HP LP3065: A new contender for the 30" throne
by Jarred Walton on March 22, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Viewing Angles
Viewing angles are one of those specifications that have become very inflated by the manufacturers. The basic requirement is that the display has to maintain a 10:1 contrast ratio in order to qualify as "viewable". The reality is that most LCDs are unfit for viewing outside of about a 45° arc. The good news is we really doubt that most people would want to view a display from anything more then a 45° angle. We used our camera to take shots from head-on as well as from the left and right sides at ~30° angles, showing how brightness and contrast ratios are affected in off-angle viewing. We also took pictures from above and below at ~30° angles. Links to the viewing angle images of previously reviewed LCDs are available for comparison below:
Acer AL2216W
Dell 2405FPW
Dell 2407WFP
Dell 3007WFP
Gateway FPD2485W
The HP LP3065 comes in first place when it comes to viewing angles. Within a 60° viewing arc, the colors remain very true. This is one instance where the updated panel on the HP LP3065 clearly ranks ahead of the Dell 3007WFP. Meanwhile, the TN panel on the Acer AL2216W offers an extremely limited viewing arc, especially in the vertical plane. We wouldn't be too concerned about viewing angles personally, as outside of the Acer display all of the LCDs are generally acceptable for use within a 60° viewing arc, both horizontally and vertically. Even the Acer panel is usable provided your eyes are in roughly the same vertical plane, as it suffers mostly in the vertical viewing angle.
Anyone who is seriously concerned about accurate colors is going to want to view pretty much any display from a direct front angle, and that tends to be the most comfortable position as well. That's one of the reasons we don't really worry too much about viewing angles. However, some people might work in environments where off-angle viewing is more important, so it's not entirely meaningless. Unfortunately, the manufacturer viewing angles tend to be exaggerated to the point of being useless, as the standard 10:1 contrast ratio is not acceptable for actual use. 100:1 is good enough, and maybe even a bit lower, but a 10:1 ratio is not at all practical.
Viewing angles are one of those specifications that have become very inflated by the manufacturers. The basic requirement is that the display has to maintain a 10:1 contrast ratio in order to qualify as "viewable". The reality is that most LCDs are unfit for viewing outside of about a 45° arc. The good news is we really doubt that most people would want to view a display from anything more then a 45° angle. We used our camera to take shots from head-on as well as from the left and right sides at ~30° angles, showing how brightness and contrast ratios are affected in off-angle viewing. We also took pictures from above and below at ~30° angles. Links to the viewing angle images of previously reviewed LCDs are available for comparison below:
Acer AL2216W
Dell 2405FPW
Dell 2407WFP
Dell 3007WFP
Gateway FPD2485W
 |
| HP LP3065 |
The HP LP3065 comes in first place when it comes to viewing angles. Within a 60° viewing arc, the colors remain very true. This is one instance where the updated panel on the HP LP3065 clearly ranks ahead of the Dell 3007WFP. Meanwhile, the TN panel on the Acer AL2216W offers an extremely limited viewing arc, especially in the vertical plane. We wouldn't be too concerned about viewing angles personally, as outside of the Acer display all of the LCDs are generally acceptable for use within a 60° viewing arc, both horizontally and vertically. Even the Acer panel is usable provided your eyes are in roughly the same vertical plane, as it suffers mostly in the vertical viewing angle.
Anyone who is seriously concerned about accurate colors is going to want to view pretty much any display from a direct front angle, and that tends to be the most comfortable position as well. That's one of the reasons we don't really worry too much about viewing angles. However, some people might work in environments where off-angle viewing is more important, so it's not entirely meaningless. Unfortunately, the manufacturer viewing angles tend to be exaggerated to the point of being useless, as the standard 10:1 contrast ratio is not acceptable for actual use. 100:1 is good enough, and maybe even a bit lower, but a 10:1 ratio is not at all practical.
