Similar to its larger, 22-inch mate, the 20-inch HP w2007 wide-screen LCD delivers high image quality and an attractive design, and with only a small price premium compared to other displays in its class. The AU$799 w2007 is a simpler model than HP's w2207, although both units offer HDCP compliance for watching protected HD content. The My Display software bundled with both displays still doesn't really function properly, but that's a minor ding against this otherwise polished LCD. You can find less expensive 20-inch wide-screen displays on the market, but few produce as sound an image, at least for general computing. If you're looking for a small-scale HD movie display, you'd do better to keep looking.
Design
The HP w2007 is essentially a scaled down version of the w2207. Both share a stylish, glossy black bezel with grey plastic trim, as well as a conveniently designed stand that doubles as a keyboard dock. Unlike the pricier w2207, the w2007 has a much more basic range of motion. You can only tilt the screen up and down from -5 to +25 degrees, rather than the w2207 that tilts, moves forward and back, and whose screen also rotates 90 degrees. The w2007's limited range of motion is in keeping with its lower price, and we found we were happy enough with the adjustability it offers. We also like its onscreen display, which is simple to navigate.
Features
HP's monitor is fairly spare for its price, as far as features go, especially when you consider that you can get a lesser-known, less stylised 22-inch wide-screen monitor for about the same price. It offers a DVI and a VGA output, but no HDMI out. It also has a basic audio output via a pair of typically underwhelming LCD speakers. We're glad that it has HDCP compatibility, which lets you watch protected HD movies (even if the quality isn't the best we've seen, as outlined below). We were once again let down, however, by HP's My Display software, which is essentially supposed to bring the features of the onscreen display to your desktop. We updated our Windows Vista desktop to the latest ATI graphics card drivers, made sure we had the latest version of My Display, and while the system itself recognised the HP w2007 monitor as such, HP's own My Display was unable to make the same connection.
Performance
For the most part, we were impressed with the HP w2007, at least as far as traditional computing tasks. Of all the LCDs we've reviewed recently, it actually scored highest on our suite of image quality tests, besting several larger, more expensive displays. It scored highest on our greyscale and uniformity subtests. Otherwise its colour, sharpness, DVD movie, and gaming scores weren't the highest we've ever seen, but collectively they were all good enough to make this a very strong all-round display.
Our only complaint with the w2007's image quality is its HD movie playback, particularly the colour quality, which we found bland. But because this is a relatively small screen for movie watching, and one whose native resolution won't support 1080p content, we're willing to bet that many in the market for a 20-inch LCD aren't too hung up on HD quality. We're glad that HP made the w2007 HDCP-compatible, but we consider that capability more of an added bonus in a display of this size.
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70-296
25/03/2008, 05:40 AM
rating
8/10
i am looking for the performance, i lost my 3 LCDs but now i just got HP w2007 . Result are much better now.
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