Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The HP Pavilion 22bw Monitor Review

I upgraded my eyes today.

No really... as I stare into the silky smoothness and crisp clarity in front of me, it is like I have new eyes. All those photographs that I had forgotten about have just received a new lease of life. The Windows 7 desktop, ordinary at the best of times, is looking gorgeous.

And all thanks for my brand-spanking-new HP Pavilion 22bw LED monitor. So why am I dedicating a site to this? Because, to my surprise, not a single review of this amazing monitor exists on the WWW. This is sad because this is one beautiful piece of glass and plastic...

Ok... first the specs. You can view the official HP listing here:

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=3739209&prodTypeId=382087&objectID=c03618424

The headlines are:


  • 21.5" diagonal backlit LED
  • IPS Panel (IPS displays show more accurate colors and contrast)
  • Full HD
  • 5,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
  • Accepts DVI, VGA and HDMI
  • 178 degree viewing angle
  • Wide color gamut
  • $175. (Really!)


The first thing that will strike you when you look at this thing, is the beautiful sleek design. This 21.5" monitor has a very slim bezel on three sides, and a thicker one at the bottom with the buttons and such. The monitor screen itself is very thin, much thinner than many other monitors I have seen, and fixing it on the included stand is really painless and easy. The monitor comes with the adapter + power cable, vga cable and dvi cable included.

I connected my Dell Latitude E6410 via DVI to the monitor, and viola! I could see full HD picture without any tweaking! And (subjectively speaking) the colors and the clarity blew me apart. Whites are white and blacks are very close to blacks. Now I am not gamer, so I cannot comment on response time and all - but for my digital photography needs this is perfect. Especially because of the color accuracy and wide gamut of the IPS display.

The monitor is also very bright...but one can clearly discern the various shades of grey and white that are on the screen... so the contrast performance is to be seen to be believed.

And all this for $175 - makes it a superb deal. There is a 23" version of this monitor available as well....costs around $200.

Where can you buy this? Currently, this is only available in Best Buy as far as I know. But I am confident, the other retailers are going to catch on fast!

The HP Pavilion 22bw LED Monitor - Highly Recommended!