HP’s f2105 is a big player in many ways, not least because it uses a slightly bigger 21in panel (HP has no 20in model), but costs no more than the 20in Apple Cinema Display.

It’s 9.2kg of widescreen bigness with big side-mounted stereo speakers running from top to bottom.

Despite its ability to shove its competitors into the background, it’s far from clumsy in appearance. It has a slightly ‘home theatre’ feel about it, yet looks tastefully appropriate on a desk and comes with a tilt and height-adjustable stand for increased ergonomic comfort.

A built-in USB hub and headphone socket are useful, but it comes without the composite or Scart inputs its appearance might have led you to hope for.

When the power is turned on, the f2105 really starts to impress. It uses an MVA-type panel and delivers excellent black levels and the best contrast ratio here (1,000:1), with no perceptible colour shifts even to the edges of its wide viewing angles.

Although S-IPS technology is often expected to produce better colour quality than MVA, the f2105 managed a good result in our Displaymate tests.

Setting up the colour bars and hitting the auto button brought an instant smile to our faces – it delivered a near perfect result. Scores for other monitors had to be revised downwards when we saw what the f2105 could do.

The slight lack of smoothness in greyscale gradations let it and Belinea’s 10 20 35W lag behind the S-IPS panels.

It’s no surprise then that, in terms of quality, the f2105 takes joint first place with the Apple 20in Cinema Display.

Our one minor niggle is the large, bright blue power LED. Too often worn as a badge to signify a product’s coolness, here it’s distracting and entirely unnecessary and can’t be turned off in the on-screen menu. Apart from that, it’s a gem.

This is part of a group test looking at widescreen TFTs. For other products in the test, see:
Apple 20in Cinema Display
Belinea 10 20 35W
Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW 
HP f2105 
LG M203WX 
Philips Brilliance 200W6 
TFT Technology explained
Should you go widescreen?