Ach! Display problem with HP f2105 monitor...

[ozone]

I picked up a 21" HP f2105 monitor to hook up to my 17" PB. It's not so much that the 17" isn't big enough, it's that if I'm sitting for long periods of time, it's more comfortable to have a traditional separate monitor + keyboard arrangement. Plus, it's sort of an embarrassing work budget situation where I have to spend some money or else lose it...

But I can't get the display calibrated. The text looks purple fringed and visibly pixelated. The background looks too washed out. Colours are nice, but text is irritating to look at. It looks almost as if it's in 'movie mode', except there's no way to adjust this. I've tried calibrating colour, changing brightness, contrast, etc. to no avail.

I phone HP and yes, their support picked up within 3 minutes on a Saturday (impresssive). There's no Mac OSX specific drivers. She said I should try the VGA connector instead and see if it makes a difference. The DVI connection I'm using might be less forgiving (?).

Any suggestions? I rather keep the monitor but if the text stays this awful, I'm taking it back.

Thanks.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Is this while the display is running at native resolution, or at some other resolution?

Colour fringed text sounds like a problem with the display.
However, "washed out" or "too brigt" or "inaccurate" colours are somewhat to be expected from all but the best LCD panels. They are not as colour accurate, in general, as a good CRT.

 

[ozone]

Thanks for the quick reply. No, the monitor is running at its recommended resolution (1680 X 1050 at 60 Hz) - the same as my 17" PB.

I realize LCDs are not quite as good as CRTs, but I did have pretty good luck with my previous Sony 19" LCD.

Do you think it's worth exchanging this one for a different unit to solve the colour fringed text, or should I just return this and get a completely different brand?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Thanks for the quick reply. No, the monitor is running at its recommended resolution (1680 X 1050 at 60 Hz) - the same as my 17" PB.

I realize LCDs are not quite as good as CRTs, but I did have pretty good luck with my previous Sony 19" LCD.

Do you think it's worth exchanging this one for a different unit to solve the colour fringed text, or should I just return this and get a completely different brand?

No way to know -- certainly send this one back as unacceptable.
The HP has a good reputation, AFAIK, but I have never used one in person. I have had success with Sharp, Sony, LaCie and Dell LCDs, some good, some bad with Samsung. I have seen some awful low end LCDs.

 

[ozone]

Interestingly, I hooked up the VGA, rather than the DVI, and by golly, it IS a bit bettery. Colours are nice. Text is better with less fringing. Not as sharp as on the PB or my wife's 20" iMac though.

 

[mrichmon]

Do you think it's worth exchanging this one for a different unit to solve the colour fringed text, or should I just return this and get a completely different brand?

Colour fringing should not happen on any good quality LCD if it is running at the native resolution. This suggests either a problem with the monitor cable in use (there is a real difference between a cheap cable and a quality cable).

Colour accuracy with CRTs is about maintaining a linear response to changing colours and changing saturation. The brightness issues you are describing can possibly be corrected in software by setting up a color profile, but the fringing issue seems like a hardware fault in the monitor.

 

[ozone]

How good are Dell and Apple Cinema displays?

Well, I went to BestBuy to see what a Gateway 21" monitor looked like and in the Windows set up, the text is also a bit "not as crisp" as I thought it might look. They also had another HP f2105 set up and even in Windows, it looked pretty much the same as the one I currently have.

I suppose I should clarify that maybe what I'm seeing is not colour fringing, but maybe just the limitation of large size LCD screens. Black text has a bit of greyish outline/fuzziness - just being too fussy I suppose.

I hooked up my PB to my older 19" Sony LCD and the text looks pretty much the same, leading me to believe that again, text will only look so good on a large LCDs. It might be different on my wife's iMac given that there is no cable needed to pump in a video signal.

The BestBuy rep did say that the Apple Cinema displays they used to carry appeared to produce extraordinary images, even if their specs were lower than other brands.

Anybody comment on how "crisp" text appears on large (20"+) LCDs on either Apple or Dell (the other favourite) displays?

 

[jimsowden]

Make sure you're going straight DVI to DVI on the max res (1680x1050). If you can't calibrate it out, then there is a problem with the panel. Apple had this on early cinema displays.

 

[ozone]

Make sure you're going straight DVI to DVI on the max res (1680x1050). If you can't calibrate it out, then there is a problem with the panel. Apple had this on early cinema displays.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm going DVI-to-DVI and running it at the screen's recommended resolution of 1680 X 1050 (matches my 17" PB). HP doesn't have a Mac calibration utility. Is there something I can do via the PB?

If I still have a problem, should I return the panel still? I note that video and photos seem fine; just text is a bit 'non-crisp'.

 

[mrichmon]

Can you elaborate on this? I'm going DVI-to-DVI and running it at the screen's recommended resolution of 1680 X 1050 (matches my 17" PB). HP doesn't have a Mac calibration utility. Is there something I can do via the PB?

There are a few things you can do in OS X that may correct some of your problems.

Text fuzziness can be varied in
System Preferences -> Appearance. Alter the "Font Smoothing Style" and see what setting works best for your display. (Note that changes to this setting do not take affect in running applications so you need to change the setting, then quit System Preferences and reopen System Preferences to see the difference.)

Colour correction, including screen brightness, black density and screen gama can be altered in System Preferences -> Displays. Click on the "Color" tab and then on "Calibrate". Note: this will not work if you are using Fast User Switching and have more than one user currently logged in.