PACKAGE: The monitor was packaged well enough to travel from HP's factory at China to my desktop at Charlotte NC USA in perfect condition. The carton contained everything needed, including the monitor, power cord, DVI-D signal cable, DVI-I to VGA signal cable, USB cable, Quick Setup guide, instructions for unlocking the monitor stand, Warranty and Technical Support booklet and a CD-ROM with documentation and software.
BASIC SETUP: The monitor ships with the stand locked at the lowest height position. Unlocking is easy; place the monitor upright on your desktop, then press the release button while lifting the display panel. The power cords and cables are all about 6 feet (188 cm) long, so I could place the monitor where desired without repositioning the tower or the UPS and without needing to purchase longer cables. I raised the monitor to its highest position and then pivoted the panel into the portrait position to make the power and cable connections more accessible. The monitor base has a cable management feature that for me is neither necessary nor user friendly.
BASE AND PANEL ADJUSTMENTS: The base is about 12" (305 mm) wide by 7-3/4" (197 mm) deep and very stable. At the bottom of the base are 7 rubber pads to protect the desktop. All adjustments (height, swivel, tilt and pivot) are made by grasping the panel and moving it as desired. The ranges of the height, swivel and tilt adjustments are more than adequate. The display panel easily pivots about 87 degrees, but I have to work for the last 3 degrees or else settle for a display that isn't level. It is easy to press accidentally one of the buttons on the bezel while pivoting the display panel. If you adjust the height too low the shipping latch will re-engage, so you have to press the release button again to raise the display panel.
CONSTRUCTION: The overall build quality is very good with no loose, ill-fitting or flimsy parts. The control buttons have a soft touch and give good tactile feedback.
SETUP SOFTWARE: The included CD-ROM contains .INF (setup information) and .ICM (Image Color Matching) files for all current versions of Windows. It has a program that detects your version of Windows and then installs the appropriate .INF and .ICM files. I'm running Windows NT4, which doesn't use these files. Instead, I opened the Display Properties in the Windows Control Panel, clicked the radio button for a Plug-and-Play (DDC) monitor, and then verified that the system correctly selected 1280x1024 resolution at 75Hz, which is the native resolution for this monitor with an analog connection (it's native resolution is 1280x1024 at 60Hz for digital connections).
PIVOT SOFTWARE: The monitor ships with Pivot Pro software (version 8.13) by Portrait Displays, Inc. Pivot installs its files in a subdirectory of the Program Files directory and gives you no ability to install the files elsewhere. The Pivot software's installer changed a registry value that broke my Matrox display driver, so Windows NT defaulted to VGA display mode. Reinstalling the display driver fixed the registry value, but also broke the Pivot software. Tech support at Portrait Displays solved the problem by providing an older version of Pivot that works with my display driver. Pivot works by intercepting calls to the display driver and rotating the image before passing it to the display driver. Foxit Reader version 1.3 (a pdf reader) has trouble displaying images when operating in portrait mode, but Acrobat Reader version 7 doesn't. Planix Visual Office Management for Windows (an old 16-bit CAD application) has trouble displaying the Simplex vector font in portrait mode, which hardly matters because I have no compelling need to do CAD work in portrait mode. Issues like these may be resolved for those who can use Pivot Pro version 8.13. I use the standard Windows NT mouse driver for a mouse connected to a PS/2 port, and Pivot supports this driver so that the mouse works normally in both landscape and portrait modes.
HP DISPLAY ASSISTANT SOFTWARE: The CD-ROM includes HP Display Assistant, which is based on Portrait Display's Display Tune. The software requires you to have Internet Explorer 6 or higher, which is an annoyance if you use an alternative browser and otherwise have no need to keep IE updated. HP Display Assistant installs its files in a subdirectory of the Program Files directory with no option to install them elsewhere. HP Display Assistant is by far the best way to calibrate the LP1965, but the documentation doesn't point out this important fact. The HP Display Assistant's Wizard feature and plugin for color calibration produced results I couldn't get using the manual buttons and on screen display.
DISPLAY LITESAVER SOFTWARE: Windows 2000 or higher is required for this software, so I didn't test it. HP was unable to provide version 3.00a of Display Litesaver, which runs under Windows NT4. So I downloaded and installed DPMS Screen Saver v1.4, a freeware program written by Daniel Marczisovszky that supports DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling) under Windows NT4 and Windows 9X. In Normal mode the monitor works normally. In Standby mode the monitor displays a blank screen and takes about 1 second to wake up. In Suspend mode the LED on the bezel turns yellow, the backlight turns off, it takes about 3 seconds to wake up, and it takes several minutes to fully warm up. Power Off mode doesn't turn off the monitor. Perhaps it would turn off the monitor with more tweaking of the BIOS, operating system, monitor power management settings and DPMS software, but the additional benefits are small, and the outcome of this additional effort is uncertain.
