HP LP3065: A new contender for the 30" throne
by Jarred Walton on March 22, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Introduction
In Q3 2006, HP was able to finally surpass Dell for worldwide computer sales - albeit by a small margin. Competition within the North American market is even closer, with Dell continuing to hold a slight lead. Regardless of who is in the lead, the fact is that Dell and HP are the two largest computer resellers in the world. Not surprisingly, both companies also have an extensive line of displays on offer.
The LCD market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the computing industry, with new products offering improved performance launching on a regular basis. Not only has the quality of LCDs improved dramatically over the past several years, but prices continue to plummet as competition heats up. We took a look at Dell's 3007WFP 30" LCD recently, and now we've got HP's competing LP3065 offering in our labs for testing.
30" LCDs currently sit at the top of the lust-worthy computer displays totem pole, offering some of the highest resolutions and display sizes on the market. They also come with a price to match, effectively putting them out of reach of most consumers. Enthusiasts and computing professionals on the other hand are often willing to splurge in order to get top-quality products. It is possible to get more total screen real estate by running several smaller monitors, but some people prefer a single monolithic display over two or more smaller displays. Of course, if the quality of the larger display is also better than the smaller displays, that's another reason to consider spending the extra money.
As with all of the other 30" LCDs, a high-quality graphics card is basically required in order to properly utilize the LP3065. This is due to the native 2560x1600 resolution, which requires a dual-link DVI connection to function. While it is possible to find dual-link DVI ports on certain midrange graphics cards, the ports are far more common on high-end and professional GPUs. Naturally, if you want to run certain applications at the native resolution, you will need all of the graphics processing power you can find.
As we said in our review of the Dell 3007WFP, 30" LCDs certainly aren't for everyone, and the HP LP3065 isn't likely to change that fact. The real question is: is the LP3065 better than competing 30" LCDs? HP has added a few interesting features to their offering that could very well move it to the head of the pack. Let's take a closer look.
In Q3 2006, HP was able to finally surpass Dell for worldwide computer sales - albeit by a small margin. Competition within the North American market is even closer, with Dell continuing to hold a slight lead. Regardless of who is in the lead, the fact is that Dell and HP are the two largest computer resellers in the world. Not surprisingly, both companies also have an extensive line of displays on offer.
The LCD market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the computing industry, with new products offering improved performance launching on a regular basis. Not only has the quality of LCDs improved dramatically over the past several years, but prices continue to plummet as competition heats up. We took a look at Dell's 3007WFP 30" LCD recently, and now we've got HP's competing LP3065 offering in our labs for testing.
30" LCDs currently sit at the top of the lust-worthy computer displays totem pole, offering some of the highest resolutions and display sizes on the market. They also come with a price to match, effectively putting them out of reach of most consumers. Enthusiasts and computing professionals on the other hand are often willing to splurge in order to get top-quality products. It is possible to get more total screen real estate by running several smaller monitors, but some people prefer a single monolithic display over two or more smaller displays. Of course, if the quality of the larger display is also better than the smaller displays, that's another reason to consider spending the extra money.
As with all of the other 30" LCDs, a high-quality graphics card is basically required in order to properly utilize the LP3065. This is due to the native 2560x1600 resolution, which requires a dual-link DVI connection to function. While it is possible to find dual-link DVI ports on certain midrange graphics cards, the ports are far more common on high-end and professional GPUs. Naturally, if you want to run certain applications at the native resolution, you will need all of the graphics processing power you can find.
