Review: HP Z25n

Introduction and design

HP brings flair to its display lineup with the introduction of slim side bezels on the Z25n ($529, £350, AU$729). Slim bezels enhance the visual appeal of the color accurate screen, making a multi-monitor setup appear seamless.

HP's near-bezel-less display comes in several different sizes, ranging from 22 inches to 27 inches. Our review unit has a 25-inch diagonal viewable area.

The styling of the display is similar to Acer's S277HK, but Acer opts for a more modern aesthetic in a form over function design ethos. As an office-centric monitor, the Z25n, which features an articulating stand and adjustable base, competes more directly against the Dell UltraSharp 25 ($569, £377, AU$787), ViewSonic VP2772 ($899, £596, AU$1,243), and the BenQ SW2700PT ($599, £397, AU$828).

Design

Like many other office monitors, the HP Z25n is only available in a matte black finish. This makes the Z25n unassuming on a desk, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as black helps frame your creative work and allows you to focus on the content and color.

Out of the box, you'll notice that the display area dominates the monitor, and that the top, left and right sides are virtually bezel-less, save for a thin strip of plastic that surrounds the sides of the display to keep everything together. The only noticeable bezel is found on the bottom edge.

Even though there is virtually no border around the top, left and right sides of the screen, there is still a ⅜-inch (0.95cm) black band surrounding the display area. Only 1/16-inch (0.16cm) of the black band is visible at the bottom of the screen because the bottom edge is covered by a ⅝-inch (1.59cm), matte black plastic strip.

This strip of plastic at the bottom of the display is home to the silver HP logo and touch-sensitive controls.

The Z25n ships in two pieces. In addition to the display, the second piece is the stand, which ships attached to the base. The nice part about the Z25n is that connecting the screen to the stand requires no screws or physical effort thanks to a latch mounting mechanism. The connection is made when the metal prongs on the base are inserted into grooves in the plastic on the rear of the display. I was initially wary that the plastic components won't be able to support the display's weight when mounted. However, I found my worries unjustified, as the whole unit feels solid when attached.

With the stand in place, the monitor weighs 15.9 pounds (7.23kg) and measures 22.5 x 8.6 x 20.5 inches (57.05 x 21.82 x 52.15cm). Both the ViewSonic VP2772 and the BenQ SW2700PT come with larger 27-inch screens, so direct size and weight comparisons cannot be made.

With a 25-inch panel, visually, the design of the Z25n is very similar to Dell's 25-inch WQHD resolution UltraSharp 25 UP2516D monitor. Both displays offer ergonomic tilt and swivel adjustments, and both come with a similar open-stand design for easy cable management. The Dell monitor also shares similarly slim side bezels, an easy latch mounting system and a bevy of bottom-facing connectivity ports on the rear. Dell's monitor is 0.15 inches (0.38cm) shorter, and 0.29 inches (0.74cm) wider with a base that's 0.71 inches (1.8cm) less deep than the Z25n.

All four displays come with the same 2,560x1,440 pixel resolution. The Z25n has a pixel density of 117.5 pixels per inch.

Unfortunately, 4K resolution isn't available on the Z25n. To step up to a UHD panel, you'll have to go with the Z24s ($549, £364, AU$757), but that model doesn't benefit from the slim bezels of the Z25n. If you want even more accurate colors for your workflow, the Z24x ($599, £397, AU$826) comes with HP's DreamColor technology, which is preferred by entertainment studio DreamWorks, but you'll be capped at a maximum 1080p resolution and lose the near-bezel-less screen technology. In this regard, the "n" models in HP's Z series strikes a nice balance of resolution and bezel design.

Cable management and ports

HP's Z series uses a simply design with a square base and a rectangular stand with a curved front. The stand has a small cutout that allows you to feed cables through.

This design is useful for keeping cable clutter on your desk to a minimum, considering the vast array of ports that the Z25n supports. The ports are bottom-facing on the rear of the monitor, which I found difficult to access when the monitor is positioned in landscape orientation. Thankfully, the HP Z25n can be swiveled 90 degrees to the left or right for use in portrait orientation. In the vertical position, I found the ports to be more easily accessible.

Ports include power, MHL 2.0 /HDMI 1.4, DVI-D, DisplayPort 1.2, Mini-DisplayPort 1.2 and DisplayPort 1.2 output. The DisplayPort 1.2 output is useful for when you want to take advantage of the slim side bezels in setting up a multi-display workspace by placing two Z25n screens side-by-side.