TECHNICAL STUFF: Like most 19" LCD monitors, the LP1965 has an active matrix display panel. But unlike most, it doesn't have a TN (Twisted Nematic) active matrix. Instead it has (to the best of my knowledge and belief) a P-MVA (Premium Multidomain Vertical Alignment) active matrix panel model M190EG01 V0 made by AUO. Compared to cheaper TN matrix monitors, the LP1965 has superior color, a higher contrast ratio and a wider viewing angle. The LP1965 also has a Response Time Compensation ("Overdrive") feature that reduces the gray-to-gray response time to 6 milliseconds. That's not fast enough for hard core gamers, but it satisfies the rest of us. The LP1965 is digital. On my computer it is connected to the VGA port of an old Matrox Millennium II (G550) video card, so the monitor receives an analog signal which it must convert to a digital image. This results at least in theory in a display that is less accurate and speedy than it would be if my graphics adapter had DVI-D output.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: This LP1965 replaced a dying ViewSonic PT813, which was a professional grade 21" CRT that was also operated at 1280x1024 resolution. The difference in screen size is negligible. The image looked slightly concave at first, which was an optical illusion because I was used to a monitor that is slightly convex. Now it looks normal. The LP1965's display of text is very crisp and legible. I can read small (6 point) fonts comfortably without glasses. The contrast between text and busy backgrounds on some Web pages is also sharper, so the text is easier to read. The monitor is very bright out of the box. The brightness is set on 90 by the factory, and the contrast at 80. I turned both the brightness and the contrast down to 30 to eliminate the harshness, so now I can work comfortably in a dimly lit room. Some images (large high resolution pictures and large CAD drawings) display slower, but the delay isn't annoying. The difference in speed might be reduced by changing to a graphics card with a DVI-D output. Lines are straight, whether on a spreadsheet or a CAD drawing. Colors look rich, and flesh tones look natural. I see minor ghosting when scrolling text and when moving my red cursor against solid colored backgrounds. The monitor's integrated power supply is too quiet to be heard above the ambient sound of my tower's cooling fans. That's with my ear almost against the monitor. The 178 degree viewing angle lets me view the monitor from any normal working angle without losing clarity. The wide viewing angle also makes text and images as clear at the edges as they are at the center of the screen. Colors are slightly deeper at the center than at the edges. The sharpness of images and text is what impresses me the most, especially considering that this monitor is processing an analog signal. The old CRT was huge, so it is nice to recover some desktop. I like the LP1965's thin bezel, the reduced power consumption and the corresponding reduction in heat.
IMAGE ADJUSTMENTS: The on screen display menus are clear because the symbols are augmented with verbal descriptions. The operation of the buttons is semi-intuitive at best. The menu button serves as both a menu button and a selection/confirmation button. The plus and minus buttons are used both for adjusting and for navigating through the menus. You eventually figure it out, even as you wonder why doesn't the monitor industry standardize the appearance and operation of the menus and buttons. The HP Display Assistant software produced better results than I could get using the buttons, but there are some functions that can be operated only with the buttons. The good news is that I could, with some effort and patience, achieve an image quality that is satisfying and then fine tune other details such as power management and turning off the bright green LED power indicator on the bezel.
TESTS: I used the TFT-Test, Nokia Test and Eizo-test to look for dead pixels and sub-pixel errors, and found none. No convergence errors were uncovered by the Nokia and Eizo tests. The monitor's geometry is excellent. Circles are round and lines are straight. The monitor also performs very well on readability tests. It is easy on the eye regardless of whether the text is black against a white background, white against a black background, located at the center of the panel or located in the corners. This monitor's 8-bit color is far superior to the 6-bit color of any TN-based display. Although color reproduction is excellent, it is not precise enough for professional graphic artists, who will be better served by monitors with IPS (In-Plane Switching) display panels.
NOTE FOR GAMERS: Eizo-test and Passmark's MonitorTest include speed tests (pixel persistence tests) for evaluating ghosting. The tests moves small squares across a black screen at various speeds. Ghosting can be seen if you look carefully at the edges of the squares moving at 100, 130 and 200 pixels per second. Ghosting is easily seen at 400 pixels per second and annoying at 800 pixels per second. The ghosting is not serious enough to detract from ordinary office applications, Internet browsing and watching movies, and this monitor is not designed for the hard core gamer market. Gamers will be happier with one of the TN-based display panels with 2ms response time.
USB HUB: Not used. The LP1965 was designed for corporate users who will tolerate awkwardly placed USB ports. HP at least had the good sense not to build speakers into this monitor.
PRICE: I paid U.S. $288.39 (including freight), and my net cost will be $258.39 after receiving a $30 rebate from HP. The price includes a 3 year warranty on parts and labor and 3 year on-site service. The LP1965 costs a faction of what I paid for my old Viewsonic PT813, uses a fraction of the energy, occupies a fraction of the desktop, and pivots.
FINAL IMPRESSIONS: The monitor is a critical part of the user interface that directly affects both the speed and accuracy of work and user comfort. I expected based on other reviews that the LP1965 would be great for office tasks, and it didn't disappoint. The question for me was whether it would support CAD tasks well, and it does. I'm happy that I didn't have to spend an extra $500 or so to get an IPS display panel. The LP1965 cooperates well with legacy systems, although your mileage will vary depending on the make and model of your video card and your troubleshooting skills. For me it was money and effort well spent. I would buy the LP1965 again without hesitation.