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  • gfisher - Sunday, July 26, 2009 - link

    My HP machine has an NVIDIA 8500GT graphics card. I'm interested in buying a HP LP 3065 thirty inch monitor. Will the card drive the monitor at full speed?
  • DaveJDSP - Sunday, December 30, 2007 - link

    Jarred,
    I cannot possibly thank you enough for testing and posting photos of viewing angles. When doing critical photo/graphics work, it is essential that the top and bottom of the screen appear consistent from a fixed viewing point in the center of the screen. The larger the monitor, the more critical this becomes, as from a fixed point, the eyes scan over an arc of 10-20 degrees or greater.
    Most monitors that I have seen at local stores have viewing angles that are totally unsatisfactory for critical work, even from a fixed eye point. And there are very few local stores that carry a sufficient selection of better and larger monitors, suitable for more critical work, so that the buyer can evaluate those monitors in person. Therefore, your complete and comprehensive reviews become even more critical.
    Thank you again for your excellent reviews and for including such critical viewing angle information.
    Dave
  • chakarov - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    Contrast by specification shoud be 1000:1 but you measured it 585:1.
    It is interesting what to believe.
  • JarredWalton - Saturday, March 24, 2007 - link

    As I explained in the Gateway FPD2485W review, contrast ratios, brightness levels, response times, and various other "spec sheet items" are often seriously exaggerated. While technically a higher contrast ratio is better, a 500:1 or higher real value is generally more than sufficient. There's also a possibility that at some specific setting the HP would come closer to 1000:1 - doubtful, given the results on the three tested settings (uncalibrated, calibrated, and print calibrated), but still possible.

    The basic issue is with backlight bleed - i.e. blacks that aren't actually black. In theory, any proper display would have an infinite contrast ratio, as black would be 0 and anything divided by zero is infinity/undefined. Some displays (the Acer, for example) achieve higher contrast ratios by having blacker blacks; others like the Gateway get them by having insanely bright whites. Anyway, more is not always better, as the color accuracy of the middle tones isn't represented by contrast ratio.
  • michal1980 - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    what about input lag vs a crt?

    crts should be the baseline since they seem to show close to 0 image lag.

    lcd vs lcd is nice to, but if all lcds are off by a large number of frames from a crt, that will still suck
  • Souka - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    I feel a CRT vs LCD war thread starting..... ;)
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    LCDs are still slightly slower than CRTs, but we have abandoned the CRTs, or at least I have. I no longer have any for testing, and the last CRTs I purchased are now over two years old, the Samsung 997DF and the NEC FE991-SB. There hasn't been a new really high-end CRT released in upwards of five years, I don't think. Five or six year old 22" CRTs (with a 20" viewable diagonal) are better than the later 21/22" models in terms of features and performance. Then there's the whole geometry and signal adjustment that needs to be done on analog devices. Personally, I wouldn't even consider a CRT for my computer use anymore.

    Given that we have the 2407WFP for testing and it has been used already, we would prefer to continue with that trend. A baseline is just that: a reference point. Baseline doesn't have to be "best" - and obviously quite a few LCDs are better than the 2407WFP when it comes to input lag and response times. So far, however, we haven't seen more than a 1 frame (*maybe* two with the Acer AL2216W) difference in output. So the largest difference we've seen is currently less than 0.02 seconds.
  • Souka - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    Why not get a 30" Apple Cinema Display?

  • AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    Let's see, $2000 for the Apple versus $1274 for the Dell. If you like being charged up the @$$, then be my guest.

    Now, the Apple is competing with the LP3065 and 3007WFP-HC; those panels are superior and $300 cheaper retail. Not to mention I just bought the HC from Dell for $1430+tax. Why would you pay $570 more for a worse product?
  • dcalfine - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    Yea
    Apple made the first 30" dual-link LCD for consumers and is often considered better than the Dell. It would be wise to consider it a contender.
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    I tried to get one and Apple declined. I think Anand has their original version, but that has been outdated by newer releases. If Apple updates their 30" display again, I will see if they're interested in sending one for review.
  • FXi - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    The brightness is too low. And the benefit (the wider gamut) is harder to gain the advantage of visually than losing the brightness. In fact it is likely the older 3007FP is a better screen in practical use than the 3007FPHC.

    I'm not talking TV levels here like 500-550 cd/m2, but rather that 400-450 wasn't bad, and as the backlights degrade slowly over time, effectively give a nice lifespan if you aren't using them in bright environments.

