HP’s new 27-inch 2709m is considerably larger than the rest of these displays; it’s also more expensive ($400).
The 2709m offers the same native resolution as the rest of the field, so it spreads the same number of pixels over a much larger area. As a result, DisplayMate’s high-resolution sample photos looked just a bit softer than they did on the smaller monitors. The HP also did a poor job of rendering very small text.
Those criticisms don’t matter when you’re watching a Blu-ray movie or gaming—this big screen shines here, and you needn’t worry about your videocard supporting an insanely high resolution as you would with a 30-inch display. Unfortunately, the 2709m suffers from the same specular reflection problems as Gateway’s mirror-like FHX2300.
HP tells us the 2709m is outfitted with a wider color-range backlight and color filter, which enables it to produce 92 percent of the NTSC color gamut (compared to the rest of the field’s 72 percent) but we didn’t perceive any significant difference. We didn’t encounter any backlight leakage, but DisplayMate’s Screen Uniformity and Color Purity tests revealed a dark band across the top of the display with light grays and colors at mid-range intensity.
We also found a discolored pixel on the 2709m (HP calls this a “bright sub-pixel defect” and doesn’t cover it under warranty unless there are two or more).
Large display; great performance when watching Blu-ray or gaming; two HDMI inputs.
Small text rendered very poorly; distracting reflection.
| Viewable Area | 27 inches |
| Native Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Color Gamut | 92 percent of NTSC |
| Color Depth | 6-bit with FRC |
| Gray-to-Gray Response Time | 3ms |
| Inputs | DVI, HDMI (2), VGA |
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