HannsG HL249 review

The HannsG HL249DPB is a rather basic monitor. It has a 24in Full HD TN panel, and its slim, glossy bezel and stand will sit neatly on most desks. It’s not height-adjustable, though, and its small range of inputs only extends to VGA, DVI and a 3.5mm audio line in. It’s also very cheap compared to other monitors of this size, but the screen’s low price comes with a few flaws.

The first is its poor colour accuracy. Our colour calibrator showed it was only displaying 84.9% of the sRGB colour gamut straight out of the box, which is below average; the gamut chart generated by our calibration program showed a distinct lack of coverage in the green and red gamut areas. We managed to increase this to a much more impressive 92.4% after calibration, increasing both its green and red coverage, but this left the screen feeling almost too warm as it gave everything a slightly pinkish appearance. It’s at least easy to tweak the monitor’s image quality using the buttons on the bottom of the bezel to access the screen’s easy-to-use menu, however.

The monitor’s contrast levels were much better, though, and we recorded a high ratio of 783:1 at its default settings. We could see the results in our subjective image tests. Pinkish tinge aside, there was plenty of detail in both the light and dark areas of our high contrast test photos, and the panel’s matt finish meant we didn’t have to worry about reflections either.

Our solid colour tests produced more mixed results. We saw some very deep blacks thanks to the screen’s low black level of 0.30cd/m², but reds, blues and greens looked rather dim, particularly toward the outer regions of the screen. Whites had a grey quality, too, even at maximum brightness, and the screen’s narrow viewing angles made things look even worse. We didn’t have to move very far at all before we noticed half of the screen going darker, and its vertical viewing angles were similarly poor.

The monitor has two 1W speakers embedded into the back of the chassis, but as you might expect they aren’t particularly good for anything other than Windows sounds. The integrated speakers sound very tinny, and you’ll definitely want to invest in a pair of dedicated speakers to play music.

The HannsG HL249DPB is a good fit if you’re looking for a cheap office monitor to browse the web and write word documents on, but it’s not suited to more demanding tasks that require a high level of colour accuracy, even if you do have a calibrator handy. You’d be much better off spending a bit more on the AOC e2462Vwh.