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The HP 25er 25-Inch Display ($229.99) is a reasonably priced mainstream monitor that uses a 25-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel to deliver a sharp 1080 picture with wide viewing angles. It offers a sleek, minimalist design and produces very dark blacks and solid grayscale performance, but green color accuracy is a bit off. It’s worth considering if you’re looking for a stylish display on a limited budget, though its feature set isn’t as comprehensive as that of our top pick for midsize, mainstream monitors, Dell’s UltraSharp 24 InfinityEdge Monitor U2417H ($256.49 at Dell)(Opens in a new window) .
Design and Features
With its bezel-free design and slender 1.4-inch-thick white cabinet, the 25er ($399.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is a striking monitor. The 6.5-pound cabinet houses a 1,920-by-1,080 IPS panel with a glossy coating that can be a bit too reflective under certain lighting conditions. The cabinet sits atop a rectangular stand that lets you tilt the panel 5 degrees forward and 25 degrees backward, but it doesn’t support height, swivel, or pivot adjustments. The panel has a peak brightness of 250 cd/m2, a native contrast ratio of 1,000:1, and a 16:9 aspect ratio. The native 14-millisecond (gray-to-gray) pixel response gets help from an Overdrive setting that gives the panel a 7-millisecond pixel response if ghosting becomes a problem while gaming or watching video.
The 25er’s meager array of I/O ports are located at the rear of the cabinet, facing outward. Here, you’ll find two HDMI ports, a VGA port, and a power jack. Missing are USB ports and a DisplayPort input. The right side of the front bezel contains four function buttons used for navigating the settings menus, as well as a Power button. In addition to the usual Brightness and Contrast controls, the 25er offers settings for Color Control (Warm, Neutral, Cool, and Custom) and Image Control (Dynamic Contrast, Black Stretch, and Sharpness). The QuickView picture presets include Technicolor, Multimedia, Gaming, Text, Enhanced, and Custom settings. This monitor lacks the advanced color controls found on monitors, such as the Acer H257HU ($369.99 at Acer)(Opens in a new window) .
HP covers the 25er with a somewhat stingy one-year warranty for parts, labor, and backlighting. Most monitors offer three years of coverage. It ships with an HDMI cable, a Quick Start Guide, and a resource CD containing drives and a user manual.
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HP 25er 25-Inch Display
Performance
The 25er produced strong, vibrant colors in my test images and while displaying scenes from Marvel’s AntMan on Blu-ray. However, out-of-the-box color accuracy was less than ideal in testing. As shown on the chromaticity chart below, red and blue colors (represented by the colored dots) are pretty much in line with their ideal CIE coordinates (represented by the boxes), but green is completely outside of its zone. I didn’t observe oversaturated greens or green tinting in my test images, but if accurate colors are a must, the Dell UltraSharp U2417H is a better choice for a monitor in this price range.
The 25er had no trouble correctly reproducing every shade of gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test, which in turn produced sharp highlight and shadow detail. Viewing-angle performance was also quite good; colors and luminance remained intact when viewed from an extreme angle.
See How We Test MonitorsThis monitor isn’t designed for gaming, but you can certainly put it to use for casual gameplay. Just make sure to use the Overdrive setting to minimize ghosting artifacts. The panel’s 10.1-millisecond input lag (the time it takes for the monitor to react to a keyboard command) is relatively short, but not as short as the BenQ XL2430T($449.00 at Walmart)(Opens in a new window) and the SW2700PT ($529.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , both of which measured an input lag of 9.5 milliseconds.
Power consumption for the 25er measured 21 watts when tested with the Technicolor preset, and 22 watts with the Multimedia preset. That’s not a lot of power, but the Dell UltraSharp U2417H (14 watts) and the Acer R240HY ($109.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (19 watts) were a bit more energy efficient.
Conclusion
The HP 25er is a serviceable 25-inch monitor that will spruce up your desktop while delivering a sharp 1080p picture. Its ability to display dark blacks helps give colors a boost while producing good shadow detail, and it provides wide viewing angles without any color shifting. That said, its color accuracy could be better, and it comes up short in terms of features and warranty coverage. For around $120 more, the Dell UltraSharp 24 InfinityEdge Monitor U2417H offers more accurate colors, a four-port USB 3.0 hub, a fully adjustable stand, and a few extra video ports, which is why it remains our Editors’ Choice midsize, mainstream monitor.
3.5
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The HP 25er is a beautifully designed, yet affordable 25-inch 1080p monitor that delivers wide viewing angles and inky blacks.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/hp-25er-25-inch-display
