HP ZR24w

Just to note: The Dell fails the lagom sharpness test at its default sharpness of 50 and passes at 40. However it still looks decent at 50 sharpness. The HP passes at its default (4) and looks bad at the highest sharpness (5). One reason the HP might be not as sharp could be because it only has 5 sharpness steps instead of 10 like the dell.

Also, are your eyes used to a 22" monitor, because that was one of the factors I was thinking of. The 24" HP is bigger than what I'm used to so it causes eyestrain resulting in blurriness?

Could be my eyes adjusting....but 2nd day with monitor, and definitely easier to look at than yesterday. No eyestrain today. :)
 
Just got 1 of the 3 monitors... and it has a stuck pixel smack dab in the center, all nice and red. Should I try and get it replaced through macmall, wait the 30 days for HP support, or try one of those programs to unstick it?
 
Just got 1 of the 3 monitors... and it has a stuck pixel smack dab in the center, all nice and red. Should I try and get it replaced through macmall, wait the 30 days for HP support, or try one of those programs to unstick it?
If you like the monitor otherwise, I can't see why not.
 
Just got 1 of the 3 monitors... and it has a stuck pixel smack dab in the center, all nice and red. Should I try and get it replaced through macmall, wait the 30 days for HP support, or try one of those programs to unstick it?

Try the massage trick, might be able to fix it.
 
Hi,

I just bought one of these monitors - it's cool but I was just wondering if there's a decent way to calibrate the colours without using a dedicated calibration tool. Also, it looks like I have an issue with one of the pixels (upper-left quadrant). I'm not sure how to determine exactly what the issue it - it looks dark all the time but not sure if it's just stuck permanently black or really dead? Any ideas?

(I am in the process of reading through these forum pages but there're just so many).

Thanks in advance!
 
Well...It's a keeper!!!

No funny pixels, text is very clear (although I am somewhat aware of the AG coating, which is meant to be less than the Dell), the blacks are black and I am happy with the contrast. Did I miss anything?

I'm going to buy another, along with some wall mounts so that I can set it back a little further since it is 9 inchs deep (but the stand is good quality), and longer DVI cables. Photo's to come..
 
Hi,

I just bought one of these monitors - it's cool but I was just wondering if there's a decent way to calibrate the colours without using a dedicated calibration tool. Also, it looks like I have an issue with one of the pixels (upper-left quadrant). I'm not sure how to determine exactly what the issue it - it looks dark all the time but not sure if it's just stuck permanently black or really dead? Any ideas?

(I am in the process of reading through these forum pages but there're just so many).

Thanks in advance!

Without having calibration tools, you are pretty much stuck using settings posted on sites, or eyeballing it to your personal taste.
 
The first thing I did when I got this monitor was fire up paint full screen, and set the colour to red, green, blue, white, black to test for dead stuck pixels - it tested fine.

What pixels do you see?
 
Try the massage trick, might be able to fix it.

Eh, it didn't work, tried some other stuff too. I don't think Macmall will let me return it, so I'm going to go through HP. I have to wait 30 days after purchase before I can use the warranty right?
 
The first thing I did when I got this monitor was fire up paint full screen, and set the colour to red, green, blue, white, black to test for dead stuck pixels - it tested fine.

LMFAO!!! This was one of the very first things I did as well, hahahaha! Although in my case I did it to test the colors itself.

Since there has been a great wealth of info in this thread, I felt I should contribute back. I'll probably post up one of those "full reviews" some users do w/ pix, but later. In short, it's a gorgeous monitor (and HUGE! - coming from a 5 year old Dell 2005FPW). It has some minor drawbacks, but after reading horror stories about exchanging monitors to get ones that are worse, I think I'll keep mine.

Thanks everyone for their own personal feedback and sharing their stories. Even though not everyone says "thanks," I have no doubt everyone who's chipped in has helped some anonymous reader and curious party out there.

Cheers!
 
Well, mine just arrived and I am typing on it now. I must be nuts, cause this thing when it comes to brightness is about the same as my Benq FP241W was. Maybe I am use to it, but its at 30% right now and doesn't hurt my eyes. No dead pixels, so I have a good one, very pleased as of right now, but need to do some more testing.
 
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I'm new to a 13" MacBook Pro. It's giving me terrible text display on my cheap-o Acer 24". I'm looking at the zr24w as a likely replacement monitor. Can any MacBook Pro users confirm that the zr24w displays websites and other text in a quality comparable to the laptop's internal display?

My specific problem is that font smoothing is not working well on the external display. If any of you MacBook Pro users would care to post a photo of your zr24w in use, I'd love to see a photo of some actual web pages (especially, for example, Google search results which look particularly bad).

Thanks!
 
This is good to hear, would you say it has excellent text now (AG coating aside)?

Ok, after more prolonged use of this monitor, I take back what I said before about the text. The text quality is pretty good - still not what I call razor sharp, but it's actually pretty good. What I've come to realize is the AG coating really bothers my eyes and that, in turn, makes the text less sharp than it should be. If you can overlook the AG coating, then I think most people will be pleased with the text. I don't know if my eyes will ever get used to the AG coating. If my eyes can never get adjusted, I'll get a glossy monitor.

