HP 24mh 23.8-Inch Display

Although it sells these days for just above $100 (the list price is $139.99), the HP 24mh 23.8-Inch Display is surprisingly feature-rich. Not only does this budget monitor, best for household or home-office use, come with an IPS screen with narrow bezels and superb sRGB color coverage, the 24mh adds several extras uncommon among budget monitors: built-in speakers, the ability to pivot from landscape to portrait mode, and a DisplayPort connector. This is enough for it to take its place as our latest Editors' Choice winner as a general-purpose, flat-panel budget monitor, alongside the curved-screen, similar-size Samsung CF396 we tested just before it.

A Stand With a Twist

The 24mh is a handsome monitor, sporting a silver-gray bottom bezel and nearly invisible side and top bezels, maximizing its screen area and making it a good choice for a multi-monitor setup. The back of the monitor and the stand are matte black; the vertical shaft of the stand emerges from the compact base to connect with the cabinet. This connection permits a surprising range of motion for a monitor of its price.

Like most discount monitors, the 24mh provides tilt control—a user can tilt the top of the monitor up to 5 degrees toward them or up to 25 degrees away. But you can also raise the screen's height up to 4 inches, and pivot it from landscape to portrait mode and back.

The 24mh packs a 23.8-inch in-plane switching (IPS) screen at full HD (FHD) resolution, aka 1,920 by 1,080 pixels or 1080p. At that resolution and screen size, pixel density comes to 93 pixels per inch (ppi), which is fine for general-purpose use, though a little low for tasks like pixel-precise photo editing.

Its rated viewing angles are up to 178 degrees in both vertical and horizontal directions. IPS panels have a reputation for having very wide viewing angles, meaning that you can look at the screen nearly from the side without notable posterization, color degradation, or color shift.

The panel has a 75Hz refresh rate, but it lacks support for adaptive sync technology to prevent screen tearing and stuttering. Both the Philips 272E1CA Curved Frameless Monitor and the ViewSonic VX2485-mhu have 75Hz panels, but they add support for AMD's FreeSync adaptive sync tech. Although it's okay for casual gaming, the 24mh is not a viable choice for serious gamers.

Built into the back of the 24mh on either side are two bays, each holding a 2-watt speaker. Sound quality and volume from them were both mediocre, in my testing, but they're still a fine addition, particularly when you are connected to a video source—such as a Blu-ray player or a game console—that lacks a speaker of its own.

As for the mixture of ports, most discount monitors include two video inputs: HDMI and VGA. The latter, which supports analog video, was once ubiquitous on PCs but is seldom seen on new systems. A monitor’s VGA port is handy for connecting to older computers that may lack HDMI; some business laptops also provide the port as a legacy connector. The 24mh ups the ante by adding a DisplayPort connector, a welcome addition for a budget panel. Finally, there is an audio-in jack.

All the ports face downward in back, which would make them less accessible than outward-facing rear ports like the ones on the Samsung CF396 and the ViewSonic VX2485-mhu, but for one trick. By going to the side of the HP 24mh and rotating the monitor upward into portrait position, what is normally the bottom of the monitor—and all the ports—end up facing you. Then you can add or remove cables with ease, and return the panel to landscape mode.

On the monitor's bottom right edge, to the left of the power button, are four small buttons for controlling the onscreen display (OSD). HP’s OSD menu system is reasonably intuitive, and the buttons are not as tiny as on some monitors. It isn't as convenient as the mini joystick controller found on many gaming monitors, as well as a handful of budget displays such as the Samsung CF396, but it's a better button scheme than many.

HP covers the 24mh with a rather short (one-year) warranty. This is common in the budget-monitor arena, but we still wish it were longer. Some other makers do better: Philips, for example, backs its 272E1CA, the budget 27-inch panel mentioned above, with a four-year plan.

Testing the 24mh: Great Contrast, and an sRGB Rainbow

I did our luminance, color, and contrast testing using a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays' CalMAN 5. HP rates the 24mh's luminance (brightness per unit area) at 250 nits (candelas per meter squared), and it came in a bit below that, at 221 nits. Its contrast ratio is rated at 1,000:1, which is standard for an IPS panel, and the 24mh did considerably better in our testing, turning in a ratio of 1,446:1. (See how we test monitors.)

Below is a color-accuracy or chromaticity chart of the sRGB color space—the standard color space used on the web and in many other applications—which was generated when testing the 24mh in its default (neutral-color) mode...

It covered a very impressive 99.5% of sRGB. The area within the triangle represents all the colors that can be made by mixing the primary colors (red, green, and blue). The circles, representing my measurements, are mostly slightly outside of the triangle and are fairly evenly spaced.

I also did my usual ad-hoc testing, viewing a set of stock photos and videos we use to evaluate consumer panels. Colors in photos appeared bright and true. In our movie clips, the HP 24mh handled contrast well in both bright and dark scenes.

A Potent Mix in a Budget Monitor

While the HP 24mh exhibits some of the shortfalls typical of budget monitors, it also incorporates a few features lacking in most low-priced panels. These include a DisplayPort connector, a pair of built-in speakers, and a stand that supports pivot control as well as height adjustment. Its minimal bezels and an IPS screen with stellar sRGB color coverage and great contrast contribute to its winning combination of features and performance.

For that, it gains our Editors’ Choice award as a budget monitor for general-purpose use. Note that the also-award-winning Samsung CF396 has a different set of budget superpowers—a curved screen and a small joystick controller—while pushing more brightness (309 nits) than the HP 24mh and showing nearly as wide color coverage.

Both stand apart from the rest of the discount-monitor pack, but in different ways, and to choose between them is a matter of which mix of features you prefer. The HP 24mh's strengths lie in its ergonomic tweakability, built-in sound system, and wider range of connectivity, while its panel covers nearly the full sRGB color space and showed surprisingly high contrast in our testing. If the Samsung's curve doesn't sell that panel to you, the HP 24mh is a very solid alternative at its screen size.