HannsG HH222DPB review

HannsG's low-priced HH222DPB is a 22in monitor with a 1,680x1,050 resolution, so it can't display Full HD video pixel-for-pixel. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as many people find Windows fonts too small on 22in monitors with a resolution of 1,920x1,080.

Although it doesn't have LED backlighting, the HH222DPB is still quite slim at 56mm, and has a VESA mount for wall-mounting. Its design is pretty basic: the stand is made of a dull black plastic that looks cheap.

The menu system is controlled by buttons under the bottom-right corner of the screen. These are labelled with raised black lettering on the black bezel, so it's difficult to read the labels without peering closely. The menu itself is clear, using white text on a green background, but the controls are limited, with only brightness, contrast, and colour adjustment.

There's also a dynamic contrast setting. Enabling this disables the brightness and contrast controls, but in our tests we didn't notice much improvement in contrast. There were no painfully obvious transitions from light to dark, however and - overall - contrast is fairly good. In our side-by-side contrast tests the HH222DPB fared well.

Our only concern was with colours, which looked a bit washed out. A slight red cast to images was correct by tweaking the colour settings but, although this made colours look more natural, they still lacked punch. Overall though, image quality was fairly good.

The HH222DPB has VGA and DVI connections and the latter doesn't support HDCP copy protection. There's a minijack audio input, but the speakers are weak and tinny and only suitable for Windows sounds.

While HannsG has saved money by omitting HDCP support and other luxuries, the HH222DPB isn't quite the bargain it first appears. It's only a few pounds cheaper than BenQ's G2222HDL, which has a Full HD resolution and better image quality. It's still a good budget option, but most people are better off spending the extra £9 on the G2222HDL.