HP ZR30w

These stuck pixels are annoying!
First monitor, two stuck pixels.
Second, 1 stuck pixel.
Third, 1 stuck pixel and a minor scratch on the display.
Fourth???

I'm not sure if I should have them replace this monitor too. :\
 
I've got two questions for you gentleman.

First off, I got a HP ZR30w that I absolutely love. Unfortunately during a move, the anti-glare plastic matte was damaged. The screen is large enough that the scratches mostly get lost, but I'm getting sick of them. If I was to send the monitor back to HP, would this be an expensive repair? From the research I've done, the AG mattes are chemically treated directly on top of a polarizer sheet, then the LCD itself. It sounds like a pain in the ass to repair. Anyone that might be a little bit more familiar with the AG matting process care to give me a little insight? I know the right thing to do at this point is really call HP themselves, but that is a huge, huge pain in the ass. Their Indian tech support team is by far the least trained I've ever dealt with. It took me about 4 hours of disconnects, hang ups, etc to even order this monitor using a coupon. If the only option is to replace the monitor entirely, I'll just deal with it.

Second, would the 20 inch ZR2040wp fit as nice portrait mode monitors to accompany my HP ZR30w? The resolutions match up nicely, but I'm just worried about the pseudo OCD freak out that would occur if the screens didn't match up properly. I'm not as concerned if the bezels are a little off, but the screen size is important.

Thanks duders.
 
The 20" ZR2040wp would work but it's going to be ~2" longer screenwise than the ZR30w will being in screen height.

If you want a perfect match, you're going to want to look at the Dell 2007FP, Dell 2001FP, HP 2065, Samsung 204t or any other 4:3 aspect 1600x1200 20" LCD.
 
Hey guys, I have a question for the existing owners. I just bought a ZR30w from ebay, and I think I'm having problems with brightness controls but I want to confirm. Basically the brightness buttons do not seem to work. What I mean is, if I hold the + or the -, the LED will eventually blink three times, indicating that it has reached maximum or minimum brightness. However the brightness of the screen does not change at all. Maybe once in 30 or 40 times, the brightness will change using the + or - buttons. But even after setting the brightness successfully, if I turn off the monitor for a few hours and then turn it back on, it resets itself to the minimum brightness level. I'm assuming this is not normal. Anyone have any comments? Thanks in advance!
 
Uberbob102000 said:
The 20" ZR2040wp would work but it's going to be ~2" longer screenwise than the ZR30w will being in screen height.

If you want a perfect match, you're going to want to look at the Dell 2007FP, Dell 2001FP, HP 2065, Samsung 204t or any other 4:3 aspect 1600x1200 20" LCD.
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Thanks. Looks like two 2007FPs it is then!
 
morfinx said:
Hey guys, I have a question for the existing owners. I just bought a ZR30w from ebay, and I think I'm having problems with brightness controls but I want to confirm. Basically the brightness buttons do not seem to work. What I mean is, if I hold the + or the -, the LED will eventually blink three times, indicating that it has reached maximum or minimum brightness. However the brightness of the screen does not change at all. Maybe once in 30 or 40 times, the brightness will change using the + or - buttons. But even after setting the brightness successfully, if I turn off the monitor for a few hours and then turn it back on, it resets itself to the minimum brightness level. I'm assuming this is not normal. Anyone have any comments? Thanks in advance!
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I guess no one else has had this problem. Looks like I'll have to contact the seller for a refund :(
 
morfinx said:
I guess no one else has had this problem. Looks like I'll have to contact the seller for a refund :(
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I would check for warranty through HP first, you might just be able to get a replacement that way. Should be based on the serial number, regardless of original purchaser. Given the 3-yr warranty you might be covered. There is an online checker but mine didn't show up on there, you may need to call to confirm.
 
austinpike said:
I would check for warranty through HP first, you might just be able to get a replacement that way. Should be based on the serial number, regardless of original purchaser. Given the 3-yr warranty you might be covered. There is an online checker but mine didn't show up on there, you may need to call to confirm.
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I did check online, and it has 2.5 years of warranty left. The thing is, the seller offers a 14-day return period on defective items with a prepaid return shipping label. I think to get HP warranty replacement, you have to pay yourself to ship it to them, is that right? That's at least $50. And then you might get a refurb back. I got the monitor for $900 on ebay, and cost central has it new for $1050. If I buy new, I can get an extra year of warranty from my AMEX card. I'm thinking $100 more (if you have to pay to ship it to HP) for 1.5 more years of warranty is probably worth it. What do you think?
 
leisure said:
Please do!
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Will do.