    The cost of adding a few extra DVI-D inputs is so cheap it's a travesty they weren't included in every 30" model. PIP might be genuinely useful on a screen this size, so there's another area where the scaling and picture circuitry would be useful. In fact, skip the USB bus entirely and at least give me two, or three DVI-D ports instead.

    Probably I missed how you approached it but I saw no direct mention of screen uniformity, which has been a bother in earlier 30" models.

    I would add the Samsung 305T and XL30 (when it arrives) to show the full gamut of these size screens. A LOT of folks are commenting that the increased color gamut isn't all that noticeable or useful due partially to a lack of good standards on the pc side to utilize that gamut. 120hz is going to happen faster to smaller displays (sorry) because a DVI-D might have enough bandwidth to drive lower res at double the refresh. I'm not perfectly familiary with the overhead needs, but the bandwidth will be there first, not first in larger displays and moving down. This again points to the use of a 32" 1080P 120hz screen utilizing a card that had HDMI 1.3 output as your fastest way of getting to the 120hz goodness if that is what you seek. Otherwise you'll have to wait a few years.

    Core things that need to happen to 30" in general:

    400-450 brightness

    OSD's

    Scaling chips and alternate/multiple inputs

    LED backlights (as practical - and not for the gamut increased but the better contrast ratio, screen uniformity and lifespan)

    Faster and more consistent (better profiled acceleration) TrTf and GtG speeds

    Color accuracy and grey accuracy put ahead of gamut changes. Meaning gamut is useful to a small degree, but the end user is going to appreciate careful color filters and lcd pixel (gray) accuracy more than just increased gamut.

    Loved reading these article, because you don't just cover the 30's or the newest 2407 but also the older models, so people can see if the "switch up" is worth the $$.

    Thanks!
  • AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    Thanks so much for the review. But I gotta give criticism on the timing, since this is perhaps the best computer display ever, and you waited over 4 months after it came out to review it. Yet when it comes to video cards or CPUs, you review them immediately, sometimes before they're even released! A display is equally important to those components.
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    If you look at our display reviews, you'll notice that we only recently started doing these again. The first recent display review was in late February, and since then we've been trying to grow the display reviews section aggressively. Hopefully we will get future displays around launch time, now that we're recommitted to the section. Not surprisingly, HP wasn't really pushing to get us a 30" LCD for a launch-date review when we hadn't covered any LCDs recently. :)
  • chakarov - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    In your review you say that there isn't much difference between HP's LP3065 and old Dell 3007 WFP. While this would be very informative for some people a few weeks ago now this information is of no value any more because now Dell is selling only their new model 3007 WFP-HC which is comparative in price to LP3065.
    Now people should decide between support, design, one or three DVI connectors and price.
  • JarredWalton - Saturday, March 24, 2007 - link

    I thought that was the point I made (second paragraph, page 2) - that the new 3007WFP-HC is basically the same panel as the HP model. It's also why I recommend the HP over the Dell, as the multiple inputs seems like a lot more value added than a flash reader, and the price is now the same. (If you can find the older 3007WFP for less money, that's definitely a good choice as well!)
  • AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, March 24, 2007 - link

    chakarov's point is that the late-ness of this review is especially critical because there's apparently not much difference between the LP3065 ($1700) and the original 3007WFP ($1274); but a week ago Dell stopped selling that and now only offers a $1700 30" model. It would have been nice to know there's hardly any difference between 11/1/06 and 3/20/07.

    But again, thanks for doing the review and it's great =)

    Oh btw, the HC can be had for $1430+tax if you buy through Dell's small business outlet.
  • Sceptor - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    Buy this and use three 19" or 20" LCD's and get surround gaming and multi monitor support for almost the same price...now DVI.

    http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2...">Multi LCD Goodness!!

    Just my 2 cents...
  • AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    Here's 3 more reasons: watching movies, Photoshopping in full screen, and having 1600 vertical pixels to view webpages or write code with.
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    There are several reasons to get a single large LCD instead of multiple smaller LCDs. First, panel quality is going to be a factor, although you should be able to find very good quality 19" LCDs. Second, some people just hate having a black "gap" in their display area. Third, widescreen gaming has become more common, but there are still plenty of games that don't properly support widescreen resolutions. Consider DICE's Battlefield series -- all of them -- where they crop the resolution on widescreen outputs. If you were to run Battlefield 2 at 3840x1024 (assuming it would even work at all), you would probably end up with 3840x2880 and the game would crop the top and bottom 928 pixels!

