Stay Away from HP Monitors!

[Jim Fenton]

2 years ago I purchased an HP LP2465 monitor...absolutely loved it till it died 2 months ago. Profiled beautifully and had a perfectly consistent screen brightness and uniformity.

I specifically bought it because it had rave reviews and a three year warranty.

Called HP as they had always had wonderful service and they promptly sent out an "in warrant replacement".

Over the past two months I've received 4 LP2475w monitors, one LP2465 monitor and two HPLP3065 monitors, the last one being brand new.

Every single monitor has had cyan to magenta color shifts across the screen, dark areas / streaks, etc including the brand new one.

Today I was advised that all were found to be "within spec". I can only assume that HP had a "hire the color blind" quota to fill or something. Also, it was obvious that all of the "inn warranty replacements" were monitors others had returned for similar issues...HP hadn't even bothered to flash the latest firmware to a number of them. Obviously if they think it turns on it's A OK to go!This information didn't come through any of the folks working on this case but rather had to come though someone who works for HP and picked this up on another forum and was kind enough to make some calls for me.

None of the case managers respond to emails for the past week or so.

Daily emails to the CEO have gone totally no responded to.

If you're a gamer and don't care what a monitor looks like, these would probably be fine.

If you do any type of real image editing, my advise is to STAY AWAY FROM HP even if it's one of their high end $1300 monitors.

[David Gancarz]

Jim: I'm sorry to hear about your frustration with HP. I've been using an LP2475w for my photography - it is about a year old - and find the color consistent and can profile it adequately with a Spyder2. Screen to print match is quite good for the price, which was $650. Maybe I just got lucky. I also use an HP Photosmart Pro B8850 printer which was heavily discounted back in February because, as I later found out, HP was abandoning that prosumer market niche. The B8850 and B9180 are discontinued. While more than adequate for my amateur photography needs, I am very annoyed at HP's buggy printer driver. The web is full of complaints (http://ddisoftware.com/tech/articles/february-2010-the-hp-b8850/)about this and it is something HP has never owned up to, much less repair!

As for no response from their CEO - they are now 7 weeks without one (Mark Hurd having jumped ship for Oracle).

[mikedewitt]

@David - Mark Hurd didn't exactly "jump ship" for Oracle. He was dismissed by the board (another topic in and of itself) and "caught on" with Oracle afterward. I see it as a big loss for HP and, assuming it actually goes through, a huge gain for Oracle.

[David Gancarz]

Mike: I stand corrected. What a mess!

[Chantelle Voss]

Thanks a lot for the advice Jim, I'll be sure to steer clear of HP monitors. Reading you're story reminded me of a friend who had very bad luck with an HP monitor he bought about 4 years ago. Thanks for the advice!

[Jim Fenton]

I'm now going on 2 weeks where nobody with HP who's supposed to handle my case will even contact me about a refund, getting rid of the two 30' useless monitor giants sitting in my photo room, etc.

Emails go unanswered....I suppose they are giving me the "sc**w you approach after tweeting what I thought about them and sending them links to the foum posts I've made...and advising them just how frustrated and upset I am with this situation.

I'm just going to send one back (they gave me their fed ex acct # :) and sell the other one to some gamer and be done with them forever.

BTW.....here's how wonderful their $1300 panel looks...and this was a brand new one after calibration.....

78890

[Bryan Hix]

I have a w2408h and have never had any issues with it. Now on the other hand, good luck with their customer service. It almost has horrific as Adobe.

[Jim Fenton]

Well...after 8 really sub par monitors from HP, the last being a brand new LP 3065, they advised that LCD panels aren't known for their consistency and they offered me a refund of my original purchase price and I gladly accepted.

I have purchased an NEC PA271W -BK-SV and let me tell you...I now know what a great image editing monitor is :)

Perfectkly consistent across the screen and with the proprietary software and colorimeter, it calibrates like a dream using the on board monitor LUT rather than the video card.

My average de was .43 and my max was right around .8 which from my experiences is exceptional.