morfinx said:
I did check online, and it has 2.5 years of warranty left. The thing is, the seller offers a 14-day return period on defective items with a prepaid return shipping label. I think to get HP warranty replacement, you have to pay yourself to ship it to them, is that right? That's at least $50. And then you might get a refurb back. I got the monitor for $900 on ebay, and cost central has it new for $1050. If I buy new, I can get an extra year of warranty from my AMEX card. I'm thinking $100 more (if you have to pay to ship it to HP) for 1.5 more years of warranty is probably worth it. What do you think?
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Ok the plot thickens! So I contacted the seller, and he offers to either email me a prepaid shipping label to send it back for a full refund, or refund me $100 if I want to get it serviced under HP's warranty directly. I called HP and confirmed the warranty coverage. I also found that HP will pay for the return shipping and they do advanced replacement. So I'm considering a couple of things:

  • Now there is a $250 difference between getting the existing unit serviced by HP versus returning it to the seller and buying a new one. I do get 1.5 years more warranty if I buy a new one; I would get 3 years HP warranty + 1 year AMEX extended warranty versus the 2.5 years that's left on the existing monitor. The question is, is 1.5 years of additional warranty worth $250?
  • I've heard that HP warranty replacements are refurbs, not new units. Anyone here experienced or foresee any problems with that?
Let me know what you guys think! Thanks in advance!
 
morfinx said:
The question is, is 1.5 years of additional warranty worth $250?
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Sounds like an awful lot to me, not worth it IMHO. I wouldn't be concerned at all getting a refurb from HP, frankly your chances of getting a good unit might be better since it has been gone over. Question is, is the warranty on the replacement unit the balance of your original monitor, does it reset to 3 years, or is it less due to being a refurb (if that is the case.)
 
austinpike said:
Sounds like an awful lot to me, not worth it IMHO. I wouldn't be concerned at all getting a refurb from HP, frankly your chances of getting a good unit might be better since it has been gone over. Question is, is the warranty on the replacement unit the balance of your original monitor, does it reset to 3 years, or is it less due to being a refurb (if that is the case.)
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That's what I'm thinking as well. Monitors do not have moving parts, so it's unlikely to just go bad other than early on due to infant mortality issues. I think the warranty on the replacement carries the remaining balance from the original monitor. Otherwise you can just file warranty claims every 2.9 years ad infinitum :p
 
austinpike said:
Sounds like an awful lot to me, not worth it IMHO. I wouldn't be concerned at all getting a refurb from HP, frankly your chances of getting a good unit might be better since it has been gone over. Question is, is the warranty on the replacement unit the balance of your original monitor, does it reset to 3 years, or is it less due to being a refurb (if that is the case.)
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Well, that was pretty painless dealing with HP's business support (apparently the 30" is a business product). Got a replacement on the way and should be here in 2 days. Didn't even ask for my credit card info for the advance replacement. Fingers crossed I get a good one!
 
morfinx said:
Well, that was pretty painless dealing with HP's business support (apparently the 30" is a business product). Got a replacement on the way and should be here in 2 days. Didn't even ask for my credit card info for the advance replacement. Fingers crossed I get a good one!
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Wow, that's great to hear. I have a pressing matter with my monitor but have not acted on the issue because I dread their normal Indian support.
 
leisure said:
Wow, that's great to hear. I have a pressing matter with my monitor but have not acted on the issue because I dread their normal Indian support.
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Yep, the whole process was super efficient and painless (well, other than lugging that thing up and down 3 flights of stairs :p). Got the replacement in 2 business days as promised. I called them Monday afternoon, and they called me Tuesday morning to confirm, and then shipped the replacement to me via UPS Next Day Air. The replacement looks brand new, zero dead pixels, and works awesome :D

morfinx said:
Just bought a couple yesterday. From the reviews it looks like a hit or miss. I'll post up results when I get them.
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I got the two LGs yesterday as well, and I'm less than impressed. I have the brightness on the ZR30w turned down quite a bit, and the LGs on max brightness are still dimmer than the HP. One of the monitor has 1 gray stuck pixel which I don't really notice unless I really look for it. The 2nd monitor looked wrong immediately. Even when the setting is the same as the 1st monitor, it just looks wrong, like some kind of reddish tint. No amount of calibration fixed it. I also found multiple dead pixels on it (11 or 12, one is a noticeable clump of them). See picture (post-its point to the dead pixels, which you can't see in this picture except for the clump):

bze5B.jpg


Needless to say, I RMAed that one. It's pretty much a crap shoot. I'm not even that impressed with the good one. I think the Dell Ultrasharps are definitely better. But for $80, you really can't expect miracles. Here's hoping the replacement is better!
 
morfinx said:
Yep, the whole process was super efficient and painless (well, other than lugging that thing up and down 3 flights of stairs :p). Got the replacement in 2 business days as promised. I called them Monday afternoon, and they called me Tuesday morning to confirm, and then shipped the replacement to me via UPS Next Day Air. The replacement looks brand new, zero dead pixels, and works awesome :D


