Hanns.G HG-281DPB review

My 21" Sun Trinitron CRT was starting to show its age. Text near the edge of the screen was getting blurry, and I had faint blue and red lines running diagonally along the screen for some reason. So I picked up the hanns.g for $630 shipped from costco.com! It is big... but not overly huge. Immersing I would say. I wanted something a bit bigger than 24" because I wanted to play my Xbox and use my TV tuner card on it as well. Included is a DVI to HDMI adapter to hook up to a computer.

After plugging everything in and turning it on, the first thing I noticed was that something was very wrong about my backlighting. The sides of the screen were lighter than the middle, the bottom being the brightest by far. I'm hoping that I just got unlucky and got a screen that isn’t the norm. However, this is only noticeable on a black or near-black background.

Despite the backlighting, the screen is bright and clear with no dead pixels. Colors look good as well and I couldn’t really notice much color banding either. I can barely make out banding in some video game textures if I stand still and look closely. Blacks look good too; I can make out all the squares in the dark level test from http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ including the top 5, though they are somewhat tough to see.

Here is an exaggerated pic of the backlighting; the camera takes in a lot more light than is actually seen. Not sure why the light is red and yellow in the pics, it's just white to the naked eye.


Of course, it is a TN panel so viewing angles aren't going to be spectacular. The extreme left and right of the screen is slightly discolored, and only really noticeable on a light, plain background. Doesn’t bother me, but if that annoys you I would either steer clear of this monitor or look at one in person first. The response time is great. I haven't noticed any ghosting at all and this is my first LCD I've ever purchased.

Direct viewing


From below


From above


To the side


I also remember hearing someone talk about the input lag for either this hanns.g or the viewsonic version, but I couldn’t notice any lag at all (and I am picky about that). So I setup a test hooking up both the LCD and my old CRT to my geforce 7950gx2. I set the card to clone the screen to both monitors, started a timer, and busted out my camera. The results were pretty impressive in my opinion... The hanns.g had an average of 9ms of input lag, with the low being 0ms difference and the high being 16. Out of curiosity I changed the refresh rate of the CRT from 60hz to 100hz and that changed the average difference to 7ms... low of 0ms, high of 16ms. From what I've read, 16ms is about 1 frame, so 9ms and 7ms average are pretty good numbers and nothing to worry about.

The CRT looks pretty bad here because I think it is using some weird contrast settings or something


For some reason my monitor doesn’t like to turn on when it’s cold. When I press the power button for the first time (or when it comes out of suspend) the screen will just flicker white for a split second and then stay dark. I have to turn it off and then turn it on again to get the picture to come on. Another thing that annoys me is that the right side of the monitor is slightly lower than the left... the stand isn’t perfectly level. It is a nice stand though, despite a lack of height adjustment. It is sturdy and the monitor doesn’t shake at all. I think I am going to return this to Costco and get another of the same model because I like the screen, but I hope I just got a bum monitor. I'm not a fan of the backlighting at all. To be continued...



Good:
-28"
-Cheap!
-low input lag
-Bright screen
-No noticeable ghosting
-no dead pixels
-HDMI w/ HDCP (+ HDMI switch & Xbox 360 = sechs)
-stand is sturdy
-Thin, evenly spaced, shiny black bezel

Bad:
-Shiny bezel attracts dust
-Stand cannot adjust height and sags slightly on the right side
-viewing angles
-color banding is slightly noticeable in some cases
-Horrible backlighting on my screen
-Monitor doesn’t come on if it's cold, requires power button to be pressed again


Raw data shown in milliseconds

60hz
crt-lcd
1.203-187=16
2.890-875=15
3.390-375=15
4.796-781=15
5.953-953=0
6.343-328=15
7.140-140=0
8.859-843=16
9.093-093=0
10.578-562=16
11.234-234=0
12.265-250=15
13.953-953=0
14.312-296=16
15.906-906=0
16.343-328=15
17.384-384=0

Low: 0
Avg: 9
High: 16



100hz
crt-lcd
1.875-875=0
2.828-828=0
3.890-875=15
4.671-656=15
5.843-828=15
6.953-937=16
7.937-921=16
8.390-390=0
9.496-496=0
10.140-125=16
11.703-687=16
12.093-093=0
13.071-071=0
14.750-750=0
15.250-250=0

Low: 0
Avg: 7
High: 16

I think most LCDs have some irregularities in the backlight with dark imagery. Did you try the contrast ratio test (with a digital camera) on http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast-ratio.html ? You could measure it at several points on the screen. If it is within specs everywhere on the screen, there is probably no problem.

There is something definitely wrong with the screen.. its not quite as bright as in the pictures but there is quite a visible difference in contrast even to the naked eye

Wow, mine doesn't have nearly the amount of back light bleed as yours...

dz187 said:

There is something definitely wrong with the screen.. its not quite as bright as in the pictures but there is quite a visible difference in contrast even to the naked eye

Click to expand...

Yes, but almost every LCD screen has that to some extent, if you look carefully enough (i.e. in a darkened room and with a completely black screen image)[/B]. If the contrast ratio is 1:800 in the middle and 1:400 at the edges, the edges will look 2x brighter than the middle, but the contrast ratio is quite good anyway. A completely overexposed camera picture doesn't tell you anything. If you take the pictures following the instructions on this contrast ratio test, you have some objective measure to discuss about.

thx for the review... nice to finally hear something about this monitor (besides costumer reviews)... No input lag thats good to know - I remember some dude talking about this monitor having huge input lag - but the problems he described didnt seem to be typical input lag, so i guess he just didnt know what his issue was... About the backlighting issue u mention - i doubt it looks anything close to as bad as what ur pictures show it to be - am I correct in this? Ive ordered this monitor myself and expect to recieve it within 2 weeks - I'll b posting a similar review as urs when i do...

Two weeks? You order it direct from Taiwan or something?

Keep us posted if the new one looks any better, I'm thinking of picking up one of these myself but my current monitor is a Dell 2407, so if it's got any issues, I'll definately notice them.

If you pick up a HG 281 DJB, it has height adjustment.