Hewlett Packard PAVILION F2304 23 inch LCD Monitor

I purchased this monitor to use with my Power Mac G5, Dual Core, 2.3 GHz (late 2005) computer. The only upgrade is the addition of 1 GB of RAM, for a total of 1.5 GB. The video card is a stock NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256 MB of RAM.

I have been researching 20" and 23" monitors for the past two months. I primarily visited web sites and read magazine reviews of monitors in this size. I also visited local electronic stores to view the various makes and models available.

As an aside, while I did research 20" monitors, I quickly discounted them as they could not, if at all, natively display high definition (1920 x 1200) resolution. I wanted any monitor I purchased to be as compatible as possible with the established high definition standard. (Yes, I understand there still is confusion as to what constitutes 'high definition.' However, I have not found any definition to be higher than 1920 x 1200.)

While researching, I narrowed my primary choice to the Apple Cinema Display 23" LCD Monitor and my second choice to the HP L2335 23" LCD Monitor. Both monitors have been consistently rated as excellent. The HP is several hundred dollars less than the Apple offering and both offer features the other doesn't. Either one seems to be an excellent choice for a 23" monitor.

This past weekend (18 & 19 FEB 06), I was conducting further research on the internet for reviews of these two monitors, when a review I was reading suggested the HP f2304 as a viable alternative to the HP L2335. The major difference distinguishing the f2304 from the L2335 are the integrated stereo speakers on the f2304. (The L2335 does not have any speakers whatsoever.)

When I went to HP's web site (www.hp.com), I did a search for f2304 and one of the top returns was a link to a refurbished f2304 which HP was asking $719.00! This is half of what Apple is asking for their 23" Cinema Display and several hundred dollars less than HP is asking for their L2335. Understandably, a refurbished unit is not a 'new' unit, but I believe the greatly reduced price for the refurbished unit to be a great incentive for buying it.

I did a bit more research and determined the f2304 and the L2335 seem to share the same LCD panel. I am not 100% positive of this, but this seems to be the case.

Since HP was offering a 90 day manufacturer's warranty and a 21 day, no questions asked return policy on the monitor, I decided to order one.

The monitor arrived last night and within 45 minutes, I had disconnected the old monitor and connected the f2304. I booted the computer, running Mac OS 10.4.5, and the operating system immediately detected the display as an f2304 and selected 1920 x 1200 as the default display resolution. The color profile was also selected as f2304.

My initial reaction was "Wow!" This much screen real estate is great! My second observation was how vivid all the colors are. I have a digital photograph, which I took, set as my desktop image. Displayed on the previous monitor, the photograph appeared washed out, although I did not notice it before. (Yes, the previous monitor could have not been properly calibrated, but since I do not process still photographs or video, I was satisfied with the display.)

I then immediately inserted the DVD, "The Lord of The Rings Two Towers," and, using Apple's DVD Player application, viewed the movie in full screen mode. Darks were dark without obliterating details in the shadows. Skin tones were are natural and colors were all bright and vivid without being overly saturated. In short, the pictured looked wonderful.

I then opened both my web browser, Apple's "Safari," and my e-mail client, Apple's "Mail" program and paid particular attention to the legibility of text and reproduction of graphics and photographs. All text is extremely legible in both programs and both still images and video are sharp and clear, with colors appearing 'normal' or 'natural.'

Finally, being an avid fan of Blizzard Entertainment's "World Of Warcraft," I launched the program. Once I was in the game, i adjusted the game settings to 1920 x 1200 and reveled in the expansive view! Playing "World Of Warcraft" on this monitor at the highest resolution is shear joy! Not only is the view much better, but the colors are all bright and vivid, without being overly so.

One more note regarding gaming: HP lists the screen refresh rate as 16 ms. I have no way of testing this, but I believe it as I see no ghosting of the image whatsoever.

Obviously, this is not a technical review of the f2304. I am a 'power user' not a graphics professional, digital photographer or video technician. There are plenty of reviews on the internet covering the technical aspects of this product. With all that said, I have not noticed any dead pixels or pixels which only show red, green or blue. I have not noticed any color banding or irregular colors on any part of the screen. Finally, I have not noticed any warping or distortion of the image anywhere on the screen. While I am sure the monitor is not absolutely perfect with respect to displaying images, it must be at least 99.99% close.

One final note: my wife prefers to view her screen image, in particular text, larger than do I. She has set her profile to display the screen at 1360 x 768. Neither she nor I have noticed any text or image distortion when viewing at this resolution. The pictures looks to be every bit as good at this resolution as at 1920 x 1200.

Eventually, I will add a satellite TV decoder to the component video input so that I may watch TV via the monitor. I plan on using the Picture In Picture (PIP) capability of the monitor so that I may watch a small window of TV while working (or playing!) on the computer.

I have not connected an audio feed to the monitor so I can not comment on the quality of the sound reproduction of the built-in speakers.