HP L1908wm LCD monitor: great in tight business spaces

Although for many folks a 19in screen is considered a little on the small side there's still a place for them in the market as they can be more attractive to those on a tighter budget without the need for high definition video output. The HP L1908wm LCD monitor slides into that market niche with a screen that delivers excellent colour brightness and depth.

The L1908wm supports connections by VGA and DVI-D and there's a 3.5mm socket for connecting the audio output from your PC to use the in-built speakers. That makes the L1908wm a great display for desks where space is at a premium. To be sure, the speakers won't replace a sophisticated surround system, but for an office PC they're good enough. There are no other video inputs but both the DVI and VGA connectors can be used at the same time. That means you can use the screen with two systems and then toggle between them using the display's configuration tool.

HP only supplies a VGA cable with the display. Given that even bargain basement LCDs ship with a DVI cable we find this to be a disappointment. Effectively, it means that users won't get the optimal experience out of the box without buying an extra cable.

Adjusting the L1908wm for optimal viewing required a stand of some sort for taller users as there's no height adjustment. However, the L1908wm does have a wide tilt range. The screen has a matte finish that minimised reflections. Personally, we prefer a matte screen but such preferences really come down to personal choice. The L1908wm can only operate in landscape mode as there's no way to rotate it to a portrait orientation.

We put the L1908wm through it paces with PassMark's Monitor Test using the supplied VGA cable. Ellipses and diagonals were displayed with almost no jaggedness and different colours were well defined. For example, in the Master Pattern, where there were light blue and green blocks adjacent to each other, the line between them was very sharp. Some entry level monitors are less clear, with the interface between these colours often blurry. White blocks were clear with no noticeable gray or blue tinges.

Solid colour tests revealed no stuck or dead pixels. HP's dead pixel policy deems that a panel is defective if there are either three "bright" pixels where the colour is stuck on, five dark pixels (where the pixel is completely off) or a combined total of five stuck or dark pixels.

Real world testing of the L1908wm revealed a very competent small office or home display. The 1,440 x 900 resolution was adequate for showing word documents and spreadsheets with fonts displayed nicely. Photos looked excellent with colours displayed vibrantly. Viewing standard definition DVDs was very good. There was good contrast between light and dark shades with action sequences clearly displaying fast moving objects without noticeable blurriness.

There's a lot to like about this display. In a small office setting it ticks most of the boxes we'd expect other than height adjustment. Sure, the resolution is a little on the low side but we wouldn't expect people buying a 19in display to be looking for a screen that will fulfil all their multimedia needs. On the other hand, it does work well with DVD quality video and displays documents nicely.