There is also a USB upstream port and four full-size USB 3.0 ports, allowing the HP Z25n to serve as a USB hub to connect your peripherals. A 3.5mm audio jack allows you to connect an HP speakerbar or headphones, which could be useful for creative professionals working with video and audio. There is also a main power switch along with a Kensington lock port on the rear.

Ergonomics and control

In addition to rotating between landscape and portrait orientation, the Z25n can also be raised and lowered, angled and tilted for maximum comfort.

In landscape orientation, when lowered, the Z25n has a clearance of 2.375 inches from your desk, which increases to a maximum of 7.378 inches. Similarly, in portrait, desk clearance ranges from 0.75 inches to about 3 inches.

Tilt can be adjusted between -5 degrees to 22 degrees, and the monitor can swivel 45 degrees left to 45 degrees right.

Thanks to the in-plane switching (IPS) display technology, the Z25n benefits from wide 178-degree viewing angles. With a maximum brightness of 350 nits and an anti-glare coating, office lighting presented no problems in terms of glare and reflection, even at lower brightness settings.

I noticed a tiny bit of bubbling, perhaps with the application of the anti-glare coating, on the upper left and right corners of the display. The bubbling is only apparent if you're looking out for these details, and this flaw really has no effect on the performance of the display.

I found the Z25n to be as comfortable to view as matte displays on laptops, and even with luminance set at zero, I experienced no issues with glare when using the screen facing a bright office window and under ambient overhead LED lights.

Controls

Like most displays with touch-sensitive controls, navigating menus and scrolling through lists is cumbersome and tedious, but I am not sure how HP could improve on the UI.

The bottom bezel houses the touchscreen power button. Whereas the rear power switch completely shuts off all power, the touchscreen button on the front just turns off the display. As an example, if I use the touchscreen power button, I can turn off the screen, but the Z25n still provides power to the USB hub. This is useful when I want to charge my phone at my desk without having to turn on the Z25n's screen.

With the Z25n's screen turned on, touching any one of the five dimpled buttons will pull up the main menu controls. You'll have access to the Main Menu, the Information screen, Input Control settings, Color Control settings and Luminance settings to adjust brightness. The Color Control allows you to tweak the Z25n to show colors that are warmer or cooler based on preset settings, or you can set your own RGB values with a custom setting. Unlike consumer-class displays, the Z25n doesn't come with optional settings like blue light reduction, which is marketed as a feature that helps reduce eye fatigue.

For serious multitasking, the Z25n supports input from up to two sources. If you use both a desktop and a laptop for work, for example, you can connect your laptop over HDMI and use DisplayPort to connect your desktop. Now, you can show content from both sources at the same time by choosing either picture-in-picture or 2X1 Dual Split (also known as picture-by-picture) mode in the PIP Control settings in the Z25n Main Menu.

Picture-in-picture (PIP) allows you to see the main source in entire display and view the second source in a smaller window. You can also make granular adjustments to the size of this second window, and the Z25n also allows you to adjust the placement of the PIP window to suit your workflow.

With picture-by-picture, you'll be able to see the two sources side-by-side. Unfortunately, as the Z25n maintains the aspect ratio of your display, this results in serious letterboxing, as the displays do not scale to stretch and fill the height of the Z25n's screen area.

Specifications and performance

The Z25n comes with factory calibration, but does not include a built-in colorimeter for future calibrations. HP ships the Z25n with a factory Test Log, showing that tests have been performed to evaluate pixels, luminance, uniformity, contrast ratio, viewing angle and mura as well as an inspection of the unit to make sure it's free of scratches and chips. The test log is signed and dated by a factory worker.

Here's how the Z25n that was sent to techradar pro was configured:

Specifications

Display size: 25-inch, 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, LED, IPS
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Response time: 14ms gray-to-gray
Ports: 1 MHL 2.0 /HDMI 1.4, 1 DVI-D, 1 DisplayPort 1.2, 1 Mini-DisplayPort 1.2, 1 DisplayPort 1.2 out, 4 USB 3.0 (four downstream and one upstream), audio jack
Brightness: 350 nits
Tilt: -5 degrees to 22 degrees
Swivel: 45 degrees left to 45 degrees right
Pivot rotation: 90 degrees
Weight: 15.9 pounds
Size: 22.5 x 8.6 x 20.5 inches

Using Datacolor's Spyder5 Elite colorimeter, I found that factory calibration settings are on point. There is very little difference between color tones before and after my own calibration using the Spyder5 Elite. The big difference is that colors appear a bit cooler with HP's factory settings and Datacolor's tunings made the display show warmer colors.