I was at the Apple store today, and the whites on the 27" cinema displays are just pure awesomeness. None of the sparkly effect that you see on the ZR24w, as the whites almost look like a sheet of paper and is super white. What I found ironic, though, was that I actually liked the text better on the HP than the Apple. It was sharper on the HP. The text on the Apple was fuzzy - not sure why that was the case. The text on the Apple displays shouldn't be fuzzy, right?
 
Hi,
Also, it looks like I have an issue with one of the pixels (upper-left quadrant). I'm not sure how to determine exactly what the issue it - it looks dark all the time but not sure if it's just stuck permanently black or really dead? Any ideas?

I also got in on the MacMall special and seem to have one dead pixel. If you had one dead pixel would you return a monitor? Would you return it through MacMall or HP?
 
I bought one also and coming from a Dell 2005fpw it a major improvement As the 2005 was the monitor I was just using . I had a Dell 2009wa for a short while but sold it to buy this. At first I was kicking myself for not buying a 24 inch monitor sooner . I do not know what I was thinking staying with 1680x1050 all these years .

This monitor is extremely bright right out the box . It was actually hurting my eyes when the back ground was mostly white . I found a cheap LaCie Pro calibrator and what a difference that makes , was worth the money IMO. Everything looks better after the adjustments . The colors are rich and vibrant and the blacks are jet black. .Another plus is it is not as bright now. Using this monitor out the box is not a good idea IMO . It definitely needs some tweaking to get to look good .
 
I have a question to all you ZR24w owners out there still reading: How are your black levels? In that regard, I mean, are darkly lit scenes in movies and games crushed to the point that it's wiped out and missing detail?

I went to Lagom to take their black level test. While I can definitely see the top row of blacks, when I watch darkly lit movies like The Matrix or play COD4 in dark maps, the blacks look crushed and appear as tho it may be missing detail.

Would anyone be willing to take a picture test w/ me to compare? Like say, take a snapshot from a movie or game (or even just link to a dark colored wallpaper), then take a photo of it from a camera and post it up online.

BTW I'm using TFTCentral's sRGB Mode v2 icc profile along w/ HP Display Assistant installed w/ the following color info:
Brightness: 7
Contrast: 96
RGB: 97, 140, 94
 
I have a question to all you ZR24w owners out there still reading: How are your black levels? In that regard, I mean, are darkly lit scenes in movies and games crushed to the point that it's wiped out and missing detail?

I went to Lagom to take their black level test. While I can definitely see the top row of blacks, when I watch darkly lit movies like The Matrix or play COD4 in dark maps, the blacks look crushed and appear as tho it may be missing detail.

Would anyone be willing to take a picture test w/ me to compare? Like say, take a snapshot from a movie or game (or even just link to a dark colored wallpaper), then take a photo of it from a camera and post it up online.

BTW I'm using TFTCentral's sRGB Mode v2 icc profile along w/ HP Display Assistant installed w/ the following color info:
Brightness: 7
Contrast: 96
RGB: 97, 140, 94

sRGB mode is preset colors, I think you are confused.
 
I was going by what I had in Color Management under Display Properties in Windows. But yes, you're right, I forgot to switch it back to the Custom Color Profile after doing some testing (not that I notice any visual difference between the ICC profiles). All other info posted was relevant and unchanged, however.
 
I have a question to all you ZR24w owners out there still reading: How are your black levels? In that regard, I mean, are darkly lit scenes in movies and games crushed to the point that it's wiped out and missing detail?

I went to Lagom to take their black level test. While I can definitely see the top row of blacks, when I watch darkly lit movies like The Matrix or play COD4 in dark maps, the blacks look crushed and appear as tho it may be missing detail.

Would anyone be willing to take a picture test w/ me to compare? Like say, take a snapshot from a movie or game (or even just link to a dark colored wallpaper), then take a photo of it from a camera and post it up online.

BTW I'm using TFTCentral's sRGB Mode v2 icc profile along w/ HP Display Assistant installed w/ the following color info:
Brightness: 7
Contrast: 96
RGB: 97, 140, 94

Black levels are fine but you need to get your hands on a hardware calibration tool to calibrate properly. You will never get the same kind of result using someone else's icc profile.

These are my results:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/8875/27037494.jpg
 
I have a question to all you ZR24w owners out there still reading: How are your black levels? In that regard, I mean, are darkly lit scenes in movies and games crushed to the point that it's wiped out and missing detail?

I went to Lagom to take their black level test. While I can definitely see the top row of blacks, when I watch darkly lit movies like The Matrix or play COD4 in dark maps, the blacks look crushed and appear as tho it may be missing detail.

Would anyone be willing to take a picture test w/ me to compare? Like say, take a snapshot from a movie or game (or even just link to a dark colored wallpaper), then take a photo of it from a camera and post it up online.

