HP LP2475w, IPS 24" Official Thread! (Now Available from OcUK)

[CaptainCrash]

Have you tried using the ClearType tuner applet to dial in some decent settings?

I did try using that, didn't seem to make any difference.

So where do we go from here mate ?
I need 24" 1920 x 1200, H-ips

From what I can tell, I think to be honest the HP is the end of the line, at least at present... we just have to decide whether to live with its documented flaws, or wait until something else turns up (and then wait for its own problems to start being reported after the first burst of enthusiasm).

Someone on the H thread mentioned that maybe different people are bothered by different kinds of LCD defects, the trouble is I seem to be bothered by all of them.

/bangs head against wall...

 

[martian_aphid]

I think philjohn is right, might be something to do with cleartype's application on a H-IPS panel? I read this on the MS site:

Display Appears Blurry
ClearType is designed to enhance LCD displays. ClearType may appear slightly blurry on standard desktop monitors and on some LCD displays. You may be able to improve this by customizing ClearType as described in the "How to Customize ClearType" section of this article.

In rare cases, perceived blurriness is caused by a manufacturing anomaly on LCD displays in which the normal striping of red-green-blue is reversed with blue-green-red. Currently, there is no support in Windows XP ClearType to compensate for this anomaly. This could be the problem in cases in which none of the ClearType contrast settings look good on a particular LCD display. In those cases, it may be best to turn off ClearType.

 

[Ozzie Dave]

I fiddled around with different cleartype options and it looks fine to me. Not as sharp as my NEC 20" wgx2 but thats to be expected as it has a smaller pixel pitch than a 24".

After 9 days with this monitor it would be perfect if...

1) Had glossy screen
2) Smaller pixel pitch
3)Sharpness control for native res (only has it in other modes)
4) A-TW polariser (for when I'm using it in dark lighting, the white glow is more pronounced than on my NEC, bigger screen I guess)
5) Slightly quicker response/input lag

IOW, a 24" version of my NEC wgx2 All the above things aren't a major issue though...
In HP's defence, the inputs on the back are fantastic. I'm one of those people that will actually utilise them. The build quality of the whole thing is solid.

Bottom line: The HP is a decent stop-gap til something better comes out. I'm certainly happy with the purchase. For the money its a well performing 24" all rounder.

 

[ecat]

I'm not sure whether I'm glad I saw this post or not. I was very happy indeed with my 2-day old LP2475w until I read this and realised mine has the same problem with a slight colour temperature gradient from left to right. I'd say the right hand 3rd of the screen has a slightly higher colour temp, giving it a pinkish tinge, sometimes looking purplish according to content. (And sometimes not visible, to be fair).

I am liking this monitor but in fairness to the above I did a couple of tests. Bear in mind I don't exactly know what I'm doing and I have no idea what the following numbers represent in real life.

Approximate white point measurement using i1 display 2 kit, repeated with same sensor and BasicColor 4:
Middle of screen 6500
Left side Center 6400
Right side Center 6880

I repeated the tests at brightness 0 and 50, much the same results.

Text: I do like the look of he text, remember I'm coming straight from a CRT. I do feel a little eye strain but I've put in a lot of monitor time over the past two days. The good news for me is no headaches or dizzy spells yet.

Black level: I've had this down to 0.1 cd/m while maintaining reasonable calibration, less than delta 2 error. I do like the quality of the black, even, smooth, although nowhere near CRT levels it is believable even in space sims. Full screen all black is not so impressive but still quite tolerable given the amount of time you spend viewing such screens. Black in the lower right and, to a lesser extent, left corners shows a sheen at times but nothing disastrous, a slight change of viewing angle and all is well.

Lag: Not a problem for me so far, I'm certainly not walking into the furniture in VTM:Bloodlines the way I was with the Dell 2408.

Image quality: Excellent, honestly from photographs and web pages to hi res modern games and old games scaled up from 1024x768 resolution, the image quality is outstanding. This may sound at odds with the white point variation, for that I have no explanation.

My CRT took a sulk last week and refused to recognise the colour green for a full 20 minutes and the wash out is becoming more of a problem. I could gamble on a 5 year old replacement or I could buy a new 22" with zero resale value. Decisions.

I'll live with the HP for a couple more days and see if there are any negative effects on my eyes. In general use it is a stonkingly good monitor, what chance of better appearing this side of next Christmas ?

Edit: I don't know my left from my right !

 

[nightrhyme]

From what I can tell, I think to be honest the HP is the end of the line, at least at present... we just have to decide whether to live with its documented flaws, or wait until something else turns up (and then wait for its own problems to start being reported after the first burst of enthusiasm).

