HP describes the w2448hc as an elegant, world class screen, with a webcam included, rapid response times, high contrast quality, high image resolution quality and great flexibility. Design and spec are reminiscent of the w2408h which, you’ll remember, didn’t really do anything special in our tests.

No doubt about it, the ergonomics on this screen are great, with almost nothing lacking. The base is vertically adjustable, mounted on a platter and with a well-designed cable guide, has 3 video sockets (VGA, DVI, HMDI) as well as a 2-port USB hub on the side and 1 port at the back, a webcam, microphone, a luminosity sensor and a pair of 2 x 3 w speakers.

Luminosity sensor	Built-in webcam and microphone
2-port USB hub	Its base

In effect, default colour settings are far from perfect and the only solution is to use the OSD to rectify them by going into photo mode and lowering luminosity to 14. This means you halve to 3.5 the average difference between colours requested by the graphics card and those shown on the monitor. Still not fantastic, I know, although this does give it a 3-star colour fidelity rating rather than 2. For those who want better, check the calibration profiles available here. You also need to reduce luminosity to 25 before using it.


When it comes to reactivity, there are also plenty of problems. Unfortunately, as with the w2408h, the overdrive has been poorly managed, leaving some blackghosting effects, that is that instead of removing any ghosting, activating the overdrive makes images darker and therefore show up more. Hard to bracket this model as a 2 ms then, when at best you get 5 ms type results.