BTW I'm using TFTCentral's sRGB Mode v2 icc profile along w/ HP Display Assistant installed w/ the following color info:
Brightness: 7
Contrast: 96
RGB: 97, 140, 94

Black levels are fine but you need to get your hands on a hardware calibration tool to calibrate properly. You will never get the same kind of result using someone else's icc profile.

These are my results:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/8875/27037494.jpg
 
Here are some images ripped from The Matrix @ 1080p. I snapped some photos from my digi-cam to showcase what it looks like on my monitor, but cannot upload them atm since I need a cable replacement. So in the meantime if anyone wants to snap some images from below and shoot it from THEIR cameras and post it up, I'd be delighted to see how it compares w/ what I'm seeing.










Dark City:





Alien/Aliens:



 
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Hey everyone, I just got this monitor today and so far I've been pretty disappointed. The colors just look so dull, compared to my old 26" TN panel. I cranked up all colors to the max in the OSD (red, green, and blue to 255), but it just doesn't look as good as my old TN monitor, and not even close to my 55" HDTV. Am I missing something here?
 
Hey everyone, I just got this monitor today and so far I've been pretty disappointed. The colors just look so dull, compared to my old 26" TN panel. I cranked up all colors to the max in the OSD (red, green, and blue to 255), but it just doesn't look as good as my old TN monitor, and not even close to my 55" HDTV. Am I missing something here?

I don't think the colors are dull, but I also don't see a noticeable improvement/difference between my old TN and the ZR24w. Maybe it's the AG coating that's making the colors less impressive that it should be?
 
I have a very annoying problem with my new ZR24w. I hear a popping noise coming from the left side of the case, 1 to 3 times per minute. It mostly stops 15 minutes after I turn it on. The sound is clearly due to heat expanding the plastic. Does anyone else have this problem?
 
I have a very annoying problem with my new ZR24w. I hear a popping noise coming from the left side of the case, 1 to 3 times per minute. It mostly stops 15 minutes after I turn it on. The sound is clearly due to heat expanding the plastic. Does anyone else have this problem?

Hmm, mine is pretty much silent. I'll take a close listen to it again later tonight after work, but I don't recall it making any kind of sound at all.
 
I have a very annoying problem with my new ZR24w. I hear a popping noise coming from the left side of the case, 1 to 3 times per minute. It mostly stops 15 minutes after I turn it on. The sound is clearly due to heat expanding the plastic. Does anyone else have this problem?

You won't like to hear this but RMA... definitely not normal. The zr24w doesn't suffer from any kind of annoying buzzing sounds that plagues some other panels out there.
 
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Here are some images ripped from The Matrix @ 1080p. I snapped some photos from my digi-cam to showcase what it looks like on my monitor, but cannot upload them atm since I need a cable replacement. So in the meantime if anyone wants to snap some images from below and shoot it from THEIR cameras and post it up, I'd be delighted to see how it compares w/ what I'm seeing.

images snipped

Digi cam shots of your monitor, displayed on my monitor, only gives me an idea of what digi cam pics look like on MY monitor. If your monitor looks awesome, but I view the pics on my craptastic TN paneled s2409w monitors, your pics will look craptastic, regardless of how good they really look on your monitor.
 
I have a very annoying problem with my new ZR24w. I hear a popping noise coming from the left side of the case, 1 to 3 times per minute. It mostly stops 15 minutes after I turn it on. The sound is clearly due to heat expanding the plastic. Does anyone else have this problem?

One of my ZR24W's makes a very quiet, dull hum for a few seconds when I first turn it on for the day. The other two do not make any sounds I have heard.
 
I'm a photographer and I just bought a ZR24w. It's as least as good as the Apple Cinema Displays (20"/23") that I'm familiar with.

I calibrate with an i1d2 puck and EyeOne Match software.

The recommendation at Tftcentral to pump up the contrast to 100 doesn't work for me. I get best results doing a 'factory reset' and then reducing the brightness to 25. I then calibrate to native whitepoint, native gamma and 130 cd/m2. I skip EyeOne's contrast and brightness pages. I end up with a nice profile with little banding.
 
Here are the *DIGI CAM* results I took of some of the screen caps I posted from various movies... Anyone care to take the test w/ their own ZR24w??

The Matrix:








Dark City:


Alien/Aliens:


 
Why all the movie clips? I don't get it.

I believe they think we can get an idea of what the PQ of their setup looks like. Of course we can't, since there is not one, or even just two, but three things that alter the PQ. The digi cam itself, the fact that the images are all in the 300-400KB area for size ( meaning compressed), and the vast array of widely varying quality monitors we are viewing them on.

We might be able to notice certain defects like banding, stuck pixels, geometry issues, or the like, off of digi cam shots, but we are not getting an accurate idea of color, black levels, or brightness from those shots.
 
Well, it could be his camera settings, or his monitors are extremely blue. Colors don't look balanced. These monitors run pretty blue until they are calibrated.
 
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