HP ZR24w review

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.

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