HP x2301

HP x2301 With the HP x2301 ($249.99 direct) you don't get much in the way of extra features,toshiba satellite a305-s6905 dvd drive but this 23-inch TN monitor will add a touch of style to your workspace without taking up much room. If you're looking for premium performance, look elsewhere; the x2301 doesn't provide very good grayscale accuracy and like most low-end TN panels it has a narrow viewing angle range. Colors and small text look wonderful, however, and the panel does an admirable toshiba satellite a305-s6837 dvd drivejob of displaying blur-free video and games. Design and Features HP touts the x2301 as being micro thin,toshiba satellite a305d-s6848 dvd drive and with good reason; the 23-inch TN panel is housed in an extremely slender .38-inch cabinet, making it the thinnest desktop monitor to pass through the labs. The rear of the cabinet has a matte black finish and has a raised brushed aluminum HP logo in the center. toshiba satellite a305d-s6835 dvd driveThe glossy coated screen is framed by piano black bezels on the top and sides while the bottom is finished in brushed anodized aluminum with a smaller toshiba satellite a215-s7444 dvd drive HP logo on the lower left corner. The panel is attached to a small rectangular base toshiba satellite a215-s5837 dvd driveby a short (1-inch) brushed aluminum arm with a built-in hinge that provides plenty of tilt (-5 to +25 degrees) adjustability. Height, swivel, and pivot adjustments are not supported. The piano black base is capped off with a piece of translucent aquamarine toshiba satellite a215-s4807 dvd driveplastic that compliments the monitor's brushed aluminum and glossy black color scheme and gives the five embedded function buttons beneath it a light blue hue when pressed. In additiontoshiba satellite a105-s4334 dvd drive to a power switch there's a menu button, an OK (enter) button, a source control button, and a Quick View button. toshiba satellite a215-s4747 dvd driveThe Quick View button opens the picture mode screen where you can choose one of five picture presets including Movie,toshiba satellite a215-s4697 dvd drive Photo, Gaming, Text, and Custom. You won't find any ports or connectors on thetoshiba satellite a205-s5880 dvd drive cabinet. Instead, the HDMI, DVI, and VGA ports are located at the rear of the base where they are easily accessible. The x2301 lacks speakers so there aren't any audio jacks, and toshiba satellite a205-s4607 dvd drivethere are no USB ports included on this model. The OSD (on-screen display) istoshiba satellite a135-s4527 dvd drive easy to navigate and provides a very basic set of image controls, including brightness, contrast, color temperature, sharpness, and custom scaling. You can also toshiba satellite a105-s4384 dvd driveenable/disable a video overdrive feature that can be used if you are experience motion artifacts, and turn on/off the dynamic contrast ratio option. The LED backlit panel averaged 27 watts of power,toshiba satellite a105-s4074 dvd drive which is good but not exceptional. For example, the 23-inch Samsung SyncMaster S23A550H ($259.99 list, 3.5 stars) averaged 19 watts. Both the Editors' Choice Lenovo LS2421p Wide ($219.99 direct, 4 stars) andsony vaio vgn-nr498e/w dvd drive Gateway FHX2402L ($229.99 list, 3 stars) used just 16 watts of power, and both use slightly bigger (24-inch) panels than the x2301. Performance The x2301 delivers nicely saturated colors butsony vaio vgn-nr498e dvd drive its blacks could be darker. The darkest step of the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test looked more like a dark charcoal gray than absolute black, resulting in weak shadow detail. Results were better at the light end of the grayscale but sony vaio vgn-nr330e/s dvd drivethere was still some compression at the two brightest steps. I also observed a touch of green tinting in the middle of the scale but the flaw was minor and had no noticeable effect on color quality. The monitor did an excellent job of displaying small text on the Scaled Fonts test. Arial fonts set to 5.3 points (the smallest available on the test) were crisp, solid, and evenly spaced. The x2301 has a 3-millisecondsony vaio vgn-nr285e dvd drive (black-to-white) pixel response which helped deliver smooth video with no apparent ghosting or blurring. Watching "Johnny English Reborn" on Blu-ray was a pleasure, as long as I didn't stray too far from my position directly in front of the screen. Likewise, the PS3 racing game Midnight Club: Los Angeles played flawlessly without any lag or obvious motion artifacts. The HP x2301 is a sharp looking monitor with average performance and a very basic feature set. It'll handle your everyday home office workload and deliver smooth video and gaming performance for your after-hours activities, but its grayscale and viewing angle performance hold it back. Our reigning Editors' Choice, the Lenovo LS2421p Wide (Best Deal: $205.95 at ANTOnline), also has some grayscale issues but it offers better off-angle viewing, has a four-port USB hub, and is $30 cheaper than the x2301.