Hello, my good friends. Today we’ll be talking monitors again and looking at a lovely monitor shipped over from our pals at Geeks.com. It’s a “De-Branded” 23” HD LCD that operates at 1080p. De-Branded basically means it’s a refurbished HP monitor that has had all of its HP-ness covered up during the refurbishing process. So far, I’ve found this to be a rather swell monitor – so let’s take a closer look and get acquainted with the product.
Info:
23" HP De-Branded HDMI 1080p Widescreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers
This 23-inch HP De-Branded Widescreen LCD Monitor features a stylish glossy, black bezel and silver stand. It displays brilliant images with a 1920 x 1080 optimum resolution and features full HD 1080p performance for unsurpassed HD viewing. Hook it up to your high definition entertainment devices and game consoles via its HDMI port.
Enjoy blur-free motion graphics and crisp, illuminated images thanks to the 5 ms response time and 300 cd/m2 brightness. With built-in speakers, you won’t even have to worry about connecting an external set. Place it on your desktop, or free up some space and mount it on the wall.
General Features:
-Casing Color: Black/Silver
-Screen Size: 23-inch TFT LCD active matrix display
-Pixel Pitch: 0.265 mm
-Brightness: 300 cd/m2
-Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
-Response Time: 5 ms
-Aspect Ratio: 16:9
-Resolution 1920 x 1080 Full HD @ 60 Hz analog mode
-Horizontal Frequency (analog mode): 24 to 83 kHz
-Vertical Refresh Rate (analog mode): 48 to 76 Hz
-BrightView technology
-Tiltable screen
-Integrated speakers
-Text mode: 720 x 400
-Comes with base
-Wall mountable (100 mm x 100 mm / 3.93 x 3.93-inches
-Controls: Power, Menu, Volume, Auto/Select
Connectors:
-HDMI
-15-pin VGA
-Audio in
Dimensions:
-With stand: 16.5 x 22 x 7.5-inches (H x W x D, approximate)
-Without stand: 13.75 x 22 x 3-inches (H x W x D, approximate)
Price: $159.99
What’s in the box?
The monitor’s packaging is nice. It ships in a brown box that says TS Series Display – no sign of HP anywhere, as you’d assume since it has had its branding removed. Along with the monitor, the contents include a small manual, power cable, VGA cable and 3.5mm audio cable.
The base of the monitor folds up and sits in front of the screen in the package. It’s a very interesting base. I’ve never seen one packaged like this before. You have to fold the base down from the front of the monitor to underneath, as it operates on a basic hinge. It is very secure feeling, sturdy, and has rubber feet on the bottom that not only provide stability, but help prevent against scratching your desk. The hinge base allows for tilting but not for vertical rotation. It’s really handy for storage – you can basically keep the stand attached to the monitor but not have it take up any extra room.
Here’s a shot of the connections. There is HDMI, VGA, power and audio. Having HDMI is great being that this is an HD LCD, but the absence of a DVI connection is strange – especially since HDMI isn’t all that common for computer monitors yet. My computer’s video card has all DVI connections, so I had to use a DVI-HDMI cable that I already owned to connect the monitor. Since this monitor doesn’t ship with an HDMI cable, you could run into situations where you’re going to need to buy/have a new cable unless you run all VGA.
The monitor had a plastic film all around the black frame to keep it scratch-free in the box. The rear section of the monitor and the front LCD are somewhat separated and not the same size. I find it to be a neat look. At about 17 lbs. it’s not super cumbersome, either.
Here’s a shot of the front logo and stand. The logo is a generic globe-like thing, same as on the box the monitor ships in.
The above picture looks like nothing, but if you look at it closely, you’ll see the HP logo silhouetting through. This is from the back of the monitor. The HP logo is covered up by a big black sticker as part of the de-branding. I pulled the sticker off and the HP logo is perfectly in-tact underneath.
The main control b uttons are in the bottom-right corner of the monitor. The power button is not with them, but instead placed on the top-right of the monitor. That’s a very unusual place for it, but I sort of like it. The monitor can be turned on and off by slapping the button like the snooze on an alarm clock.
Installation, Performance, Comparison:
As I said, I hooked up this monitor using a DVI-HDMI connection attached to a GeForce 9800 GT
video card.
The picture looked good right away, though not completely perfect. This monitor comes with a pretty good mix of options for customization. Taking pictures of a monitor doesn’t really do justice, but I thought I’d give it a go. I turned the lights down in the room and took these shots so you could get a glimpse of the display:
My second display is a generic 21” LCD hooked up via VGA. There is a significant difference between the two. This de-branded HP’s colors are much richer, the text is clearer, the whites whiter and the blacks blacker. It’s really an excellent, clear visual.
Here’s a few shots of some of the menu options, taken at an angle to spare you from having to look at my creepy reflection in the background:
All the standard functions are there (brightness, contrast, positioning, etc.) and some special ones. The color tab allows you to change the color temperature. The Quick View tab has preset options for Movies, Photos, Gaming and Text – all of which are pretty good, aside from Text, which is super bright. I chose to use the Photo setting as my constant setting, as it brightens up the screen and makes colors richer without overexposing the display. Most of these types of decisions are personal preference, and that’s the one that works for me.
There are also power saver options, OSD controls, status display controls, volume options, a sleep timer, source options, an info screen that tells you the monitor’s settings, language choices and more. It’s a fairly feature-rich menu.
You’ve probably noticed me mentioning the speakers several times now. There are built-in speakers in this monitor. They’re hidden, so looking at the unit you can’t really tell it has them. The monitor’s 3.5mm audio jack connects to the output on your computer and operates like a standard pair of cheap 1-cable speakers. They don’t sound great, but nobody expects built-in monitor speakers to sound like much. If you don’t use your computer for any real heavy audio, they’ll do the trick, but they’re on par with your average $20 pair of 2.1 speakers from Wal-Mart. Fortunately, they’re ignorable and are more a perk for this monitor than an actual reason to buy it.
Conclusion:
This is a cool monitor that is likely going to become my main display for my machine. For a price of $160, you get a great 23” HD picture making it a nice value. I personally like the black/metal color scheme this monitor offers over full black plastic displays, as I feel it gives it a sturdier, higher-quality look. And fortunately, it actually is a sturdy, high-quality monitor that lives up to its image and seems to be a well-made piece of equipment that will offer a long life.
It does lack DVI connections and doesn’t come with an HDMI cable, which are two facts that mean anyone who connects with something other than VGA will need cables other than what comes in the package. Aside from that, I have almost no complaints about an otherwise stellar monitor. I’m a fan and would certainly recommend looking into this one.
| PROS | CONS |
| +Great picture +Handy fold-up base that is well constructed +Packaged well +Looks good and seems durable +Plenty of options in the menu |
- No HDMI cable and no DVI connections - Speakers are what you’d expect – not great |
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