I got the two LGs yesterday as well, and I'm less than impressed. I have the brightness on the ZR30w turned down quite a bit, and the LGs on max brightness are still dimmer than the HP. One of the monitor has 1 gray stuck pixel which I don't really notice unless I really look for it. The 2nd monitor looked wrong immediately. Even when the setting is the same as the 1st monitor, it just looks wrong, like some kind of reddish tint. No amount of calibration fixed it. I also found multiple dead pixels on it (11 or 12, one is a noticeable clump of them). See picture (post-its point to the dead pixels, which you can't see in this picture except for the clump):

bze5B.jpg


Needless to say, I RMAed that one. It's pretty much a crap shoot. I'm not even that impressed with the good one. I think the Dell Ultrasharps are definitely better. But for $80, you really can't expect miracles. Here's hoping the replacement is better!
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Thats a shame. If they are anything like the Dell refurbs, they probably have tens of thousands of hours on them probably, which is definitely why they are so dim.

I think Im going try out two LG L2000CP-BF If they flop.... Amazon will take anything back.

Same price as the Dell 2007FP but since its LG I won't have to worry about an IPS lottery. There just really isn't a lot of information readily available on this model. I'll let the thread know in a week or two when I order them along with a new video card.
 
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leisure said:
Thats a shame. If they are anything like the Dell refurbs, they probably have tens of thousands of hours on them probably, which is definitely why they are so dim.

I think Im going try out two LG L2000CP-BF If they flop.... Amazon will take anything back.

Same price as the Dell 2007FP but since its LG I won't have to worry about an IPS lottery. There just really isn't a lot of information readily available on this model. I'll let the thread know in a week or two when I order them along with a new video card.
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That makes sense why they are dimmer. I think both ones I got had 2008 manufacturing date.

Wow, $400 piece is a little steep. At 5x the price of the L200ME-BF, it better blow it away :) I just want a couple of serviceable side monitors. Mostly they are just for stuff like web browsing and work. Most of the real action will happen on the ZR30w. I just got my new 7970 to go with the HP. Now I'm ready for Diablo 3 :D
 
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leisure said:
Thats a shame. If they are anything like the Dell refurbs, they probably have tens of thousands of hours on them probably, which is definitely why they are so dim.

I think Im going try out two LG L2000CP-BF If they flop.... Amazon will take anything back.

Same price as the Dell 2007FP but since its LG I won't have to worry about an IPS lottery. There just really isn't a lot of information readily available on this model. I'll let the thread know in a week or two when I order them along with a new video card.
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Freaking hell. The replacement screen is terrible too! Fewer dead pixels, but the whole screen have shimmering pixels everywhere on lighter backgrounds. Also has the same tinting problem and is a year older than the one it replaced. Time for RMA #2... :mad:

Let us know how the LG works out for ya! By the way, what do you mean by IPS lottery?
 
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Hi All,

I just got this mostly awesome ZR30w display and am staring at it now. :D

I say "mostly awesome" because sadly, I'm getting the blinking problem that has been mentioned intermittently in this thread. It's been on for less than three hours, and I already have had a couple dozen blink-outs. I have paired it with an Intel HD Graphics 4000 (3rd generation Intel Core processor).

Has anyone tried to use a different cable than the cable that ships in the box? Mine says "DisplayPort Cable E119932-T" and "Copartner". It is probably 28AWG, but I'm going to try a Monoprice 28AWG cable to see if it makes a difference.
 
Do you have any other video card you can test it with? Does it blink at less than max. res? I have no experience with the onboard HD4000 specifically but I'd rule that out as well. I know it technically does 2560x1600, but I'm a little suspect of how robust that support is.
 
Man, you guys have me worried. I've already RMA'ed the ZR30W I bought, been waiting two months for the replacement. Newegg fucking cheaped out on the return shipping to APO and it's on its way on a boat across the Pacific. :rolleyes: I am going to demand a refund + return of shipping expenses if my replacement monitor isn't utterly perfect when it finally gets here.
 
Daggah said:
Man, you guys have me worried. I've already RMA'ed the ZR30W I bought, been waiting two months for the replacement. Newegg fucking cheaped out on the return shipping to APO and it's on its way on a boat across the Pacific. :rolleyes: I am going to demand a refund + return of shipping expenses if my replacement monitor isn't utterly perfect when it finally gets here.
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You should have dealt with HP directly. Their business support is very good.
 
I just recently bought one of the HP ZR30W monitors and have waited several days to post in order to get a good feel for this monitor as well as dispell some myths regarding it and other 30 inch monitors.

One thing to keep in mind here folks this model has been out for sometime now and gone through a revision or two im sure and at the time this thread was opened there were many more choices in the 30 inch 16:10 arena then there are now in 2013.

