HP ZR22w 21.5-inch S-IPS LCD Monitor

Fantastic product.
An IPS HD Display for under $260 - if I were in charge of a Graphic-related company & on tight budget would buy these monitors in high volume. Upto Summer2010, IPS monitor would rack up close to $1000, those from Eizo cost several $THOUSANDS. However, I am writing this in Summer2010 so if reading much later. consider that progress never stops & things I say today may become obsolete in half-year.

People with professional background in Engineering, CAD/CAM, Photography, or other Graphic Art/Design need no further explanation.
For those who have no professional knowledge - here's a brief intro:
Majority of cheap monitors today are still TN-type (Twisted Nematic), they've fast response times (dynamics) suitable for gaming, but not for serious Graphic work b/c they're destroying colors, have awful backlight artifacts and if you look from a side (at over 170* degrees) it can be seen as awful white blemishes, color bleeding/blending, etc...Read more

The monitor is easy to set up, and in my opinion looks better than the picture indicates (probably because from a normal sitting height, the cable hole isn't visible). The plastics could be of higher quality, but the build quality is still okay. The tilt and rotate on the display feel smooth, and not overly easy or difficult. I can't really comment on how image quality compares to other IPS panels, but as compared to the Samsung 223BW (TN), it has less backlight bleed (YMMV as this tends to vary between samples), and much greater viewing angles.

The monitor comes with 1 DVI cable, 1 Display Port cable, 1 VGA cable, 1 power cable, and 1 mini-USB to USB cable (it has 2 USB ports centered on the left edge of the monitor)

My calibration settings are
35 brightness
80 contrast
6500K sRGB
everything else default

After researching 22" to 24" monitors on the market, the HP ZR22W may very well be the best monitor under 24". First, it is an IPS monitor which means it does not have the color shift problems and limited viewing angle of TN monitors. While there are other 22" & 23" IPS monitors on the market with "HD" resolution. None has the wide range of color gamut as the ZR22W. The ZR22W has a color gamut of 96% while the Dell U2211H, U2311H & 2209WA all top out at 82%. This means the ZR22W can produce colors that may be in photographs, videos & movies that the other monitors just are not capable of. You have go up to a 24" panel to get a comparable color gamut. But, you loose in sharpness as 24" panels have a 1920 x 1200 resolution & 0.27mm dot pitch whereas the ZR22W has a 1920 x 1080 resolution & 0.247mm dot pitch. All this makes the ZR22W perfect for professional users as well as the average user. Hard as it may be to believe. With hundreds of monitors from dozens of manufacturers, the HP...Read more