I have always been using cleartype also on CRT so that is not a fix for me.
I will give it a couple of more days. I might send it back as I have done with all LCD's over the last year. Her is a little evidence : http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17921984
I have actually been hunting for a decent LCD for 1 year now. I guess I could waite 6 months more if need be

Someone on the H thread mentioned that maybe different people are bothered by different kinds of LCD defects, the trouble is I seem to be bothered by all of them.

/bangs head against wall...

Me2. Pehaps we should form a club. Then again I am just a guy who refuse to settle for unbearable quality. I don't mind paying for it. But then I want my money's worth. I'm so tirred of flawed LCD's regardles of price

 

[martian_aphid]

Obviously some people are more obsessive about details than others [btw I place myself in that category] but I think most people want the best they can get for their money. A monitor is probably more important than may other components since you are likely to replace those a number of times before a monitor change. I think the reason why people learn to live with some of the flaws is because it can be a hassle to keep looking so they just end up settling. It's a shame that there isn't a perfect LCD in this price range, if at all! I hope you get the monitor you are looking for, I spose it depends on how long you are prepared to wait?

 

[mrk]

The text sharpness is also discussed here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1326971&page=48

 

[martian_aphid]

Hey mrk are you back with the hazro now? Were the firmware updates, etc. by Hazro successful in resolving the issues?

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

I am looking to add a widescreen 24" to my setup and i was going to plump for the LP2475W as from what I understand it's quite a good monitor besides the few niggles.I did look at the BenQ FP241W, but the aftersales support seems somewhat wanting.

I'm not overly pedantic when it comes to monitor issues, for instance I have a 2170NX which i'm sure exhibits some faults that an expert would spot but overall i'm really happy with it. The general consensus is that the HP is of a high quality ? , I just don't want to be too disappointed.

 

[ecat]

For the price it's either this or the Hazro, it has certainly made me an IPS convert. Definitely worth a try.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Thanks ecat, as good as the Hazro may look it's too much of a gamble for me so i'll order the HP model tomorrow.

 

[martian_aphid]

Recieved mine today and have had an hour or two to mess with it. Out of the box as has been said by many the monitor is insanely bright so I went ahead and used the settings posted by philjohn which brought the brightness down to reasonable levels. Also tried to implement the icc profile which he linked to but didn't appear to make any difference so will have to do some research on how to implement it correctly in vista.

With those OSD settings the monitor looks pretty dark and oversturated so I went into the color panel in the CCC and made some adjustments from there, lowering the saturation and boosting the brightness to something which I felt reasonably comfortable with.

Some people have complained about the text and I can see what is meant. However it isn't always noticeable. It applies to small text and seems to be most apparent with bold text, for example within the start menu "all programs" appears more fuzzy than expected. Additionally with some text I have noticed a slight green cast on the left of the text. This was visible in a coretemp window but on a gpuz window the text appeared fine.

Build wise it appears sturdy and I'm pleased that there is a wider range of ergonomics which seem to function efficiently - although I echo the sentiments of others that a lock in position for tilt would somehow feel better! The cable tidies are a bit odd, they don't really make sense if you are going to use the portrait mode but I'll give them a try since I can't see myself using the portrait mode that much if at all.

Haven't come across much else because I haven't had a long time with the screen but I do find a wierd occurance in the CCC. It appears a setting for 59Hz has appeared and seems to be setting itself to that, anyone else with a ati card come across this?

As far as sleep issues I let the monitor go to sleep and didn't have any issues in resuming to desktop which others have mentioned, though I only have the DVI input in atm so whether this is an issue with multiple inputs and such I will have to see. I did notice some options in the OSD which related to input selection and such so will have to take a look at the manual to figure them out.

Overall I'm happy with it but I'm sure it will need some tweaking and getting used to this wide gamut thing which seems to be the main issue with this monitor. Also this thing is HUGE, so much bigger than I expected and makes my old 17" look so tiny.

Any tips on the ICC profiles stuff and the wierd 59Hz appearance would be greatly appreciated, and will be back with my thoughts once I had some more time with it.

Danny ;]

 

[ecat]

I have a 4850 and 59Hz it is, 60Hz works too

What doesn't work with this card is the HP Display Assistant, the only option I have available is 'Options', no biggie.

One tip Danny if you're coming from a 17" remember to place the hp at a reasonable viewing distance, nose to screen for me is about 80cm. You are going from a dot pitch of around 0.22 all the way to 0.27, technologies like ClearType attempt to smooth the appearance of text on LCDs by adding colour around the edges of characters on the assumption that the user sits far enough away the colours go unnoticed. Also sitting back helps to limit the black sheen, in fact this monitor leaves me with the impression it was designed for a user to sit back and enjoy.