The only viable options that I had when selecting a monitor at 16:10 aspect was that I wanted it to be large and since there are NO 27 inch lcd monitors with a 16:10 aspect ratio in 2013 your only choice is a 30 inch lcd monitor.
Unless you want to pay 2.5K to 5K for a 30 inch monitor you have ONLY TWO CHOICES that make any sense and thats the DELL U3011 or the HP ZR30W.
Yes you can find a few older 30 inch panels and some from LG or older models of Dells and HP's and perhaps a refurb here or there from NEC or DoubleSight etc but you are taking a big risk spending 700 to a 1000 dollars on a refurb monitor from parts unknown in condition unknown used for who knows how long.
Yes you can find cheaper knockoff korean brands for a fraction of the price but the ones creeping up on ebay and amazon may have a good screen they dont seem to have good internals in fact one i looked at required TWO dvi cable hookups because it was not dual dvi compatible and that was the ONLY way you could connect that particular panel. Again great risk in buying these cheaper knockoffs.

SO really Dell and HP dont have any competition its either the Dell OR the HP unless you want to skip buying a car and buy a monitor instead LOL.

Why did I choose the HP? Well the Dell was out of stock for one thing, the HP was also cheaper and to me looked a little better anyways. I think I prefer the dell's monitor stand as it appears to offer more vertical adjustment than the HP's stand which could use a good two inches or more of vertical adjustment. That said the HP stand is very nice, swivels etc although I do not think you can raise it to portrait mode not that I care much anyhow.

Had both the HP and the Dell panel been in stock at micro center it would have been a much tougher choice. Actually I am forgetting one thing, the HP has no internal scaler which would have swayed my choice to the HP anyhow. The absence of a scaler means an absence of additional lag from the monitor and the pixel pitch seems a tad smaller as well. So there you have it, HP for the win.

That said the Dell was no slouch of a panel either afterall, BOTH OF THESE MONITORS HAVE LG lcd panels in them and most likely the exact same model.

Now some say the HP has less AG glare coating, I looked at this on both panels in white backgrounds and find them to be just the same perhaps a finer pixel pitch on the HP saves the day here but I did find it hard to focus on small text on white pages and lets face it most webpages have white backgrounds. The AG coating is not that bothersome once you calibrate the monitor and adjust it to your personal likings but if you obsess over it there's no escaping it.
All larger lcd panels have this AG coating whether 30 inch or 27 inch and I find they have more than my older 24 inch LG246wpbn which is still running quite nicely and that panel is PMVA. I would have preferred that these 30 inch panels had no more ag coating than my matte LG246 did. For that matter, a PMVA panel on these 30 inchers would have been just fine as well.

THE S IPS panels on the dell and hp are very nice, lots of colors but I do think they would really benefit from far less Anti Glare coating. PMVA also offers the same viewing angles and much more economical, a very happy medium between pva and ips panels that disappeared when the general populace stopped caring about quality electronics and got sucked into 16:9 aspect 1080p CRAP.

IS the anti glare coating a deal killer on the HP or the Dell 30 inch? ABSOLUTELY NOT

I spent several days getting used to the size and adjusting the properties of my HP before I finally found settings that worked for me. Do these monitors need a professional calibrating tool? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! You can easily adjust them with time and patience to your own personal liking for non professional photographic or other use.

First hangup most people have is that there is no OSD settings on the HP. This is a non issue, any setting you could adjust in OSD is easily handled in your graphics card settings and can be adjusted for every type of use without any problems as well as scaling your panel to aspect ratio, full screen or other setting you may wish to use. In the HP's case, the absence of the OSD and scaler is not a problem and more of a benefit really, no lag associated with having such hardware in your monitor, afterall thats what you bought your nice powerful graphics card for in the first place isnt it? You WILL need a high end graphics card to drive these 30 inch panels and game with them. Do you need two cards in SLI? NOT FOR ONE MONITOR NO. I am using Nvidia GTX 670 and have gamed at 1920x1200 with maxed out settings and no issues whatsoever. If you plan on using multiple monitors then yes you will need more than one card or a card with two GPU's on it such as the 690.

It is imperative that your computer be powerful enough to drive these high resolution panels so a good powersupply is needed and a good graphics card such as a 670 or above from nvidia or the ati 7950 or above. I am using a 2 gig card and benchmarks do not show any effective improvement when using 3 or 4 gig cards so you are better off spending that money on a high quality 2 gig card.

Are there other cards that you can use? certainly perhaps a 660 would also be effective and older cards such as the 580 nvidia or 5870 ati but at the time of my review a 670 or a radeon 7970 are excellent choices.

