HP FLAT PANEL MNTR L1702 2 TONE TCO99 (HP (Hewlett-Packard)-P9621D)

WHAT'S HOT: Color graphics exhibited rich, lush colors. The HP L1702 has only three control buttons, but don't let that fool you: Three will let you do a lot. Making changes to screen settings is intuitive and requires few button presses. We didn't need to consult the manual to find our way around the on-screen menus, which offer a fair number of adjustment options.

On top of its industry-standard three-year warranty, HP offers 24-hour daily toll-free phone support.

WHAT'S NOT: Despite the easy-to-use controls, the auto-adjustment button didn't reset changes we made to the brightness and contrast settings.

WHAT ELSE: Photographs looked slightly dark, with some details lost in the shadows. In our color bar test, we were unable to discern different shades of dark colors. Similarly, in our gray-scale test the darkest shades of gray were indistinguishable from black, and adjusting the monitor's brightness setting didn't correct the problem. However, text looked sharp overall--only a slight shadow marred the smallest fonts.

The L1702 isn't height-adjustable, nor does it pivot into portrait position or swivel left or right. It has an input jack for a microphone, but no headphone jack or USB ports. Image adjustment software would have been a nice touch.

UPSHOT: The HP L1702 is well suited for everyday tasks.