HP w2007

Reviewed by: Sudhakar2k

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Amazing picture quality. Very stylistic, glossy finish.

Weaknesses: Inaccurate color representation. Speakers are terrible. No USB ports. Only 1-year warranty.

Overall Evaluation: I have now had the HP w2007 for the last three months, and it is a very good monitor, and an absolute steal for the price ($230) I paid. I think it?s the best monitor available in its price range. The absolute strength of this monitor is the amazing picture quality. It is the sharpest picture quality I have seen on a monitor. To give a comparison, I find the image quality to be as good as the highest quality Plasma and LCD HDTVs that you see in stores. At its native resolution (1680x1050) pictures and high resolution images look crisp; it?s like having a HDTV as you computer monitor. The monitor has HP's brightview glossy screen, and that is probably why the image looks great. Unlike many of the other LCDs out there, the black/glossy look of the monitor is also very elegant. Every product has its weaknesses, and the HP w2007 is no exception. There are two main problems I have with the monitor. First the HP w2007 doesn?t seem to accurately depict color. Now the problem isn?t major, but at times the image does seem a little ?washed out? to me. I have spent some time trying to calibrate the monitor, and while color representation has improved over default settings, I haven?t been unable to represent colors 100% accurately on this monitor. I have Dell's 2005FPW LCD (which to be fair is probably a higher price /quality monitor), and it does a better job with color representation. The 2nd major weakness is that this monitor comes with only a 1-year warranty. The industry standard these days is 3-years, so HP really skipped out on providing solid warranty. This monitors also suffers from some problems that plague nearly all LCD monitors like some back-light bleeding issues, and terrible built-in speakers (when will manufacturers learn we don?t care about cheap speakers on monitors?). I would have also like to see missing but useful features on this monitor like built-in USB ports (Dell 2005fpw has them) for easy access to USB devices. I spent a lot more time discussing the weaknesses than strengths, but its always useful to know the weakness before you purchase an item. Overall, the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. If HP had gotten the color more accurately on this monitor, added two USB ports, and provided a 3-year warranty I would have given it five stars. As is I?m giving it four stars. It is a good buy, especially for people who appreciate amazing picture quality.