Many have complained about panel hum, perhaps the early panels had bad power supplies? perhaps caused by some older video cards? Im not sure but I can tell you that I experience no hum from my HP Zr30W whatsoever.
The controls on the panel are for brightness and you can select your output either dvi or display port, the monitor comes with both and very good cables. If you use an aftermarket dvi make sure it is a DUAL DVI cable. I chose to use the display port because of higher bandwidth and its a high quality cable with ferrite core chokes.
THe monitor is fully HDCP capable. Some complain that there is no hdmi port, but what of it? Nearly all modern graphics cards have two dvi and at least one display port and you will not be running sound from your monitor so I fail to understand the fixation with HDMI when choosing one of these monitors, however, if you plan to run two or three panels together this may be something to consider. Since I never intend to run three monitors on my desktop it was not an important consideration. HDMI does not offer any benefit over dvi or display port unless you are running sound through them. I have not tried the DVI cable and port but see no reason why it should look any different or better than the display port or vice versa.
IF you find that you need longer cables, by all means buy high quality cables, go to BLUEJEANSCABLE where you will find good quality cables at very low prices, dont buy into monster marketing or cheap afterbrands found at bestbuy or microcenter. Blue jeans cable offers custom lengths and a wide variety of high quality cables whether dvi, hdmi, display port etc. at the same or lower prices than you will find in retail stores. You wont be sorry you shopped with them. I will say that you should keep your cables to the shortest length necessary no more than ten feet is best.

It took me SEVERAL days to get the monitor to the settings and resolution that I preferred so if you buy one of these 30 inch panels by all means give it time, give it a week as long as you have no dead pixels and work on adjusting it to your likings and your needs after doing what you normally do on your computer. It will take time and effort to make these panels look good.
Fortunately all the settings in nvidia and ati cards are extensive, both now have digital vibrance so that makes the job easy. I installed the HP driver which installs a good color profile for the monitor, I am using windows 8 and also used windows calibrator to further adjust the monitor, make sure in your advanced display settings that you select HPZR30W as your default monitor profile and everything will be good there. A note on Dynamice contrast........TURN IT OFF, it is off by default, you can check this by pressing both the + and - buttons that are used for brightness adjustment at the SAME TIME. Read the manual to understand the power lights blinking which will tell you if the setting is off or not but really you will know by looking at your panel, the dynamic contrast will make the panel VERY BRIGHT!! far too bright so turn that OFF.

my first adjustment was to turn brightness ALL THE WAY DOWN on the panel, i use around 35 brightness with around 40 digital vibrance and around 80 to 90 gamma give or take on all these settings with a contrast of about 50 which for me results in an image that isnt to bright and does not heat up the lcd panel or burn my retinas for that matter.

Next issue for me was resolution and text. at full resolution the panels text is far too small for anyones good, adjusting it with windows and enlarging it also did not satisfy me nor did clear type so I moved to 1920x1200 resolution and that seemed to help but I still had issues and yes my vision is 20:20 if you were wondering. I do not wear glasses or contacts.
Some would say that you cannot use the panel at anyhing other than 2560x1600.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
Although your options for a good 16:10 resolution are limited, exactly half resolution is 1280x800, that works fine but things are quite large, 1920x1200 works great and that is the resolution I settled on for gaming.
Still unhappy with how text and web pages looked for me, I tried 1680x1050 and for me everything looks great, text issues were gone, I have used clear type and medium sized text in windows 8 and once I tried 1680x1050 everything just felt much more comfortable to me. These resolutions look great on this panel while purists may cringe at me saying so I feel it is important to let people know they do have smaller options for resolution although the four resolutions mentioned are the only ones that really seem to work well, other custom resolutions did not bode well with this monitor and i suspect the same holds true for the Dell panel as well.

Personally I have never used any lcd panel at max resolution and have always found lower resolutions to be more practical so dont let the max resolution scare you away from buying this panel thinking you cannot use other smaller res settings which work better for office and web browsing. Panel will still look very good and ofcourse will be its absolute best at max resolution but I dont know many people who enjoy viewing a web page at 2560x1600, come to think of it i dont know ANYONE who enjoys that.

60 hz, well this lcd is ony 60hz, SO WHAT??? WHAT OF IT?? this is an lcd not a crt, so the refresh rate is not of dire importance. Dont buy into all the 120hz marketing hype.

GAMES are great on this panel, no lag, no ghosting with nvidia 670 at any resolution, my preference for gaming has been 1920x1200 on this monitor. Photos and games look breathtaking and the larger screen makes for a much more immersive gaming experience than with smaller panels.

Photos and video's look great, if you have an nvidia card your video player color settings are separate from your display settings, I tried adjusting these and found it best to allow the player to handle color instead of the nvidia settings for the display because when you tubing if I played a video full screen the colors would largely disappear but looked much better on full screen if I allowed the video player to adjust these settings as opposed to locking in my nvidia settings i chose for the display, your results may vary.

Again I wish to stress here both nvidia and ati have all the display ajustments you could ask for and far exceed the capabilities of any OSD hardware so this should not be seen as a disadvantage in any way shape or form, I think some of those complainers are old school crt consumers.

