HP v220 review

HP's v220 monitor represents the lower end of the 22-inch market.

A decidedly cheap-to-the-touch matte black and silver plastic finish means that it won't be gracing the desks of many fashion-savvy users in the near future.

Basic design

Similarly, the v220 is pretty sparse on the connections front, sporting only a D-Sub video input that, in these times of high-definition content, is somewhat unusual.

A 3.5mm audio line-in serves the inbuilt speakers, but the sound quality from the built-in speakers means they're best avoided unless you're short of desk space and desperate for audio.

The HP isn't setting out to win the hearts of affluent graphic designers or hardcore gamers, however. Those keen to purchase a competent multimedia performer on a budget shouldn't look here for a solution, because we found colour vibrance to be somewhat lacking.

Our test videos, for instance, looked washed out and dull. Although the v220's menus were straightforward to navigate with the relevant buttons easily accessible under the front of the monitor, our attempts to make the picture any more vibrant failed.

Simple setup

Rather than aspiring for ultimate display perfection, it'd probably be a safer bet to conclude that the v220 is more at home with office-based applications.

Indeed, in this regard it's a decent performer. We found, for instance, that while other monitors usually take us a fair amount of time to tweak, the v220's picture looked good straight out of the box.

Due to its sparse feature set and average specifications, we'd recommend that only users on a strict budget opt for HP's display.