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General discussion

HP f1905b rocks!

Dec 3, 2005 10:56AM PST

I just bought an HP f1905b (along with their HP Media Center bundle) and this is a great display. The fonts and images are very crisp and the colors are vibrant. It is by far one of the best image quality I have seen on the market so far. Great buy for those who are looking for a 19 inch display. I recommend it.

Discussion is locked

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HP f2105 rocks too!
Dec 4, 2005 8:41AM PST

I recently bought an HP Media Center PC that comes bundled with the f2105 21" LCD monitor. It is fantastic. In addition to being a PC monitor, it is also HDTV ready. I got a Comcast HD cable box and hooked it up to the monitor. FANTASTIC! I think I spend more time watching HDTV then working on the PC. The only problem I find with this monitor is that it doesn't have any vidio inputs (S-Video, Component Video) for connecting a DVD player or other components. Otherwise, I highly recommend this monitor.

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Yes, a great monitor
Dec 5, 2005 1:37AM PST

I have had the 1905 for 4 months.....wait til you play a game like Doom 3....wife loves the digital pics we take on it.

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Great Monitor - But Unavailable
Jan 4, 2006 1:15AM PST

This is a great monitor, however, if you live in the States, you should be prepared to spend about $1500.00 to get one because you must buy it as part of a computer package. I approached HP about buying one and was told that they could not help me. It seems strange for them to be so unhelpful, but nobody (and I talked to at least 6 people) could tell me where to buy one of these. It is available as a stand alone product in Canada www.futureshop.com. I was just about to give up when I found one on eBay. I love it and would by a couple more if they were available here.

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Yes, it is available
Jan 22, 2006 6:32AM PST

In my area this monitor is available at almost every single one of my electronic retail stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot, CompUSA, Microcenter). The cheapest price ive seen it is $641.99 on amazon. I dont know what you are talking about.

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(NT) $380.00 After Rebate
Jan 24, 2006 6:50PM PST

I got mine around 3 weeks ago at Circuit City for 380.00 after 50.00 rebate and they still have that price and yes the monitor great

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Maybe not!
Feb 4, 2006 2:34AM PST

Well, I bought 2x of these HP F1905b. Overall, they are not bad of a monitors.

The first thing I noticed is that they are ultra-bright, meaning they hurt my eyes. When you remov a bit of contrast and brightness the image becomes dull and lifeless. The optimal settings seem to be the factory ones.

The second thing is that one of them came with a dead pixel!

The third, I think these panels are 6bits instead of being 8bits, so the color reproduction isn't that great. You can see color interpolation being done to your images.

The fourth is that, it is not true that it has an anti-reflective surface, quite the opposite. It is VERY reflective, to the point of being distracting.


Anywas, I personaly would give it a 7/10. It is good if the only thing you do is office work.

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sure...
Feb 5, 2006 11:42AM PST

Your first 2 'points' are flawed. First off, all monitors are set to be super high brightness because they are in displays at stores that use lots of strong fluorescent lights. So to make it stand out, they are factory set the highest brightness. And turning any monitors brightness and contrast down makes the image look dull. Thats the definition of a dull image: low contrast and brightness.

Second, the 1 dead pixel thing is expected. If you have less than 3 dead pixels, its not worth ranting about. Its not covered on either dells or HPs guarentee. and, is EXPECTED. I honestly expect to have 2 dead pixels when I buy an LCD, any more, and I would try to do something about it (especially if they are in a cluster) If they dont have any dead pixels, great, but thats the norm: 2 dead pix on a 19" display.

As for your last two points... i dont know if its 6bit reporduction, but couldnt find anything to hint that. But yes, your final point, the monitor is extremely reflective, no argument. Use it in a room where the lighting isnt behind it... best you can do.

Nevertheless, this is one of the best 19" out there.

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ok...
Feb 5, 2006 12:35PM PST

Xeno, tell me something, did you lower the brightness down and the contrast? what are your settings?

I also noticed then when the screen is set to 100% black, there is some light bleeding from the background around the edges, do you have the same problem too?

what about video playback? on mine when I played my Seinfeld DVD it looked all grainy. Does your do the same thing as well?

Now, don't get me wrong, I really find this monitor way above average, but this is my first LCD, so that is I am being a bit more critical about it.

Thanks for your reply.

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yet another one
Feb 6, 2006 12:55PM PST

I opened my second box of the second HP1905B, and yet to discover again another quality issue. There is a large of what seems to be a dust particle stuck behind the LCD membrane and it is in the middle of the screen. Baiscally whenever there is white, you see a gray dot of dust that cannot be removed.

Needless to say, the two monitors I have are returning to the store.

I will get two HP F1905B though, just to give them a last chance. I like the clarity of the image, and it is a shame that I had QA issues 2/2.

I will keep you posted.

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A flood of questions.
Feb 10, 2006 11:49PM PST

k, here goes, i'll try to answer all of those!:

Brightness/Contrast I didnt change at all. I have my computer in an extremely bright room. And I like brightscreens Silly

As for the screen being slightly bright when brightness is set down to 0, that is because of the LCDs backlight. All LCDs have total black issues, and are noticable when gaming in dark maps... Thats where Plasmas have the upper hand. But that isnt an option really for a PC monitor

Video playback shouldnt be grainy. I havent noticed that... Could it be the quality of the video source? If not then your screen has issues. One more thing though you might want to check is that you are running at native resolution. Thats 1280*1024 for the F1905. Due to the nature of LCDs, they have seperate pixels that dont scale when you change the resolution, simply the image or video feed is scaled to that resolution. So lets say you are running 1600*1200 on it, you will have blurry pixels and such, due to that resolution being scaled down to 1280*1024.

Also if you found a peice of dust between the membrane and the backlight, that means your screen was a bad build, for sure return it.

I hope you dont run into anything thats unexpected with your new monitor.