Apple critics: many apple users complain about using this or the dell panel with their macs, screen blinking, blacking out etc. some pc users have also complained about this, well im sorry but your intel graphics on your ivy bridge processor will not effectively drive this panel folks, neither will the weak graphics cards in mac laptops or mac mini's. Seriously folks... you think you can drive a 30 inch lcd panel with a mac mini??? GET REAL. your graphics hardware just cannot handle such a high resolution panel. The apple fanatics sometimes dont realize the limitations of their hardware but this is why they have problems with either the dell or the hp 30 inch lcd.

A computer or laptop using integrated graphics will not be adequate to drive a 30 inch lcd panel folks, sorry about your luck, its not the lcd, its YOUR inadequate hardware that is the problem.

After reading about sparkle and anti glare its easy to obsess about it and easy to get frustrated with these S IPS 30 inch panels if you dont take the time to get used to them and adjust them to your liking and adjust text, clear type and resolution to your liking. I was rather frustrated with eye strain until i set my desktop at 1680x1050 for general use. I can always increase it for photos and for gaming anytime I want to.

After a week, I am very satisfied with the HP ZR30W but not without several hours of fidgeting and tweaking to get things to pop just right for me. If you buy one of these monitors please understand they will not be to your liking out of the box and are very saturated and too bright. Reducing the brightness to between 30 and 50 percent will also decrease heat and extend the life of your ccfl backlight as well as save your eyesight.

ALL 30 inch lcd's are ccfl backlight, ccfl is far superior for colors than leds are at this time and it is definitely noticeable on 27 inch panels with led's, perhaps in the future led's will make their way to 30 inch and perhaps consumers will re educate themselves on the finer points of computing with a 16:10 monitor which offers a far better computing experience than 16:9 does.
To give an example, my `16:10 24 inch monitor has the same vertical size as all the current 27 inch panels, stepping up would have really been stepping down. I guess few people realize how good 16:10 aspect ratio is soo much better than 16:9 and lets face it movies are better left to your 60 inch hdtv anyways. 1080p does not offer better quality than additonal pixels in a 16:10 monitor folks, whens the last time you scrolled horizontally through a web page? anyone? enough said.

In conclusion, I highly recommend the HP ZR30W lcd monitor, its a great panel, great for games and everything.
If you go with the Dell U3011 you will also be very satisfied.

They are both well worth the money and both well worth tweaking and adjusting the settings to your liking.
 
I wish to add one further comment when purchasing a monitor of this quality.

I bought mine at a retail store, micro center, they do price matching, furthermore I was able to have my new HP ZR30W hooked up at the store and tested for dead pixels before I left. In my state and I think everywhere, this is a legal requirement.

Micro Center was nice enough to test it out for me without even purchasing it first, normally you have to purchase it then go back and have it tested. The microcenter rep asked their help desk to hook it up, I reminded him that this panel is high resolution and will not work on integrated graphics so he happily hooked it up to the computer that was running the HPZr30W on display in the store which had a graphics card capable of running the panel.

EVERYTHING WAS GOOD NO DEAD PIXELS NO PROBLEMS AND GREAT SERVICE.

Could I have saved more going to amazon or some unknown online venue? perhaps but to me it was well worth a bit of savings to physically test my monitor and know it was perfect before leaving the store. No RMA, NO SHIPPING, NO SHIPPING COSTS, NO DAMAGE associated with shipping, no theft from some shipper leaving the monitor on my door step, no problems whatsoever.

If you are fortunate enough to live close to a retail venue such as micro center or perhaps tiger direct of fry's that has this monitor on display then that is where you should purchase one as i suspect online shippers will pass on dead pixel monitors and problems whenever and where ever to whomever they can in the hopes that the consumer will not return the panel and accept defects which is exactly what some people do.

There is no such thing as an acceptable number of dead pixels on ANY lcd monitor to a consumer, especially not for one you spend over a thousand dollars on so I highly recommend you buy one at a reputable retailer that will allow you to test the panel before leaving the store as they are legally required to do anyhow.

Hats off to Micro Center for their excellent customer service and assistance in purchasing the HPZR30W.
 
Holy wall of text.

I agree that both are very good monitors. I happened to pick the Dell and I can say that, in my eyes at least, having a scaler and OSD are only benefits with no drawbacks. People make such a big deal out of the input lag caused by that spawn of Satan known as the scaler, but I never noticed it and it never hindered gameplay in any way for me. Also, I love the wide variety of inputs on the Dell. People who buy the HP tend to gloss over the benefits of the Dell and focus on the horrible input lag that kills your babies and causes games to be unplayable. I, on the other hand, try to be objective and realize that people who choose the HP probably did so because they wanted to save some money, they couldn't ever see themselves using the additional inputs of the Dell, or they were worried about the input lag that was way, way overhyped whenever these two monitors would be compared. The fact is, I and many other people have enjoyed playing games on the U3011 and the input lag that is so overblown was not a problem at all.

