HP ENVY 32 Review

HP perhaps aren’t as well known for their monitors, well not like Dell for example who always seem to be bringing out great new screens, but the Envy 32 is an attractive large 32″ 1440p monitor with speakers set either side of the screen.

Did I say this is a large monitor? It’s worth saying again, this is a big screen so you want to make sure you have plenty of desk space before investing in one of these. Those speakers only go to make it that much wider, but assuming you are comfortable with the size it does actually look like a smart offering. This feels like a premium monitor.

Build Quality

The Envy 32 is a large monitor, so you’ll need to think carefully about whether you really have the space. Don’t go buying this if you have a little desk and will be sat a few inches from the screen! But that aside, the HP Envy is a nicely finished product. The single slab of brushed aluminium makes for an attractive and solid base. On the down side the adjustments on offer are limited, only a vertical tilt is possible.

Connectivity includes only the modern HDMI and DisplayPort sockets so do make sure your graphics card can connect happily to one of these, an older DVI or VGA port isn’t going to work for you this time. You also get USB 2 ports included which is handy, and although one might expect USB 3 in this day and age it’s not something that would affect my buying decision when it comes to a monitor! You also get a headphone socket for when you don’t want to make use of the built in speakers.

The speakers do deliver, these are more than the typical bolt on offerings for computer monitors, perhaps more along the lines of TV speakers. So if you are looking for a noisy monitor then this should be up your street. Power usage is pretty good for a screen of this size, but note that it will cost more to run than a smaller 24″ monitor for example. But given this will be less than a tenner either way I’m not sure that should hold you back!

Performance

Picture quality on the HP Envy 32 is good, the VA panel gives a decent picture out of the box and contrast ratios compare very favourably against both TN and IPS panels. The picture quality is easily good enough for the discerning amateur. The good news is that if you follow an expert calibration guide you’ll get a picture quality that will keep even the professional designers happy. Viewing angles are not quite as good as on an IPS panel but will certainly beat a TN screen. You’ll want to ensure you are sitting in front of it in a desk style scenario to get the best image quality.

With overdrive activated typical response times are in the region of 12ms. This isn’t terrible but is a long way from the gamer dedicated monitors of the day. If you are a demanding high maintenance gamer then you might struggle with this, especially if you are into fast paced action games. Input lag has been measured at 29ms which again might put off the most sensitive. Neither of these will matter if you are more of a strategy gamer looking for a big screen to spread out your campaign.