Hazro 24" S-IPS, micro review + chat

[BananaDunka]

I have been in London all day so not had chance to unpack the monitor until now, and OH MY GOD! it oozes quality from the all aluminium shell to the out of the box brightness and colour, it's very comfy to the eyes at the default 68b/68c but for a nice neutral feel I dropped the brightness by 10 and it's awesome.

I doubt calibration will make a huge difference like it did with the VA panels, I can tell just from looking at it alone but will do so anyway as soon as the Macbeth Eye-One arrives tomorrow.

S-IPS forever

The Hazro has:

- No backlight bleed at all - the pic below showing the backlight, may look like there is some but that's the reflection from my blinds, darkened as best possible in the room though!
- No gradient banding
- The world famous "IPS effect" - there's a kid of twinkling effect when moving around the screen not something that affects photo editing or usage though, only visible on an all black screen.
- No input lag, well it's the same as the Dell 2007WFP so it's good
- A dust magnet! hehe
- Likely to get peoples fingers chopped off by the owner if they put another finger print on the bezel >_<
- Gets warm to the touch all over thanks to the Aluminium case transferring heat out instead of blasting it into your face through the front like the BenQ did!

Pics:

Watched some Diehard4 in HD too which was great, no issues in movies at all.

Will be playing some TF2 later on tonight to see what gaming is like but am in no rush as I know it's going to be awesome!

 

[BananaDunka]

440 notes at the moment! they said prices go up and down every week though, I probably had the most expensive week :/ lol

Having convinced me that the Benq was the 24" monitor to buy , I have ordered one (due tomorow).

How much of am improvement is your new Hasro ?

Must admit I like the look of it

Don't get me wrong though, the BenQ is awesome once calibrated to your preference! I just got a duff one with BL bleeding and a strange buzzing sound (remember I had 3 dell 2007wfps too until I got a good copy!) so rather than chance it again I just went straight for the Hazro and first time lucky!

For ease of use on the eyes the Hazro is defo better than all 3 previous VA based 24" screens I would say

 

[BananaDunka]

Thanks for the pics and mini review mrk, I think the images speak volumes as you can see the quality of the unit and panel.

By all accounts it seems to be a winner and from other purchasers of the Hazro on here, i'd doubt there will be any problems with gaming (30ms was mentioned).

- Is there any audible noise from the unit?

- Is the restrictive height adjustment an issue?

Congratulations on your purchase, it does look the part - so, do you think this one will be a keeper?

Defo keeping this one! box is being binned shortly though if it develops a fault then the Hazro swap-out facility should be handy!


To answer you questions though:

- Is there any audible noise from the unit?
There is no audible noise from the monitor whatsoever, the power unit for the monitor is an XBOX360 style brick (but half the size LOL) so any PSU buzzing is kept well away from your ears, saying that though even the PSU brick doesn't buzz.


- Is the restrictive height adjustment an issue?
There is no height adjustment but I knew this before purchasing and thanks to using the other 24" screens I knew this would not be a problem as the screen size of 24" is huge and minimises any height issues for the majority of people that are similar height as myself (I am 5ft 8in)

 

[BananaDunka]

Do it man do it!

RandomTom, aye it was direct

I'm guessing if OCUK buy in bulk then they can give a saving onto the customers so fingers crossed for you guys!

 

[BananaDunka]

I've played some TF2 now, the motion is slightly different to "me" but that's mainly down to the fact that the past week I've been playing on a BenQ VA panel, feels more like the 2007WFP now just got to get good at TF2 again lol.

Will have a session tomorrow with some regulars and go from there!

I really like the quick access pixel mapping button too, makes 1:1/Full/Aspect changing easy!

 

[BananaDunka]

It's not really a major big deal

 

[BananaDunka]

Good good! another Hazro-er

I just got the Eye-One today and ran through calibration, manually adjusted the Gamma and RGB and before calibration and got:

The luminance only goes to 190 at 0% OSD brightness setting so I adjusted it to 58 which is a comfy level for my eyes and everything looks good

 

[BananaDunka]

Damn! I've encountered an issue where if you choose a resolution other than the standard 5:4 resolutions (1280x1024 for example) the pixel mapping does not work so in games i cannot use 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 or anything widescreen below 1900x1200 else the picture squashes to one side of the screen!