    Matrox has a list of http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2...">supported games, and not surprisingly none of the Battlefield games show up. In fact, there are a whole lot of games that aren't listed. Personal preference obviously plays a part, but I would rather have one large LCD than three smaller LCDs. If you disagree and are interested in surround gaming, by all means consider the Matrox TripleHead2Go.
  • 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. Thanks
  • KeithP - 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.

    quote:

    That also explains why the single-link mode only functions at one fourth of the native resolution, because all scaling is handled by your graphics card and not by the LCD circuitry.
    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.

    quote:

    HDCP support on dual-link DVI is currently not possible. Hopefully that never becomes an issue, and as long as Hollywood doesn't begin enabling the ICT (Image Constraint Token), it shouldn't be a problem
    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.
  • Renoir - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    quote:

    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
    That sounds like a very reasonable assumption
    quote:

    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.
    Still looking around for confirmation but I thought the ICT only affected analogue connections. If it does indeed affect digital connections then why are current software players not allowing full res over non HDCP compliant dvi ports given that no current discs have ICT enabled? We should be able to answer most of these questions when you get that laptop. I very much look forward to the review.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    Bad news... the laptop is single-link. :(

    I'll still be able to test HDCP on a non-HDCP display, though. I've got a 2405FPW so we'll see what happens. Could be the software companies enforcing something that isn't strictly required?
  • chakarov - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    Hope this could help you:
    http://www.behardware.com/articles/656-1/hdcp-prot...">http://www.behardware.com/articles/656-...ion-is-n...
  • Renoir - Sunday, March 25, 2007 - link

    That link seems to confirm what I said which is that the ICT only applies to analogue connections and HDCP is always required for full res over a digital connection. At first Jarred I thought you might be right in that the software companies may be implementing something that isn't strictly required but the article linked shows that standalone units operate in the same way suggesting that that's the way it's supposed to work.
  • chakarov - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    In the specs:
    http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/3820...">http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm...382087-6...
    And even in the detail specs:
    http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/1262...">http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/1262...
    There is no mentioning of HDCP support.
    There is nothing officially written.
    May be there is a reason?
  • JarredWalton - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    Interesting... I'm sure I saw HDCP there when I was working on the review, and I can find numerous web links where it says HDCP is supported (at single-link resolutions). I wonder if they updated the page recently to remove HDCP?
  • Renoir - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link

    Well the review states HDCP support and Loyd over at extremetech said that he was told by HP that the display "offers HDCP at full dual-link bandwidth". This information is what I'm basing my questions on although the fact that HDCP isn't mentioned in your links merely confirms that the situation is clear as mud. Clearly someone is either misinformed or spec sheets have been poorly written
  • mi1stormilst - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    I have delt with a number of companies when trying to help friends and family with store bought PC's and there is no question that HP is second to none with tech support. If you own a HP system use the online chat support...it is excellent.
  • leousb - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    To buy a monitor this huge just for gaming is IMHO a complete obscenity.
  • OrSin - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    People been saying the asme thing about BMW, 65" tvs and pretty (but dumb) women.

    In the words of bart "We do what we like"
  • shortylickens - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link

    I bought the HP 2335 a while back after Anandtech recommended it. HP makes some darn nice monitors if you are willing to spend money for the high-end stuff. Cant say I think much of their mid-range displays.
  • Ro808 - Sunday, August 21, 2016 - link

    I still use my 3 L2335's (from 2003!!!) everyday and concerning screen quality and - except for the occasional wish for a larger screen size - have no desire to replace these brilliant monitors (which uses Samsung IPS LCD displays, identical to the first generation Apple Cinema Displays).
    These were expensive monitors back then, but the quality pays off, even 13 years later. How many people would still use their Pentium based pc from the same period?
  • potato masher - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    I just bought one of these in 2019 for chump change. Works great, picture is clear. No OSD, good don't need it. I'll adjust my settings in my OS thank you very much. Keep it simply stupid.

    So far the only downside I can see is power consumption versus monitors with more modern light sources, but that is not really a huge deal. Its like a built in heater for my room. :)
  • potato masher - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    I've actually bought two of these old dinosaur 30's recently.. both working great! Will buy another if I happen to run across a bargain on a third, regardless of brand.

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