As we said in our review of the Dell 3007WFP, 30" LCDs certainly aren't for everyone, and the HP LP3065 isn't likely to change that fact. The real question is: is the LP3065 better than competing 30" LCDs? HP has added a few interesting features to their offering that could very well move it to the head of the pack. Let's take a closer look.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
44 Comments
View All Comments
lawrenpx - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
Has anyone been able to get the Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital to work with the HP LP3065 in either Linux Redhat or PC Windows? When I connect my monitors all I get is a blinking green light on the monitor which I believe means no signal. Perhaps I need to get a Linux driver but I can't find any. ThanksKeithP - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
While I understand some people can't wait for technology, it seems we are pretty close to seeing 120Hz refresh rates and LED backlighting. Given that, I think spending a bunch of money on a large LCD display may not be the best move.Of course, if you can't wait, the HP and Dell seem pretty nice.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
120Hz refresh rates will require something other than dual-link DVI in order to function. Right now, it's a matter of bandwidth. DVI runs at 165 MHz, which means that single-link maxes out at around 1920x1200 and dual-link maxes out at twice that (3840x2400). It will hopefully happen at some point, but we need a new input standard that provides more bandwidth first.chizow - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Thanks for including an input lag comparison Jarred. Another suggestion to test is something I saw done by just an average user. He found a website or program that simply had an atomic clock or something that displayed current time down to the millisecond. Then he just used that to capture his comparison ISO from a digital camera. Essentially it gave him the exact difference in milliseconds between each panel without having to calculate the difference based on frame rates or discounting partial frames etc.The additional DVI inputs on the HP are nice though and hopefully your suggestions about future inputs are implemented in future 30" panels. One question though about the different inputs and resulting display resolutions. Are you able to control panel resolution using the panel itself? Or is that all controlled by the input device? I'd like to know if non-2560 input resolutions are upscaled to 2560 or if the panel displays them 1:1 with black bars. I know for PC inputs this should work with all Nvidia cards, but if you connected a PS3 via HDMI > DVI converter what display resolution would you get?
chizow - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Thought about this some more. Would you get a corrupted display since the PS3 output isn't dual-link? Would be kind of a bummer but it makes sense.......Chucko - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Amen on getting stuff reviewed sooner, this monitor has been out forever. Thanks for the review, great job!JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
It takes time to get products, especially when you're (re)launching a segment. The display began shipping in quantity around December, so it's been about three months. "Forever"? Possibly for some markets, but the fact is nothing new has come out in the 30" LCD market after this launch, and it's still good to have results in for future reviews. Hopefully I will be able to get earlier releases on future displays. :)JarredWalton - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Forgot to say that when using a single-link DVI connection (which is what the PS3 uses), there was display corruption - or even a blank screen - up until Windows loaded. I booted - or tried to boot - a PC with Linux (again on a single-link connection). I didn't get any signal at all. It might be possible to get it to work if you set up Linux on a different display and then after configuring X for 1280x800 switch to the LP3065, but basically HP doesn't officially support single-link DVI. I would venture to say that a PS3 wouldn't work at all with the display... or an Xbox 360 or anything else that doesn't support 2560x1600 or possibly 1280x800.Renoir - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Single-link DVI would appear to be a bit of a grey area. Why would HP go to the hassle and expense of including an HDCP cryptorom and then not allow you to easily utilise it over a single-link. I say "easily" because although you suggest it's possible you haven't managed to get it working.Does this mean that the display can "scale" 1280x800 despite not having an actual scaler because it fits so easily into 2560x1600? Stupid question maybe but just wanna make sure I understand what was meant by that.
AFAIK the ICT only affects the analogue outputs and High def dvd versions of powerdvd etc require HDCP on any digital outputs.
This issue is clear as mud. Would be great if you could find out what the deal is with HDCP content on this display!
JarredWalton - Friday, March 23, 2007 - link
I don't have any Blu-ray or HD-DVD drives, so I haven't been able to test. Given that HDCP support is now available on a lot of monitors, it's reasonable to say that older DVI ports don't support it, so ICT would affect them. The whole HDCP + Dual-link is this messed up area, as HDCP was originally created for HDMI and single-link.Of course, my technical opinion is that HDCP is just a joke and a waste of time and money anyway. Gee, how long did it take for people to figure out a way to decrypt Blu-ray and HD-DVD content? Thank goodness we all "need" HDCP cards and such now!
As for the 1280x800 support, the monitor fills the screen with content, but it's just a straight doubling of pixels. The Dell 3007 does the same thing. I guess that was easy enough to implement without any special hardware. All other scaling... well, there isn't any in the monitor. The GPU handles scaling (I recommend NVIDIA *strongly* here, as the ATI scaling is not quite as full-featured).
Anyway, I should be getting a laptop with a Blu-ray drive in the near future for review, so I'm going to hopefully be able to test dual-link plus Blu-ray output. Since no content currently uses ICT, though, it doesn't really matter. Frankly, if they ever enable ICT, a lot of people will be pissed.