Hewlett-Packard L2245w

Offering one of the better options in the 22in monitor category, HP's L2245w is an attractive proposition for users looking to make the jump to a bigger screen. It offers brilliant image quality and a fairly funky stand that allows more adjustment than you'll find on a regular display.

This unit is a widescreen display with a standard resolution of 1680x1050. Its defining characteristic is the stand, which not only allows the screen to be angled upwards, downwards and sideways but it can also be re-orientated into a portrait perspective. This is ideal for some users, for example programmers who may wish to view several pages of code in one long stream. While for many it may be useless, the additional flexibility is always a nice bonus.

This monitor produces a very fine picture; it is definitely one of the best we've seen in this size range. In our DisplayMate Video Edition tests it performed virtually flawlessly. Contrast charts were rendered exceptionally well with perfect differentiation between blocks even at the low end. There was a little detail loss at the bright end of the spectrum, but we were able to almost eliminate it with a little calibration.

Colours were rendered very nicely, with a rich yet subtle look that impressed us a lot. There was minimal stepping in the colour gradation charts and no noticeable noise in any of the block sections or moire patterns.

In our video and gaming tests the L2245w wasn't quite as much of a star, but it still did an admirable job. The great contrast handling was really evident here, with lots of detail evident in dark areas and it really made atmospheric films that little bit more enjoyable. Except for our test footage, there was no noticeable graininess while colours were richly rendered.

The refresh rate is 5ms, which is quick but not as fast as some of the best units available these days. Still it does the job and we noticed nothing in the way of ghosting or blurring during our tests. Viewing angles were alright but there was some colour shift when you start moving away from the central point.

All the standard calibration options are present here including colour temperature, colour levels, brightness and contrast. There are both DVI and VGA ports for PC connection.

Aesthetically, the L2245w follows the standard HP design consistent across most of its tech products. It is plain with a charcoal bezel and a string of buttons running along the bass and while it won't win any design awards it looks good enough.