I appreciate the time that you took to go in depth for your review, but two things stood out that made me wonder how much of it I should place any stock in.

First, you bought one of the finest monitors available with 30 inches of 2560x1600 glory, yet you game at 1920x1200? Yes, I played games at lower resolutions on my U3011 back when I had a single GTX 260 that choked on games like Crysis and Metro 2033, but your GTX 670 should be fully capable of providing a smooth experience at 2560x1600 as long as you're not maxxing out every detail slider and running extreme levels of AA...and of course the higher resolution negates the need to use much AA, if any at all.

Second, and this one tops them all:

conghelach said:
60 hz, well this lcd is ony 60hz, SO WHAT??? WHAT OF IT?? this is an lcd not a crt, so the refresh rate is not of dire importance. Dont buy into all the 120hz marketing hype.
Click to expand...

I could write a lot here, but I won't. I'll just say that after personally owning a 120hz display, I can say that it is anything but "marketing hype." If you have the graphics horsepower to push your frame rate far past 60hz it makes a HUGE difference in the fluidity and smoothness of things.

And I am able to say this because I have a 27" Samsung 120hz monitor sitting right beside of my U3011. To be honest, if it wasn't for loving 2560x1600 for desktop use so much, I'd consider selling the Dell. After gaming on the 120hz monitor, the motion blur and lack of fluidity on the 30" is very noticeable.

Going from 60 to 120hz was one of those noticeable leaps that you experience like when you go from a HDD to an SSD or from SD to HDTV television. And I get it -- when you only have the former you can't (or don't want to) imagine the latter being that much of a difference. But after experience the latter, it's very hard to go back to the former. Everything is so smooth and crisp when playing on a 120hz monitor; it's startling, actually.
 
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imyourzero said:
Holy wall of text.

I agree that both are very good monitors. I happened to pick the Dell and I can say that, in my eyes at least, having a scaler and OSD are only benefits with no drawbacks. People make such a big deal out of the input lag caused by that spawn of Satan known as the scaler, but I never noticed it and it never hindered gameplay in any way for me. Also, I love the wide variety of inputs on the Dell. People who buy the HP tend to gloss over the benefits of the Dell and focus on the horrible input lag that kills your babies and causes games to be unplayable. I, on the other hand, try to be objective and realize that people who choose the HP probably did so because they wanted to save some money, they couldn't ever see themselves using the additional inputs of the Dell, or they were worried about the input lag that was way, way overhyped whenever these two monitors would be compared. The fact is, I and many other people have enjoyed playing games on the U3011 and the input lag that is so overblown was not a problem at all.

I appreciate the time that you took to go in depth for your review, but two things stood out that made me wonder how much of it I should place any stock in.

First, you bought one of the finest monitors available with 30 inches of 2560x1600 glory, yet you game at 1920x1200? Yes, I played games at lower resolutions on my U3011 back when I had a single GTX 260 that choked on games like Crysis and Metro 2033, but your GTX 670 should be fully capable of providing a smooth experience at 2560x1600 as long as you're not maxxing out every detail slider and running extreme levels of AA...and of course the higher resolution negates the need to use much AA, if any at all.

Second, and this one tops them all:



I could write a lot here, but I won't. I'll just say that after personally owning a 120hz display, I can say that it is anything but "marketing hype." If you have the graphics horsepower to push your frame rate far past 60hz it makes a HUGE difference in the fluidity and smoothness of things.

And I am able to say this because I have a 27" Samsung 120hz monitor sitting right beside of my U3011. To be honest, if it wasn't for loving 2560x1600 for desktop use so much, I'd consider selling the Dell. After gaming on the 120hz monitor, the motion blur and lack of fluidity on the 30" is very noticeable.

Going from 60 to 120hz was one of those noticeable leaps that you experience like when you go from a HDD to an SSD or from SD to HDTV television. And I get it -- when you only have the former you can't (or don't want to) imagine the latter being that much of a difference. But after experience the latter, it's very hard to go back to the former. Everything is so smooth and crisp when playing on a 120hz monitor; it's startling, actually.
Click to expand...


This is my first foray into gaming at 1920x1200 resolution, i may also try the max resolution but soo far 1920 is quite pleasing, I suppose I should further test my video card out at max resolution. I am unaware of any good lcd monitors with 120hz refresh rate, see that often on HDTV's but monitors??? Im glad you are enjoying your dell panel, to me the HP and DELL are pretty much the same minus an osd here or an output there. Im curious do you ever use the USB ports on yoru monitor? Ive never seen anyone use one from their monitor yet soo many reviewers fuss over them. For me the DELL was out of stock, had it been in stock the choice would have been more difficult but I feel I probably would still have gone with the HP. In either case, however, you cant go wrong and I agree the scaler input lag issue is blown out of proportion.

