Honestly this is a 4.5 star monitor and I'll explain why. I'm a photographer that needed extra viewing space for reviewing my edits and an IPS display was mandatory. I could have gone with any other brand but to be honest I've been an HP fan since I was a kid, although I do prefer Macs for my computing/photography needs. I was not going to drop a boatload of money on a 27 inch Thunderbolt display and figured for my needs that a 1080p display will get me by for what I do.
This monitor will not disappoint the average and above average crowd. Out of the box the colors are spot on and I find it a plus that this monitor is Technicolor certified (meaning colors will be close to perfect in its display). Reading text is not fuzzy/blurry at all, in my opinion. I use a MacBook Pro 13" with Retina Display and it's "almost" a perfect match. I do find that the whites are not as bright and the blacks are not as black on this display which gives the Retina display that extra pop, however, I can live with that. Under normal circumstances, I would spend hours to get it just right because I'm particular to these kinds of things but because the average users, especially my clients, wouldn't know the difference, I find it to be an advantage as it will give me an ideas what my pictures will look like on any given non retina and/or uncalibrated displays and for me that's actually a plus.
I'm glad I bought this monitor as I've now noticed certain details in my editing that I would have surely missed on the MacBook and the 22" Vizio TV I was previously using. For the money this display is awesome and I enjoyed playing XBOX One on it also.
So what 4.5 stars? I would have preferred a DVI port instead of the VGA port that's on it. Yes, technically the VGA cable can carry 1080p signal no problem so it's not a big deal. Also the screen is plastic. Although the display looks superb, I wonder how much better it would be with a glass screen, leaving me to wonder if that's the reason why it's missing that extra pop I mentioned previously. I do, however, like the fact that there's very little reflection on it when shining bright light towards it. Lastly, although I'm happy it didn't come with any, I know some people would have liked speakers on this display as well. I will say this, invest in speakers because watching movies on this display is a joy.
When I do upgrade I will definitely consider a 1440p display and/or 4K. But for now this 1080p display is a gem and worth every bit of the money in my book.
| Standing screen display size | 27 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
| Processor | 1.7 GHz apple_ci7 |
| RAM | DDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel UHD Graphics |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
