HP releases its first LCD with DreamWorks

At its Connecting the World event in Berlin, Germany, HP unveiled the first DreamColor monitor from its partnership with DreamWorks. The DreamColor LP2480xz is a 24-inch LCD that will set you or your design shop back $3,500. For the money, you get 30-bit color for over 1 billion color possibilities (standard LCDs are 24-bit for 16.7 million color options). HP says you will see deeper reds, blues, and greens when standing next to a run-of-the-mill consumer LCD, while blacks will appear four times darker and whites are adjustable.

The DreamColor LP2480xz features a 1920x1200 native resolution, LED backlighting, and seven image presets (including one programmable), plus a night vision mode for working in a darkroom. Video connections include HDMI, DisplayPort, component, S-video, and composite. A four-port USB hub is also on board.

Before you get any grand ideas about putting this display on your desk, be sure you get yourself a workstation-class graphics card to take advantage of its 30-bit color. And it doesn't look like the best choice of overspending on a gaming display; its 6ms gray-to-gray pixel response time is slower than the 2ms response time you can find on consumer LCDs. But if your job depends on creating content with consistently accurate colors, the DreamColor might allow you to replace those honkin' CRTs in the office.