HP 2310e – Good value for money

HP 2310e looks very stylish and it has a great build quality. This makes it look more expensive than the $250 price tag. The performance is decent, all the useful connection options are there (include DisplayPort) and I liked the robust onscreen display (OSD). The performance is not as good as the Samsung PX2370, my current favorite, but I won’t complaining about it because it the HP monitor costs $50 less.
HP 2310e is very sexy and this might be the sexiest computer monitor I have ever seen in my labs to date. Both the bezel and the screen are glossy piano black the corners are rounded and smooth. The depth of the internal panel is 0.4 inch and it is the thinnest I have ever seen. Overall the depth is 1.65 inches and this includes the connection options as well. The left and right bezel are 0.9 inch wide and the distance from the desktop to the bezel’s bottom is 2.6 inches. Full width of the screen is 21.9 inches which is the same as the Samsung PX2370.
HP 2310e has a rectangular footstand which has a gray, smooth and an almost glittery finish. The stand is 5.6 inches deep and 10.6 inches wide. I knocked the panel from the sides but it didn’t wobble at all. However the unit toppled easily when I knocked it from the sides. At the top, there is a hinge which allows the monitor to tilt ten degrees back. Above this hinge, you will find three connection options which are aligned horizontally. They are the Display Port, HDMI and DVI. These connections are outward facing and are very easy to access. There is a white glowing HP logo located 3 inches above the connections and it is really cool in dark.

At the center of the bottom bezel, there is an HP logo. On the far right side of this bezel, you have the power indicator light along with power button which glows light green. Between the power indictor and the logo, there are seven vertical slashes. They relate to the OSD array and touching them will automatically activate this array. The buttons include enter button, source button, menu button, and preset shortcut menu button. There is also a minus and plus button for navigating down and up for the menus and for adjusting the attributes. You can also rub your finger on these slashes for navigating through them. The OSD menus are mostly vertical and you will need some time to get used to it, just like I did. There are some buttons having additional functions apart from the primary use. For instance, the menu button can be used as a back button once you are in the menu. The LED buttons make sure you can calibrate the display very well even in the dark.
Presets on the HP 2310e include Movie, Custom, Photo, Text, and Gaming. Each of this preset will automatically adjust the color temperature and contrast of the unit for making the picture better for the task at hand. There are OSD options like Brightness, Sharpness, and Contrast. There are three color presets for the color options – SGRB, 6,500K and 9,500K. Through the Custom preset, you can adjust the blue, green and red values separately. Finally, you get an option to turn off the LEDs on the display for saving power.
I tested the HP 2310e on its DVI port and connected the monitor to my Windows Vista PC. The performance was a tad behind Samsung PX2370. There was not much compression at the dark or light ends of the color scales but the color certainly wasn’t as accurate as the PX2370. The red looked a bit orange in some of my tests and there was a slight improvement when I switched to the custom preset and lowered the green to 195. However, the colors didn’t pop as well as seen on the Samsung panel.
HP 2310e’s brightness is a bit low and because of this, the performance was better than the PX2370 in my dark screen tests. There was only a slight clouding bottom middle and top edges of the screen. In the Motion Bitmaps tests, I saw some more streaking as compared to the Samsung panel but this didn’t reflect in the movie and game tests.

For movie tests, I used the Blu-ray version of the ‘Avatar’. The nighttime scenes in the movie was displayed without missing any dark content like Na’vi’s hair. The display showed had mostly accurate color with good vibrancy. The picture was a bit greenish as compared to the PX2370. When the green attribute was lowered to 195 the color got less vibrant but more accurate. Also, the sharpness was not as good as the PX2370.
For game tests, I played World of Warcraft (WoW) like I always do because it is great for testing the vibrancy and color quality in games. I played this game at the monitor’s game preset and the image was pretty vibrant with a good level of color pop. But still, the PX2370 was better.
Optimal viewing angle for any monitor is usually from the front because at this angle, you are viewing the gamma and color as the manufacturer intends to show it. Most computer panels out there are not made to be seen from other angle. HP 2310e has a TN panel and when seen from the bottom or sides, I saw that the screen darkened about six inches off from the center.
HP 2310e comes with a three year warranty and it covers the backlight too. This warranty support is as good as other vendors in the market. The company also offers in-home service and shipping labels along with 24-7 toll free support. Just remember that the free service will end after a year and you will have to pay HP after that. On the manufacturer’s Website, you will find e-mail and Web chat support. HP says they reply queries in an hour.