I have tried a combination of OSD pixel mapping and nvidia driver scaling neither of which can override the problem.

I will see what Hazro say tomorrow then go from there!

 

[BananaDunka]

Did you mean 1920x1080 ?


I'm not too sure really if it's firmware or not!

 

[BananaDunka]

Aha it happens in windows too, here's a pic of 1920x1080!

I'm going to order another benq fp241w again as I need one for the games room downstairs (gamecube, ps2 and pc for emulating old skool consoles for my bro) to get rid of the crt in there so will probably return the Hazro (if no immediate fix can be issued) and use the Benq for the time being and get the Hazro again once it's been updated as it's bound to have all issues solved by then and possibly even sport any new features/connections.

I'm buying Mass effect and Alone in the Dark as they're due out soon and if they run slow at 1920x1200 on my 512mb 8800gt then I'll need to drop to 1680x1050 so it's quite important I have something that works at all resolutions at that time!

 

[BananaDunka]

Still no worky for me :/ tried all 4 scaling modes in display driver and tried no scaling as well as all the monitor scaling modes in the OSD

jack.mitchell: I ordered on the 15th !

 

[BananaDunka]

doubblepost*

 

[BananaDunka]

Oh I also did a ghosting/response time test for those interested similar to how Baddass does it on TFTcentral, I noticed a dark shadow behind movement of the car though, anyone know what this is? It only seems to be on darker backgrounds like the blue there with a light coloured moving object, I notice it on the mouse cursor too now that I know it's there!

Best case:

Worst case:

Shot at 1/1000sec iso1600 f2.8

Looking at tftcentral review: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hazro_hz24w.htm you can see my panel has more of the black ghost effect than the one reviewed - possible issue ?

 

[BananaDunka]

Ah that may point to some good news fingers crossed
I've emailed them with a link to this thread and a bit more info so hopefully these issues can be sorted out !

So basically there are 3 issues that I'd like to get resolved with Hazro's help

1: The DPMS issue (confirmed Vista via DVI issue)
2: The resolutions issue (possibly again Vista related ?)
3: The black ghosting which is more evident on my screen than the one reviewed on tftcentral, thsi is the motion effect I'm seeing in games and now that I know it's there I just cannot get it out of my mind!

 

[BananaDunka]

I've defo noticed it in games, motion in Assassins Creed and TF2 is definately different as mentioned earlier on in the thread, not in a bad way but in a strange way! different to the Dell 2007WFP for example - still finding it hard to get used to!

I have decided though to wait until the Vista issues are fixed with the new revision of HZ24W before re-ordering one again!

 

[BananaDunka]

I think it's a combination of firmware and hardware, they told me on the phone that they just came out of a meeting and have had to mark the screens as not Vista compatible until further notice as they need to contact the board maker but since they are not UK based it could take some time. - Hence my decision to now just return this HZ24W and wait until it is revised with the Vista fixes in place and then re-order accordingly.

 

[BananaDunka]

If it's a firmware fix then they'll do the swapout they said but it seems more likely to be a board issue which is made in taiwan by another company and they have no clear indication on how long it could take to revise to a newer board that does not have Vista issues which was the main reason for me wanting to return this screen and re-order when it's all sorted out in a new version!

 

[BananaDunka]

Taking all the issues aside, is the picture quality and general use top notch?

Indeed The panel itself is absolutely spot on, no issues whatsoever, no text fringing, no weird colours, no weird shades at angles etc, it's what you'd expect from a good CRT in many ways except of course it's not a CRT

The BenQ FP241W in many ways is equally similar except take off a few notches for the viewing angle shading as it's a MVA panel versus an IPS one.

 

[BananaDunka]

a 30" IPS with HDMI and component input, a defo DELL 3008WFP competition ?

Come on any hints on price OCUK would have roughly for it ?

 

[BananaDunka]

If you take away the BenQ baclight bleed that I had (ordered a new one and is coming today) then I'd say for colour accuracy they are virtually no different than one another, the Hazro does't show as much detail in some dark areas of movies for example but it's not easily visible (the difference) and it is able to show all the colour shades in a colour chart as the BenQ was.

The build quality the Hazro wins, there are no creaking parts or plastic areas on the casing, it's all aluminium!