Now if they could tone down the harsh AG coatings on IPS monitors, that would be a welcome change to many consumers im sure.
 
conghelach said:
This is my first foray into gaming at 1920x1200 resolution, i may also try the max resolution but soo far 1920 is quite pleasing, I suppose I should further test my video card out at max resolution. I am unaware of any good lcd monitors with 120hz refresh rate, see that often on HDTV's but monitors??? Im glad you are enjoying your dell panel, to me the HP and DELL are pretty much the same minus an osd here or an output there. Im curious do you ever use the USB ports on yoru monitor? Ive never seen anyone use one from their monitor yet soo many reviewers fuss over them. For me the DELL was out of stock, had it been in stock the choice would have been more difficult but I feel I probably would still have gone with the HP. In either case, however, you cant go wrong and I agree the scaler input lag issue is blown out of proportion.

Now if they could tone down the harsh AG coatings on IPS monitors, that would be a welcome change to many consumers im sure.
Click to expand...

Yeah if you don't use your 30" at 2560x1600 you are really missing out on one of the major benefits of that panel. As you probably know, the native resolution is where things are the sharpest and anything under that will cause some degree of blurriness and loss of detail, with some resolutions being worse than others in that regard. 1280x800 is good, but as you noted that's a pretty low resolution these days. 2560x1600 is awesome for gaming but it does push your frame rate down a bit...thankfully it's not a problem on older games or today's typical console ports that aren't exactly revolutionary in terms of graphical prowess, however.

120hz monitors definitely aren't mainstream yet, but several manufacturers do make them. I think there are more of them available in 23" size but there's no way I could step down to that after using the U3011 so I chose a 27". When I bought mine it came down to three contenders: Samsung, Acer and Asus. I did a lot of research and decided on the Samsung and have been extremely happy with it.

No, I haven't used the USB ports on my Dell very often because I have so many available between the ones on the back of my motherboard and the ones on the front of my case. They ARE much more convenient to access on the side of the monitor, so I wouldn't use them for things like a mouse or keyboard that stay plugged in but if you need to connect a flash drive or something temporary like that, they are great (this will vary depending on the location of your case; some are easily reachable while others are tucked way under a desk and a hassle to get to...so USB ports on a monitor are more useful to some people than others).

I have, however, used the other various video inputs. They come in really handy when you want to connect a console to your monitor (and the scaler is really handy there as well). I don't game on consoles much these days and most people will use their HDTV for that anyway, but back when I had my Westinghouse 37" monitor I used to connect my PlayStation and XBOX to it all the time.

I agree about the AG coating! It's never bothered me *nearly* as much as other people who bitched endlessly about it and even returned their monitors, but I wouldn't mind having less of it. Hopefully the U3014 or whatever Dell's new LED 30" panel is will have less AG.
 
Just for shits and giggles I bumped mine up to 2560x1600 with text at 150%.

So far soo good and obviously much sharper. I havent had alot of exposure to 120hz computer monitors, I know with HDTV's you will be feeding it a 60hz source anyways.

As for AG coating, I think people tend to obsess about this too much and therefore cause return stampedes for many monitors.
Once I adjusted my panel and non professionally calibrated it I found text to be much more legible and easier on the eyes. I think alot of people run their panels too bright. I run mine around 30 to 35% brightness, gamma around .86 and contrast around 50% which seems to pop quite nicely for me.
At brightness above 50% id say you will more than likely damage your eyesight.

I suspect that the users who cry alot about AG coating have not properly adjusted or calibrated their monitors and are not using clear type to sharpen text.

The first day or two with my HP I was not that happy with it but was patient enough to make adjustments after watching you tube, surfing, gaming etc.

These monitors will not come out of the box looking pretty thats for sure, colors aside. After a week of getting used to the size and tweaking my HP ZR30W I am very happy with it. The Dell and the HP 30 inchers are at a good cost point compared to other brands that go well beyond two thousand dollars.

ALL ive seen regarding dell's 3014 is alot of speculation at this point, I did notice with the HP's that the smaller panels in this series like the 27 inch use LED and the quality was not up to par with a CCFL.

I can say that my LG2465WPBN from six years ago that still runs great, has less AG coating that monitors do today.

Sadly most people seem to be going smaller with their monitors and gaga over tablets which I dont understand. I had a room mate who would watch movies on his I phone with a 42 inch HDTV sitting in his room. I fail to understand the fascination with smaller panels and tiny tablets for gaming or other multimedia. Then there's the whole fascination with touch screens really? I cant imagine swiping my hand across a monitor all day, not very productive or enjoyable.
 
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