X-bit labs

19" LCD Monitors Roundup. Part VIII. (page 12)

Category: Other

by Aleksey Meyev

[ 10/11/2007 | 09:24 AM ]

HP LP1965

Hewlett-Packard positions this product as an office monitor but its price is rather too high for this market sector. What do you get for the money?

The HP LP1965 is one of the few modern 19” monitors with a *VA matrix. Even if you don’t look up the matrix type in the specs, you can easily see the viewing angles with your own eyes. No TN matrix can match the wide viewing angles of this monitor. The response time of 6 milliseconds indicates a *VA matrix with Response Time Compensation because RTC-less matrixes of this type have a much lower speed.

The monitor is indeed designed in a simple, office-like manner but it differs for the better from others of its kind with the unusual stand that offers compartments for post-it notes, clips, thumbtacks, etc. The stand takes up quite a lot of space on your desk, so why not put it to some use?

The stand also offers wide adjustment options. Besides changing the tilt of the screen, it allows to rotate it around the vertical axis (as opposed to most other monitors of this class, only the top of the stand rotates at that), to adjust its height within 60-170mm, and to turn it into portrait mode. The stand can be replaced with a VESA-compatible mount.

When you lower the case to the bottommost position, you hear a click and the retractable part of the stand gets locked. To unlock it, you should press the inconspicuous button at the bottom of the stand and pull the case up.

Besides the standard selection of analog and digital interfaces and a mains connector for the integrated power adapter, the monitor offers a dual-port USB hub whose outputs are located on the right side of the case. Just a nice trifle to make the user’s life easier.

The control buttons are made from plastic and painted the color of the case. They have easily readable icons. The Power button is placed separately in the bottom left corner. The buttons have a short and soft movement. Quick access is provided to the auto-adjustment feature, to switching between the inputs, and to resetting the settings to the factory defaults. The latter is quite a queer thing. I don’t think it’s such a frequently demanded function as to require a dedicated button.

The menu lacks any decorations, but is quite easy to use. The developer preferred logical text captions to pretty icons. The only gripe I have about this menu is that it doesn’t remember the last changed item.