hp-pavilion-23fi

After 3 years of using 20″ monitor for my main desktop computer, I feel that I want a bigger display that can still fit in my already-cramped desk. I did some research and came up with some candidates. My first strong candidate was Asus VE247H for its good price. My second candidate was Dell S2340L for a lot of nice review I read about S Series monitor of Dell. It was then I realized that Dell S2340 might have a major problem for me: super glossy screen brings vibrant display but also attracts reflective. And some people did write in their reviews that this Dell monitor is very very glossy.

I almost gave up my searching since I could not find an ideal monitor after 2 nights of reading reviews. Then I came upon this interesting monitor from Hewlett-Packard. The design is strikingly different from most monitors I’ve seen. A bit similar to $1,000++ Apple Thunderbolt Display, but not quite the same. And it’s available in 23 inch size, just the right size I was looking for. The price of HP Pavilion 23fi in Australia was a bit steep in most stores. I wasn’t sure if I can justify spending $399 for a 23″ monitor. But then I found a nice bargain from one of the big retailers in Australia. A good price almost half of the price asked by other places. Then I decided to settle with this one.

Setting up HP Pavilion 23fi was very easy. I didn’t even need to look at the manual book.

The monitor is light, around 3.5 kg. I really love the design and the actual product looks even better than the pictures I’ve seen from some sites. It’s not really borderless as it still has around 1cm border on top, left and right side. But the glass surface goes to 2 mm from the edge, making it look like the entire surface is a screen when turned off.

When the monitor is switched off, I can still see clear reflection of myself on the glass screen. But when I had the monitor turned on, I couldn’t notice any reflection, even when the screen is a bit dark.

My previous monitor has 1400 x 900 resolution. This HP Pavilion has 1920 x 1080 IPS display. That’s a significant more pixels. And in a desktop environment, that means more room to work. Almost every program I frequently use looks better in the new resolution, saving me from a lot of scrolling and changing windows. My desktop computer is a Mac mini, so the included CD with Windows drivers is useless for me. However, I just plugged the HDMI cable to this new monitor and everything works perfectly. Well, not really “perfect” as the initial picture shows my Mac desktop dropped in all 4 sides but I quickly figured out that turning off the “overscan” setting immediately fix the issue.

There are 6 physical buttons on the bottom-right side of this monitor. One power button and 5 buttons for us to navigate the settings menu. I did adjusting the brightness and color a little bit.

HP Pavilion 23fi comes with a pair of tiny speakers matching the overall design of the monitor. The speakers are powered by USB cable, but using normal 3.5mm jack as the input. So it has two cables. I tested it for a while and decided not to use it. The sound quality is not bad for its super compact size, but I quickly decide that my Altec Lansing speakers give me much better sound quality.

Watching movie (especially 1080p) truly shows the superb quality of this monitor. Simply put, I’m quite happy with the display quality. I consider this monitor as a good purchase. Overall satisfaction is high for such a nice bargain.