2011

1920x1200 or nothing...

Agree with big_D, for a monitor to be useful in the workplace you need the 16:10 ( 1920x1200 ) aspect ratio rather that the 16:9 ( 1080 ) panels which have flooded the market place.

Currently I use a Dell 2408 and it is nice to know some manufacturers are still catering for what seems to increasingly be a niche market.

By Rouleur on 4 Jan 2011

Amen to that!

As said before finally a sensible screen, not a TV. I am tempted to buy two of these just to encourage to stop producing TVs!

The truth is, your average joe will look at the number of inches... oooh 24 inches, oooh Full HD??? Yay!

I lost count of the many times that I had to explain that Full HD is actually less resolution than traditional 24 inchers.

By TheMegamale on 5 Jan 2011

Less is more

Also of note is that this monitor does not have an extended colour gamut. For most of us this is actually better as it allows sRGB colours to display accurately.

The extended gamut monitors, whilst useful for professionals who work in carefully configured colour spaces, can make normal sRGB images look over saturated.

Definitely a case of 'less is more' for most of us - this is a highly recommended display (although hard to find at the moment).

The review of this display on tftcentral has more details on this if you're interested:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hp_zr24w.htm

By susweb on 10 Jan 2011

Review too late?

This monitor is exactly what I have been looking for. A proper resolution, good quality and sensible price.

However, despite being a brand new review nowhere seems to have any stock. Where was it available from at that price on 4th January?

By Kenny_BFG on 12 Jan 2011

Not Available?

Again to echo what's been said - not interested in 1080. If I'm going to splash out on a new 24in montior I want a proper resolution 1920x1200. The ZR24w seems hits the spot, if you can get one. The review listed it as being available from okobe.co.uk but it's not even listed by them, and if you search for it, you get a 'no results' answer. The ZR22w is listed, but even that's out of stock. MoreComputers.com list this monitor at £323 (inc vat) - its out of stock, but they expect a resupply on 31 Jan, but I've noticed even this date keeps getting pushed back.

By nephileem on 18 Jan 2011

Love it

Recently bought HP ZR24w from More Computers.
Very happy with it, great quality for price, very sharp, very bright, excellent viewing angles, gorgeous colours, sturdy stand easily adjustable.
Same comments as above on great 1920x1200 resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio as opposed to stupid HDTV format.
I work in CAD and this suits me perfectly.
Only con: not the best looks ever.

By frapro on 12 Apr 2011

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