HP w19 Widescreen TFT Review

I was out to treat myself to a new shiny widescreen 19″ TFT monitor for DVD, TV and video editing. Also it should be capable to play the latest games at a decent resolution, …on a budget! Looking at what is out there at time of writing, there aren’t many choices for around the 200 Euro / Dollar mark.

What you can expect for 200 Euros is 1440×900px resolution, (sometimes) DVI and SVGA connectivity, 8ms response time, 300 cd/m2 brightness and 500:1 contrast. The HannsG HW191D for around 190 Euros is one of those choices and looks great on paper, has a high contrast of 700:1 but no leads (around 10 Euros). Acer’s new Value Line 19″ Widescreen also looks like a fine big-brand monitor and would make a sound choice.

Walking into my next door electronics supermarket (MediMax) I was suprised to find a gem with all the bells and whistles for just 220 Euros (including both DVI and VGA cables!). The new HP w19 19″ widescreen TFT monitor. Considering it has a slim case, comes in Apple’s PowerBook silver and includes all the cables, I felt compelled to just take it home with me.

Plugging it into my 15″ 1.67Ghz PowerBook’s DVI port it worked as I advertised. OS X correctly identified the monitor as the HP w19 and automatically set it to its native resolution and own colour profile. The picture is crisp and clean. Better in fact than the build-in screen of my PB, which shows some uneven brightness (darker patches). This I assume is due to the thin casing that holds the screen.

One important thing to bear in mind when considering going widescreen is that they do in fact have (a little) less real-estate than their 4:3 brothers. I’ve compared my new HP w19 with a standard Philips 190S6 19″ TFT monitor and here are the shocking(?) results:

HP w19: Screen width 41,5cm x height 25,5cm = 1.058,25cm
Philips: Screen width 37,5cm x height 30,0cm = 1.125,00cm

My new w19 has a native resolution of 1440×900px (1.296.000px or 1.29mpx) whereas the Philips only has 1280×1024px (1.310.720px or 1.31mpx). In terms of total resolution both are pretty much the same, however a standard 4:3 has slightly more.

As with the gross space of your living room the same holds true for monitor gross screen sizes: It’s the shape and indended usage that counts. I chose a new monitor based on playing games, watching DVDs and editing video in Final Cut Pro. As a graphic media designer I have a lot of pallets to accomodate (i.e. Photoshop) or a timeline and two preview screens in FCP. Another bonus of a widescreen is that I can have my bookmarks/downloads/etc open in the Firefox sidebar and still have a large browser window to fit big portal sites. Having a wide screen simply helps to keep things nicely organised and convenient for me. A standard 4:3 simply doesn’t work as well.

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Links: Manufacturer Homepage, Product Specifications (PDF)