HP w2408h Monitor Review - A Top 24" Monitor with a Great Price Tag

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In my humble opinion this is the best looking monitor in the 24" class. It has a professional combination of black and matte silver bezel edging with a wonderfully flexible stand. It is also a solid unit which does not vibrate and has minimal ‘wobble’ when tampered with. The design of the stand is equally impressive because it allows for the keyboard to be ‘tucked away’ underneath the unit when not in use. This is a nice touch for a monitor of this size, which can often be used for DVD/TV and gaming.

The display casing itself can be rotated smoothly for horizontal or vertical use. My only gripe on design really is that it doesn’t take well to being touched and prodded at by my three year old daughter, yes grubby marks appear almost by magic!

Providing 1920 x 1200 native resolution the HP w2408h delivers exceptional image quality, clear seamless projection of both stills and motion, and nice thinning of text. It doesn’t suffer from color bleed or saturation and in this regard I can whole heartedly vouch for its suitability in the home, having one as we do for console gaming and semi-mobile desktop computing.

I find the w2408h exceptionally good for generic family use. It works a treat with games such as WOW and Call of Duty, with applications such as PhotoShop and Open Office, and with duel boot Linux and Windows platforms. Personally I use the monitor most for web development projects and in this regard the HP w2408h is superb with Macromedia, .Net and various database engines.

The HP w2408h is not as effective at dulling reflection as others in this category, but it is perfect for indoor settings, desktops, rooms where direct sunlight won’t hinder viewing angles, and at a lower price than others we are reviewing in this series it delivers deep 1000:1 contrast, excellent configurability and a brilliant visual experience. The most impressive feature of all is the ambient light sensor which monitors light levels in the room and adjusts the display accordingly.

The HP w2408h is cheaper than any other 24" monitor we review here ($425 - $450). For a direct price – performance comparison this is the best monitor I have ever used when needing to combine business and pleasure. The w2408h delivers sparkling picture quality, accurate detail, tones and sharp text projection. Visuals are marginally worse than the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP, and it is less effective when positioned in vertical mode. Also the monitors ability to manage color saturation and greyscale are not top notch so this is not the best VDU for multi-user viewing or presentations. However taking aside wide viewing angle distortion, the HP w2408h provides super visual clarity at a best in class price, making this a 'must consider' monitor.