Performance

The Spyder5 Elite calibration revealed that the Z25n is able to display 99% of the sRGB color space, 71% of the NTSC color space and 75% of the Adobe Color Space.

The Z25n scored excellent Gamut, Contrast, Color Uniformity and Color Accuracy marks with Datacolor's Display Analysis tool. Tone response and white point scores were great. The only drawback to this display is Luminance Uniformity.

Uneven brightness is noticeable at brighter display settings, and I found that there is moderate light bleed along the edges, with the most severe light bleed coming from the bottom left corner of the screen. At lower brightness settings, this issue isn't as apparent.

The high contrast rating means that you'll see rich, inky blacks on this display. HP rates the static contrast at 1000:1 and dynamic contrast ratio at 5,000,000:1.

I had no problems with the display's brightness. Videos streamed smoothly, and I found text and images were sharp on the Z25n. Casual gamers will benefit from the 60Hz refresh rate and 14ms response time, but more serious gamers will likely want to find a monitor that's compatible with Nvidia's G Sync or AMD's FreeSync technology, both of which will help improve response times in fast-action games.

Dell's competing UltraSharp 25 delivers a faster 6ms response time with the same 60Hz refresh rate, but isn't quite as bright at 300 nits.

Small business users who spend a lot of time in front of a monitor will benefit from the adjustability of the Z25n. From an ergonomic perspective, this makes the HP Z25n far more usable in an office setting than the Acer S277HK, which comes with a non-adjustable stand.

Verdict

The "n" models bring a lot of visual appeal to HP's mid-market Z series monitor lineup thanks to its nearly bezel-less design. Single-monitor office workers will appreciate that the slim bezels give the illusion that the Z25n takes up less space on a desk, while multi-monitor users will appreciate that you can seamlessly connect multiple Z25n displays together to expand your workspace without much visual interruption between screens.

We liked

With a starting size of 23 inches, HP fills a niche in the business-class display space by cramming more pixels into smaller screens, leading to higher pixel density monitors. Traditionally, higher resolution screens, 4K UHD and the WQHD on the HP Z25n and Z23n, are found on larger monitors.

The adjustability of the Z25n makes it a great ergonomic display, especially for business users who spend a large portion of their day in front of a PC. Factory calibration provided accurate color reproduction, great contrast and superb color uniformity, but HP could improve the unit by providing more even brightness across the panel.

Unless you require a studio-grade display, or a higher 4K or 5K resolution panel, the Z25n strikes a nice balance between design, performance and price.

We disliked

If you're working in an open office environment, the 45-degree left and right swivel of the base is enough to share and collaborate with a colleague seated next to you. However, if you're a small business owner with your own office, the display doesn't swivel enough so that you can show your screen to a client seated across from your desk.

Additionally, HP made a few compromises with this display. If you want 4K, you'll have to choose the UHD Z series, which means you'll gain pixel density at the expense of the slim bezels. If you want color accuracy, you'll have to choose the DreamColor display, which trades in slim bezels and a high resolution screen for a colorimeter and a 1080p panel. HP hasn't addressed the needs of the most demanding creative professional with a UHD panel, slim bezels and an option for a built-in colorimeter for on-demand display calibration.

If your job is video-heavy, the uneven screen brightness at higher luminance settings could be distracting, especially against a darker backdrop, and gamers will want faster refresh rates.

Final verdict

If your work doesn't require a higher resolution 4K or 5K screen, HP has created an excellent WQHD display that's well equipped to handle the "harsh" environments of office lighting with a bright screen, anti-glare coating to minimize reflection and a high display to body ratio thanks to the slim bezels at the top and side edges. Combined with an adjustable base and a swivel screen, office workers working long hours in front of a PC will hopefully be comfortable.

And to top it off, accurate factory calibration means that you can use this display for word processing and spreadsheet work, but the Z25n is also versatile enough for light creative projects. Professionals who work with photos and videos may want to invest in a colorimeter to maintain color accuracy over time.

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