HP DC276 Business Z31x 31.1" WLED LCD Monitor - 17:9-20 ms

The construction of this monitor is of the highest quality I have ever owned and the picture quality is beyond anything I've ever experienced. This is a must have if it's in your budget and the price is very reasonable considering what it goes for retail.

This is not a favorable review, but I do not know if the problem is the product in general or just the units I received. So, I will tell my story, and you can decide how to use the information.I had an LG monitor, 34 inches, 4096x2160 resolution. It died. Loving the big screen real estate at 4096 pixels, I wanted to get a same spec replacement. LG no longer makes that model, and most other 4096 monitors have also gone away. The HP Z31 Dreamcolor is one of the few still made, and roughly the same screen size and pixels per inch, so it seemed like a good choice.I ordered mine through an Amazon affiliate vendor, PC DEPOT PLUS. It arrived quickly. Setup was easy. It tuned on. I was able to use the menus and the built in color calibrator. But, there were three problems:1 – The image was not to my liking. The item prides itself on top notch color rendition. Color per se is actually not so terrible, but I found I had to use an independent i1Profiler calibrator to get a better result. The image was too bright in some ways, but dialing down brightness washed out the colors. There is no independent contrast setting. I was thoroughly underwhelmed.2 – Uneven illumination. The center is good, almost out to the periphery, but around the entire perimeter, a 1 cm wide swath, the illumination is noticeably lower. This creates effectively a grey band around the entire border, something I found very distracting. I keep a text editor open in the left lower corner, and I use it constantly as a scratchpad and note taking area, so seeing that grey band on the sides while I was typing was unavoidable, and it drove me nuts. It is not something I have ever seen with any other flat panel display.3 – The monitor would randomly go blank. It would black out for 10-15 seconds at a time. It might go several hours and not do so, and then it would do so every 30-60 seconds. The monitor does not have built in speakers, but it has an audio out jack, allowing me to plug in speakers. When the screen blanked, the sound went out as well. It is as if the power just shut off transiently, then popped back on. (If I was typing, I could continue doing so, and when the lights came back on again, everything typed was there, so the computer per se was working fine.) This blackout behavior made the monitor essentially useless.I swapped out cables, ports, power supply, every permutation possible, but the problem continued. Other 4k monitors plugged into the same power-plugs-ports worked fine. It was the monitor that was bad.I called HP tech support. They confirmed that that was not normal. They suggested a few other trouble shooting ideas, but none worked.I started a return through Amazon. That all went smoothly. The vendor took it back and issued a refund. I called the vendor, and they confirmed they had more in stock, so on the assumption that the problem was just this one unit, I ordered another. The second one arrived.The same three problems were there again. On the second unit, the blackout problem started within 15 minutes of turning the monitor on, and it was even more frequent, plus there was a lot of image flickering and stuttering.I called HP tech support again ( a separate unit devoted just to the Dreamcolor line). They confirmed that the monitor was not acting correctly, that it was defective, that it should be returned. They also stated that the vendor is not an authorized reseller. The problem they felt likely was that the vendor was able to obtain a batch of defective items and were selling them. This explains why the retail price I paid through Amazon was so substantially lower than the manufacturer’s list price. The HP support guys were very confident that if I ordered a new A grade unit direct from HP or an authorized seller like B&H Photo, that I would get a working unit without problems.The blackout behavior was clearly a defect. The unanswered question is about the washed out image quality and the dark border. Will they be problems no matter what, even when the monitor stays lit, an inherent limitation of this model, or are all three related to a common defect such that if I get an A grade working unit all will be good and I will be happy?At this point, I am unwilling to try again. Because there are no other options for 4096 pixels, I will have to settle for 3840, for which I can get a good monitor from several manufacturers.You can see the dilemma of this review. I do not want to criticize a product that might actually be quite good when you pay premium price for the A grade unit direct from HP. I just don’t know if it is the model as a whole or just the defective units I received.The vendor PC DEPOT PLUS was easy to work with. But, it seems to me that if you want this product at this price from this vendor, you likely will be disappointed and have to return the item. Even if you are willing to abide the iffy colors, poor contrast, and dirty perimeter, I doubt anyone will be willing to accept the repetitive power-down and blank screen issue.If you remain interested then here are the pros and cons of the unit by other criteria:Cons –- Very big and heavy compared to most any other modern flat panel display.- Also, it generates a lot more heat than most other displays.- Big wide clunky bezel that takes up space, adding another unnecessary 2-3 inches to the monitor width.- The colorimeter housing at the top of the unit has a shiny undersurface, so the screen image is always reflecting off of that creating a nuisance glare.- The on screen menus are as detailed and busy as I have ever seen on a monitor – good in that you have many options, but too cumbersome to be practical. It would be nice if the monitor could be controlled via a host computer application where more detail and documentation would be available.- No built in speakers, surprising given how big and clunky the case is. (But, there is an audio out jack, and external speakers plugged into it worked just fine.)Pros –- Nice set of ports– very versatile for connectivity.- Built in color calibrator – nice in theory, but my external calibrator seemed to do a better job.- The panel turns and balances on its base very nicely, in all directions – versatile for positioning and viewing angles.- Front panel controls (menu buttons) are well placed and readily accessible.

I sold my car, house, husband, child, and cat for this monitor and it was worth every penny! Shipping was free and arrived earlier than I expected. The box was big enough to live in, so I’m now homeless with my desktop playing Minecraft in 4K resolution. The future is now!