HannsG HL231DPB review

Like many LED monitors, the Full HD HannsG HL231DPB is incredibly thin and light, and its small stand has an elegantly thin neck. The LED backlight helps to make the picture brighter than a comparable CCFL-backlit monitor, while drawing less power – in this case, a measly 25W – so you can save on energy bills.

A thin bezel adds to its good looks, but we were less impressed by the pointless clear plastic strip underneath the screen and the cheap, glossy black plastic. There are drawbacks to the thin design, too: you’ll have to cope with an external power supply, plus there’s no VESA mount for a wall bracket, and as the ports all face backwards you can’t set it flush against a wall.

HannsG’s menu system is fairly simple, but clear, using a standard system of Menu, Select and two navigational buttons. Image controls are fairly basic; as well as brightness and contrast, there’s a dynamic contrast option that we normally keep off, to avoid sudden transitions from dark to light. We did notice some transitions, but overall it actually worked reasonably well.

Colours controls include three presets (Warm, Natural and Cool) plus a user-defined preset that lets you adjust individual RGB values. There’s also a control to select video mode and aspect ratio, so if you connect a Blu-ray player or other non-PC source (HDCP is supported, although you may need an HDMI-to-DVI adaptor) you can make sure to get the best fit for the screen.

Image quality was reasonably good, although we noticed a slight yellow cast. This is no bad thing, as it adds warmth to movies and to skin tones. Contrast was acceptable, but blacks weren’t as deep as other monitors here, and we noticed some patchiness in the backlight. Overall, colour accuracy took a back seat to warmth and vibrancy, so while it won’t appeal to serious photo or graphics enthusiasts, movie buffs and gamers will find it acceptable.

If you don’t want to fiddle with image quality controls, there are some presets that we found reasonably subtle: for example, the Movie preset adds a bit more warmth, while the Eco mode turns brightness right down. These aren’t as brash as some we’ve seen, but they disable the standard controls so you can’t adjust them to your environment.

While the HL231DPB has a decent enough image and a svelte design, it’s hard to ignore the fact that its larger cousin, the HF257H, has a 25in screen and costs a similar amount, but if that’s too big for you, then AOC’s slightly smaller e2440Va has comparable image quality and costs less too.