Another good tip is to adjust your mouse sensitivity, there's a whole lot more real estate to cover

 

[nightrhyme]

I can confirm the 59hz issue with ATI card. I just forced it to 60hz.
Yeah HP display assitant doesn't work here either. arrgh

 

[ecat]

I'm sure the display assistant will be updated in good time, this is HP we're dealing with. On that note it's also worth pointing out that if you need support you'll be dealing with the business division, a totally separate world from the consumer division.

 

[philjohn]

Also tried to implement the icc profile which he linked to but didn't appear to make any difference so will have to do some research on how to implement it correctly in vista.

Did you download and install LUTManager from rapidshare, then set the profile up in this? Setting the profile in Vista Colour applet will only ensure that colour-managed apps can make use of it - to load the gamma curves into your graphics card you'll need LUTManager.

I'm sure the display assistant will be updated in good time, this is HP we're dealing with. On that note it's also worth pointing out that if you need support you'll be dealing with the business division, a totally separate world from the consumer division.

So is it only people with ATI cards having problems with HP DA?

 

[martian_aphid]

Thanks for the replies.

@philjohn - I did install the LUT manager from your link as well although perhaps I have not configured it correctly, ICC profiles and colour management is pretty new to me, its something I am learning about through this monitor. As you mentioned the site is offline so I wasn't able to find a read me or FAQ.

@ecat - thanks for the tips, it's wierd having all this screen estate, the mouse sensitivity is something I'm sure to do because I found myself moving the mouse a hell of a lot more to get about! I agree on the distance thing - hopefully I'll be getting a new desk which will put a bit more distance between myself and the monitor. I had a quick bash at bioshock at it really feels wierd, like my whole body position has moved somehow in the game! Also I plan to use it for watching movies, etc from further away which is probably a necessity because throwing in a dvd and it really highlights the weaknesses of its resolution close up, I'm sure providing some HD content to this beast of a screen will have to be my next investment

 

[cman]

My LP2475w was delivered on the 19th August, so I had quite a bit of time to play around with it.

Awesome piece of kit, solidly built, no dead pixels.

1) Games: Halo 3, DOA4, VF5 look awesome! Well, any 360 game for that matter thanks the the vibrant colours and good response time of the panel.

Mass Effect (PC) and Supreme Commander look fantastic as well.

2) Internet: Wide gamut is (mostly) good for games, however not so good for the browsing. I felt like crying because I thought I would have to to return this gaming beast due to the colours while browsing drove me insane.

Luckily I got some calibrated Custom RGB values off this thread along with a colour profile. Using Firefox3 with colour managment enabled saved me from RMAing the monitor

3) Images/photos: Similar story as above. Using colour managed image viewer such as FastPictureViewer solved the problem.

4) Videos/movies: Not solved. I'm still looking for a colour managed video(DivX)/Blue Ray player. Movies (especially HD) look awesome, however I keep asking myself... is that red too saturated? ...which brings me to my question:

How exactly does LUTManager work? I've uploaded my profile into it...and nothing. Everything (not colour managed) stilll looks the same. Is it suppose to make everything the Gfx card displays "colour managed" (if that makes sense)? I can't find instructions anywhere. (Using XP Pro SP 3 btw)

Did you download and install LUTManager from rapidshare, then set the profile up in this? Setting the profile in Vista Colour applet will only ensure that colour-managed apps can make use of it - to load the gamma curves into your graphics card you'll need LUTManager.

 

[philjohn]

@philjohn - I did install the LUT manager from your link as well although perhaps I have not configured it correctly, ICC profiles and colour management is pretty new to me, its something I am learning about through this monitor. As you mentioned the site is offline so I wasn't able to find a read me or FAQ.

No probs, here's a quick primer to help you on your way:

• Load up the LUT Manager program
• Place the colour profile somewhere safe (Users\username\ on Vista or Documents and Settings\username on XP/2K/2K3)
• in LUT Manager click: File > Load LUT from File
• Browse to and select the file you've just saved
• You'll notice the curves on the display have changed, this shows what the new gamma curves will be
• Now, click Startup > Set file for all users
• Browse to and select the profile again (first time was to check all was ok with it)
• Close the program
• Fire up msconfig (start > run > msconfig) and make sure that Lut Manager is set as a startup item

The profile linked doesn't make a vast change to the gamma curves, so it's only a quite subtle shift in colours you'll see when it's applied.

 

[martian_aphid]

Cool, thanks a bunch for mini tutorial. I think I got upto the part about setting up file to startup for all users but didn't do the steps after that. I guess the changes apply after the next reboot then? Thanks again philjohn