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This is another solid budget monitor that’s OK for everyday use when doing nothing more than looking at spreadsheets, word documents, and browsing the internet. One caveat I would like to point out upfront is: although the spec sheet claims that this monitor only has a 72% sRGB coverage (keep in mind that the sRGB color gamut is the absolute minimum color reproduction standard with Adobe RGB being the second best and NTSC being the highest), I do believe that this is an egregious typo due to the fact that the LG LM238WF2-SSA1 display panel in this monitor actually has a stated 72% NTSC coverage according to the manufacturer’s spec sheet. Furthermore, if you look at other monitors that are also sporting this exact same panel (such as the BenQ GW2480, LG 22MK430H, and Acer HA220Q) you’ll find that they all have the color gamut listed at 72% NTSC. A 72% NTSC is an industry standard for entry level monitors so that would imply that the HP VH240a should actually have closer to 100% sRGB coverage. And lastly, a 72% sRGB would mean that all of the colors would appear to be very washed out, but that is not the case with this monitor since vibrancy appears to be fairly normal in my unit (albeit not spectacular).
With that caveat out of the way, here are some of the most noticeable Pros & Cons after using this monitor daily for the past two weeks:
PROS:
- The ‘Sharpness’ Image Control setting offers 7 preset adjustments available so you can tweak the clarity to your liking.
- The overall white color temperature can be adjusted to be cooler or warmer when tweaking the color settings.
- The bezels are really thin (about 5 mm) which does its frameless design justice!
- The adjustable ergonomic stand allows you to pivot the screen 90° (to the right) so you can use the screen vertically in portrait mode. This was the #1 reason I decided to buy this monitor.
- The power button is completely distinguishable from the rest of the menu control buttons (it has a different shape and is spaced further apart from the other buttons).
CONS:
- the colors are OK in my particular unit but they don’t pop nearly as much as similarly priced monitors (the cheaper Acer SB220Q bi outperforms it in this regard). The red tones seem to have a slightly higher bias over the rest of the color range making them appear a little more vibrant while the other colors are more neutral.
- Although you can tweak the RGB color balance, this monitor’s built-in settings do not let you make further adjustments to things like saturation, hue, bias, blacks, gamma, or even YMC balance levels.
The black levels are nothing to write home about. Although my unit didn't have much light bleeding, it still struggled to keep blacks dark when anything slightly brighter was on the screen despite adjustments.
- Although its spec sheet claims to have a 250 nits max brightness, the one I got seems to be noticeably darker than my other 250 nit monitors at 100% even with the contrast level also being maxed out at 100%.
- Noticeable ghosting (motion blur) when scrolling through webpages
- Overall image quality is subpar compared similarly priced and some cheaper monitors (I would highly recommend the ViewSonic VS2412-H as a much better alternative in this regard if you really need a stand that pivots)
- The 90° pivot can only be turned to the right side, putting the bottom bezel of the monitor between your main display when this monitor is on the right side of it.
- You can adjust the monitor up and down, tilt it back by 30°, and pivot it by 90° (to the right), but you can’t swivel it left or right without turning the entire base of the stand.
- Does not have any FreeSync (AMD) or G-Sync (Nvidia) support. This causes lower resolution graphics and images to have noticeable jagged sharpening and screen tearing effects.
The HP VH240a is ok for daily use if you just need something cheap to do some web browsing, view word documents, and other non-graphics intensive tasks on. For my particular uses, since I only bought this monitor to use vertically to view documents and social media pages and do some light coding on, it is good enough to get the job done in that regard. I would not recommend this monitor for casual gaming, watching movies, or doing any kind of image editing since the experience would be subpar and the color reproduction would be inadequate for any professional use. The main advantage of buying this monitor over comparably priced monitors is for the adjustable stand (although the ViewSonic VS2412-H is a much better direct alternative, in my opinion). If you don’t need the vertical pivot then there are better monitors in this price range that deliver a more impressive image quality (another recommendation would be the Philips 246E9QDSB which delivers a far superior image and color reproduction).
| Standing screen display size | 23.8 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
| RAM | 8 GB |