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lawrenpx - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
Has anyone been able to get the Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital to work with the HP LP3065 in either Linux Redhat or PC Windows? When I connect my monitors all I get is a blinking green light on the monitor which I believe means no signal. Perhaps I need to get a Linux driver but I can't find any. ThanksKeithP - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
While I understand some people can't wait for technology, it seems we are pretty close to seeing 120Hz refresh rates and LED backlighting. Given that, I think spending a bunch of money on a large LCD display may not be the best move.Of course, if you can't wait, the HP and Dell seem pretty nice.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
120Hz refresh rates will require something other than dual-link DVI in order to function. Right now, it's a matter of bandwidth. DVI runs at 165 MHz, which means that single-link maxes out at around 1920x1200 and dual-link maxes out at twice that (3840x2400). It will hopefully happen at some point, but we need a new input standard that provides more bandwidth first.chizow - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Thanks for including an input lag comparison Jarred. Another suggestion to test is something I saw done by just an average user. He found a website or program that simply had an atomic clock or something that displayed current time down to the millisecond. Then he just used that to capture his comparison ISO from a digital camera. Essentially it gave him the exact difference in milliseconds between each panel without having to calculate the difference based on frame rates or discounting partial frames etc.The additional DVI inputs on the HP are nice though and hopefully your suggestions about future inputs are implemented in future 30" panels. One question though about the different inputs and resulting display resolutions. Are you able to control panel resolution using the panel itself? Or is that all controlled by the input device? I'd like to know if non-2560 input resolutions are upscaled to 2560 or if the panel displays them 1:1 with black bars. I know for PC inputs this should work with all Nvidia cards, but if you connected a PS3 via HDMI > DVI converter what display resolution would you get?
chizow - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Thought about this some more. Would you get a corrupted display since the PS3 output isn't dual-link? Would be kind of a bummer but it makes sense.......Chucko - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Amen on getting stuff reviewed sooner, this monitor has been out forever. Thanks for the review, great job!JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
It takes time to get products, especially when you're (re)launching a segment. The display began shipping in quantity around December, so it's been about three months. "Forever"? Possibly for some markets, but the fact is nothing new has come out in the 30" LCD market after this launch, and it's still good to have results in for future reviews. Hopefully I will be able to get earlier releases on future displays. :)JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Forgot to say that when using a single-link DVI connection (which is what the PS3 uses), there was display corruption - or even a blank screen - up until Windows loaded. I booted - or tried to boot - a PC with Linux (again on a single-link connection). I didn't get any signal at all. It might be possible to get it to work if you set up Linux on a different display and then after configuring X for 1280x800 switch to the LP3065, but basically HP doesn't officially support single-link DVI. I would venture to say that a PS3 wouldn't work at all with the display... or an Xbox 360 or anything else that doesn't support 2560x1600 or possibly 1280x800.Renoir - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Single-link DVI would appear to be a bit of a grey area. Why would HP go to the hassle and expense of including an HDCP cryptorom and then not allow you to easily utilise it over a single-link. I say "easily" because although you suggest it's possible you haven't managed to get it working.Does this mean that the display can "scale" 1280x800 despite not having an actual scaler because it fits so easily into 2560x1600? Stupid question maybe but just wanna make sure I understand what was meant by that.
AFAIK the ICT only affects the analogue outputs and High def dvd versions of powerdvd etc require HDCP on any digital outputs.
This issue is clear as mud. Would be great if you could find out what the deal is with HDCP content on this display!
JarredWalton - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link
I don't have any Blu-ray or HD-DVD drives, so I haven't been able to test. Given that HDCP support is now available on a lot of monitors, it's reasonable to say that older DVI ports don't support it, so ICT would affect them. The whole HDCP + Dual-link is this messed up area, as HDCP was originally created for HDMI and single-link.Of course, my technical opinion is that HDCP is just a joke and a waste of time and money anyway. Gee, how long did it take for people to figure out a way to decrypt Blu-ray and HD-DVD content? Thank goodness we all "need" HDCP cards and such now!
As for the 1280x800 support, the monitor fills the screen with content, but it's just a straight doubling of pixels. The Dell 3007 does the same thing. I guess that was easy enough to implement without any special hardware. All other scaling... well, there isn't any in the monitor. The GPU handles scaling (I recommend NVIDIA *strongly* here, as the ATI scaling is not quite as full-featured).
Anyway, I should be getting a laptop with a Blu-ray drive in the near future for review, so I'm going to hopefully be able to test dual-link plus Blu-ray output. Since no content currently uses ICT, though, it doesn't really matter. Frankly, if they ever enable ICT, a lot of people will be pissed.