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Hannspree 25" Widescreen Flat-Panel TFT-LCD HD Monitor - Black Review

Great For Gaming, Great Price

"I'm definitely liking this monitor so far. Keep in mind this is my first foray into the LCD world recently though, so I don't have much to judge it against. I was previously using a 19" Samsung Syncmaster 997DF CRT monitor.



***Image Quality***: Games / HD videos look great on this. The colors are very bright and beautiful. I did change the default color setting of "Nature" over to "User" though... I preferred the latter setting a lot more.



I tested it out with quite a few PC games last night (Left 4 Dead, Far Cry 2, Warhammer Online, Tabula Rasa, Unreal Tournament 3, Fallout 3), all at about max settings on my 8800GTX. The resolution was fully supported in each of the games (1920x1080), and there was no noticeable ghosting or input lag at all. Unreal Tournament 3 in particular was exceedingly immersive at the size and resolution this monitor is!



I also hooked it up to my PS3 via HDMI. After re-adjusting the console to 1080p output, I noticed that the colors seemed to be a bit off at first in the menu. I had a blue background, but I noticed some purple swirling in to the mix. Take note, if you experience this, it is an easy fix: In the PS3 display settings area, make sure to adjust the RGB settings and change it from Limited to Full. I'm not sure why it had defaulted to Limited, but once I set it to Full, everything was back to normal (and quite beautiful).



Game wise, I tried it out with Wip3out HD (supports 1080p) and Ratchet and Clank (720p). Both games looked fantastic. See the section at the bottom though for some notes on the resolution while hooked up to the PS3.



***Backlight / Brightness***: It's a bit bright out of the box, so I did turn down the brightness a bit right away. Backlight bleed-through is a little noticeable around the edges on black screens, but I don't even notice it all when gaming. Plus, from the pictures I've seen of other TN panel LCDs, it seems to be pretty much on par with what you're going to get from anything at that price. It doesn't really bother me at all, even in games with lots of dark areas like Left 4 Dead.



***Stand***: The stand is definitely a bit flimsy. Try to make sure you get it on a solid, stable surface or you are going to see some wobble. It does tilt up and down a bit. The mechanism is a little stiff though, but that's probably to keep it from falling back down from its own weight.



***Speakers***: Nothing fantastic, but it sounds like that is normal for these things. I'm not planning on even using them anyways. I had it hooked up to the computer via the included male-male stereo mini cable. Only thing a little odd I did notice is that when I used the headphone port, the bass was noticeably fuzzy / distorted. I did not have a chance to test if this happened with the audio being carried over HDMI with the PS3 though.



***Viewing Angle***: Again, this may just be because I haven't used LCDs much over CRTs, but the best results definitely come from facing it straight on. There is definitely some noticeable color/brightness drop out as you shift from side to side, and especially so vertically. It won't be a problem for me at all though, as it is just going to be on a desk in front of me. Also, anything that I tend to notice while staring at the screen and "looking for problems", I pretty much never even notice once I start getting into something like a game.



***Resolution Notes***: I've seen some people speak of having problems with the resolution of this monitor when hooked up to a PC. Surprisingly, I had no issues at all. I am using the included HDMI-DVI-D cable to connect to my PC (via a GeForce 8800GTX). The proper resolution (1920x1080) was instantly detected and set, and the desktop fully stretches to all corners of the screen, with no overscan either. Previously, I had messed around with hooking my PC up to my Plasma TV, and I would always notice that the taskbar would be partly cut off. I had no issues with that on this monitor.



I'm not sure what to say for those who are having problems with the display not scaling right. I guess I'd try adjusting some of the desktop scaling settings in your video card control panel. Again, for reference, my video card is an 8800GTX with driver version 178.24.



As for having the PS3 hooked up, nothing was seeming to get cut off either, but I did notice a couple of weird things:

1) There is a setting that can be adjusted in the monitor OSD to go from "Full" to "Fit". It defaults to full. On the PC, there is no difference. With the PS3, I did notice that on "Fit", the left and right edge of the image pulled in maybe like 2 or 3 pixels or so. Not really sure what that's all about (this isn't my area of expertise), but I figured I'd include that note in there for those of you who might be able to get some meaning from that.



2) When hooked up to the PS3, I noticed another video option in the OSD that was not present when hooked up to my PC. My only guess is that it has to do with the PS3 being hooked up with a HDMI-HDMI cable and the PC using HDMI-DVI.



The new option was a HDMI video mode setting, with the choices being "PC" and "Video". It defaulted to "Video". When I would adjust it from Video to PC, I would notice that it seemed to render a little more on the sides and top/bottom. For example, on the PS3 XMB, a few of the icons that were trailing offscreen would be partially more visible. I'm not really sure what that setting would be used for, as it seems the default of Video must cut some stuff off.



Here's what the included user manual on the CD says about this setting:

"Transferring audio-video image by HDMI port would cause edges of the image being cut on the screen; selectPC Modeto display in full screen. Enter the option and select VIDEO Mode(VIDEO) or PC Mode(PC)."



***Overall - 8.5/10***: I really like the monitor the more and more I'm using it. Again, I don't have anything similar to compare this to, so take everything I'm saying from a newbie's perspective. The 24.6" of screen space and high resolution has sold me on this as a gamer, though."