NEW Reviews Beta Feedback

HP W2007

80

Very Good

Avg User Rating
4 User Reviews | add yours »

Pros
Downloadable monitor-settings software
Top-notch text and graphics performance
Cons
Feeble speakers
Unsophisticated cable management

$200.99 - $321.32
From 17 Merchants

PC World Editor's Review

by Roy Santos

HP's excellent 20.1-inch wide-screen display has a stylish design, great graphics and text, and a reasonable price.

HP's well put-together w2007 ($260 as of December 10, 2007) 20.1-inch wide-screen LCD ended up in a virtual dead heat with the Samsung 205BW. Its razor-sharp text in office documents and lusciously deep colors gained it a Very Good score overall. Its biggest weakness is in producing discernible dark shades of color or text against a dark background. But in general, it's a praiseworthy monitor.

Got a Hot Tip?

Seen news about this product? Send us a link.

The monitor's integrated speakers, located in the back panel, were too feeble for movie audio or any type of multivolume music. Though they handled swelling soundtracks well, whispered dialogue became too easy to miss. Classical music was also passably audible when all instruments were playing loudly, but not when the music played softly.

The monitor easily produced rich, beautiful colors in my viewing of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. However, I found the glossy screen a little distracting, particularly in dark scenes where the room's reflections were at their worst. Yellows, coppers, and oranges in an autumn scene were a delight to view.

A swiveling mechanism hides under the silver-and-black cantilevered stand, allowing the monitor to swing fluidly to the left and right. It also offers a tilt adjustment. Two nubs on either side of the hinge that allow the tilt also provide a rudimentary type of cable management. Though sufficient at keeping the few cables that you'll ever use with this monitor out of the way, it's not as sophisticated as I've seen on some monitors, such as the Dell 2007WFP or even HP's 22-inch display, the w2207.

The on-screen display (OSD) provides common settings controls, such as brightness, contrast, and color, but it doesn't have presets. The downloadable My Display replaces the OSD via an easy-to-read interface, and also provides brightness and color presets such as Text, Movie, Photo, Gaming, and Custom (user defined). My Display also includes color calibration and speaker controls.

First tested for our February 2008 feature "The Wide World of Monitors," HP's stylish w2007 monitor climbed to the top of PC World's performance charts, and it should find a place on top of your desk, as well.

User Reviews for HP W2007

Reviewed by: Sudhakar2k

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Amazing picture quality. Very stylistic, glossy finish.

Weaknesses: Inaccurate color representation. Speakers are terrible. No USB ports. Only 1-year warranty.

Overall Evaluation: I have now had the HP w2007 for the last three months, and it is a very good monitor, and an absolute steal for the price ($230) I paid. I think it?s the best monitor available in its price range. The absolute strength of this monitor is the amazing picture quality. It is the sharpest picture quality I have seen on a monitor. To give a comparison, I find the image quality to be as good as the highest quality Plasma and LCD HDTVs that you see in stores. At its native resolution (1680x1050) pictures and high resolution images look crisp; it?s like having a HDTV as you computer monitor. The monitor has HP's brightview glossy screen, and that is probably why the image looks great. Unlike many of the other LCDs out there, the black/glossy look of the monitor is also very elegant. Every product has its weaknesses, and the HP w2007 is no exception. There are two main problems I have with the monitor. First the HP w2007 doesn?t seem to accurately depict color. Now the problem isn?t major, but at times the image does seem a little ?washed out? to me. I have spent some time trying to calibrate the monitor, and while color representation has improved over default settings, I haven?t been unable to represent colors 100% accurately on this monitor. I have Dell's 2005FPW LCD (which to be fair is probably a higher price /quality monitor), and it does a better job with color representation. The 2nd major weakness is that this monitor comes with only a 1-year warranty. The industry standard these days is 3-years, so HP really skipped out on providing solid warranty. This monitors also suffers from some problems that plague nearly all LCD monitors like some back-light bleeding issues, and terrible built-in speakers (when will manufacturers learn we don?t care about cheap speakers on monitors?). I would have also like to see missing but useful features on this monitor like built-in USB ports (Dell 2005fpw has them) for easy access to USB devices. I spent a lot more time discussing the weaknesses than strengths, but its always useful to know the weakness before you purchase an item. Overall, the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. If HP had gotten the color more accurately on this monitor, added two USB ports, and provided a 3-year warranty I would have given it five stars. As is I?m giving it four stars. It is a good buy, especially for people who appreciate amazing picture quality.
Reviewed by: linsw

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Sharp images and bright colors.

Weaknesses: The DVI connection does not work well with my Mac Mini computer.

Overall Evaluation: I brought this monitor together with a new Mac Mini. This monitor is very stylish and the glossy screen looks nice. The image looks sharp to me and has bright colors. But, after a few minutes of use with my Mac Mini, I noticed that it will not wake up after it went to sleep. Or, that it will try to wake up with blinking screen. I was using it with the Mac through the DVI cable. I am not sure if this is a Mac issue or if this is a screen issue. After I changed to the VGA cable, there is no problem anymore. So, I think there is something wrong with the DVI connection between it and the Mac. Since my old eyes don't notice any difference in the display quality compared to using DVI, this is a good monitor; therefore, I will keep this monitor.

See all user reviews

Monitors Playing in PCW Video

Sony's Razor-Thin OLED Screen Sony's prototype OLED screen ranks as the thinnest yet developed.
E-mail Pics to Your Photo Frame Vodafone has introduced a photo frame with a cellular modem that can receive e-mailed images.
Multi-Monitor Madness Connect multiple monitors via USB to a single PC with DisplayLink technology.

Latest Monitors News, Reviews, How-To's

8 Best Buys for Essential Gear Here's what to buy among the gear everybody needs, from laptops and desktops to HDTVs.
LaCie Intros 700 Series LCDs for Creative Pros LaCie rolled out a new line of LCD monitors Tuesday aimed at creative professionals who put a premium on color accuracy.
Quadruple Your Fun (and Productivity) With a Four-Monitor System Think dual-display systems are the bee's knees? This quad-head setup will blow your mind.
Dual Monitors, the Only Way to Go Using two monitors can make your computing day much easier--Steve Bass tells you how to set them up.
Fujitsu Siemens Unveils 'Zero Watt' Monitors The new Scenicview Premium Line Eco range have power supplies that switch off completely in power-save mode.