HP LP3065

Full review

The biggest selling point of the 30-inch HP LP3065 is its super-high 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution. Gamers with sufficiently powerful video cards to run at that resolution won't be disappointed. With its great colour reproduction and wide viewing angles, movies also look great on the large display. Professional graphic artists will first have to make peace with the monitor's severe lack of adjustment options, though. Everyone else will have to make peace with its £1,200 price. 

Lack of adjustment options
The LP3065 has a dark-grey chassis with a matte finish and slightly rounded corners. The bezel measures 23mm wide on the left and right sides, and 25mm tall on the top and bottom. The panel is 46mm deep, but the back of the display, which houses the backlight, connection options and ventilation system, extends another 32mm, bringing the monitor's full depth to about 78mm. The panel width measures 27.3 inches, which is about average for a monitor of this screen size. The smooth matte surface of the screen itself is slightly frosted.

There's a groove in the back of the panel for carrying the monitor, but it feels too shallow and we couldn't fit our hands comfortably inside. Given the LP3065's hefty, 13.6kg weight, you probably won't be moving it around much anyway. The rectangular footstand measures about 445mm wide by 229mm deep. As such, wobbling was minimal when we knocked the monitor from the sides, even when the monitor's height was at its maximum. With the screen height at its lowest setting, the distance from the bottom of the bezel to the desktop is 48mm, while, at the highest setting, it's 150mm.

The panel swivels 70 degrees left and right, and tilts back about 25 degrees. Also, the panel can be unscrewed from the stand and then mounted (VESA-style) on the wall. The monitor doesn't include a pivoting feature for portrait mode, however.

HP includes three DVI ports as the only video-connection options. There's no HDMI connection, which is a mainstay on most monitors, but its exclusion on this 30-inch model isn't too surprising. Of the five 30-inch monitors we've seen, only one has a HDMI port. Still, this monitor could easily carry out most functions that a normal high-definition TV can. Hopefully, HP will consider adding a HDMI port to its next 30-inch model. Accessing the connections is fairly easy, as they rest mostly to the right of the stand.

There's no on-screen display (OSD) included with the LP3065. The only video-adjustment option provided by HP is the brightness control. As such, even with fantastic viewing angles and colour reproduction (more on this later), we can't recommend this monitor to professional graphic artists, who usually need precise control over colour, contrast and brightness.

The LP3065's 16:10 aspect ratio has a 2,560x1,600-pixel native resolution. The 16:9-monitor trend currently sweeping the market has led to many smaller monitors adopting higher resolutions than they were capable of attaining at 16:10. A 22-incher with a 16:9 aspect ratio now has a potential high-definition, native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, as opposed to 1,680x1,050. We understand that those buying the HP monitor would want to stick with their 16:10, 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution, however.

Stellar performance
We tested the LP3065 with its DVI connection. The display posted a composite score of 97 in CNET Labs' DisplayMate-based performance tests. The LP3065 scored excellently in nearly all of our colour and uniformity tests. In particular, the LP3065 showed no signs of compression at the dark and light ends of the colour-scale tests. In our black-screen test, we noticed only minimal backlight bleeding along the middle of the top edge of the screen.

The LP3065 achieved a brightness score of 302cd/m² -- lower than HP's claimed 370 max. The monitor's brightness was lower than we expected, yet you'd never know with the brightness adjusted to its maximum setting. You'll definitely want to dial the brightness down if you plan to do much work with Excel, Word or any white-screen program.

We looked at Kill Bill: Vol 1 on DVD and a number of 1080p movie files from Microsoft's WMV HD Content Showcase. Movies on the LP3065 looked great, thanks to the display's deep blacks, but we've seen better contrast on some other monitors.

Unreal Tournament 3 looked good running at 2,560x1,600 pixels, and showed no signs of ghosting or input lag. Vibrant and deep colour, along with high brightness, gave the game an eye-poppingly pleasant look. There's really nothing like gaming at 2,560x1,600 pixels. We also looked at some high-resolution photos and found the colours accurate and vibrant, proving that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

The optimal viewing angle for a monitor is usually directly in front, about a quarter of the screen's distance down from the top. At this angle, you're viewing the colours and gamma correction as they were intended. Most monitors are made to be viewed only at that angle. Depending on the panel type, picture quality at non-optimal angles varies. The LP3065 was made with an S-IPS panel, which usually shows only minimal colour shifts with angle changes. Indeed, we noticed that the LP3065's screen hardly shifted colours at all when viewed from the sides, top or bottom.

Conclusion
If you can look past the £1,200 price tag and don't require many video-adjustment options, the HP LP3065 is one of the best-performing monitors that money can buy.

Additional editing by Charles Kloet