Marrying a contemporary black screen design to a chunky silver stand, HP’s sturdily constructed 19in w1907v monitor won’t win awards for originality, but priced at just £149 it should find favour with those looking for a general-purpose computer display.

The widescreen format ensures that it’s as well suited to those who regularly juggle several programs at once – it's possible to easily see two Word documents side by side, for instance – as it is to gaming or watching the latest blockbuster.

A 1440x900 resolution, with the regulation 16 million colours, a good 1,000:1 contrast ratio, plus a five millisecond refresh rate – the lower the figure the more frequent the picture’s updated – means that the screen ticks most of the boxes for the home user.

Display options including adjustment of contrast and brightness are set using four large buttons at the front. The menus are logically presented and easy to navigate, with further convenience provided by a Quick View mode that allows users to jump to automatic presets for movies, photos, games or text, and there’s a custom option for those who prefer to set their own levels.

Moving to the back, video input is, disappointingly, analogue only, through the VGA port (so newer computers with only DVI connectors will need an adapter). But also included is an audio input for attaching headphones (there are two underpowered speakers built in).

Beneath the foot of the stand is a small wheel allowing the monitor to be rotated for a better view – the official viewing angle being a reasonable 160 degrees – while the screen can be leant back or tilted forward as well.

Though HP’s Brightview technology claims to deliver rich colours and sharp images, for us it didn't match the performance of LG’s 22in W2252TQ monitor, which costs just £50 more.

Still, flesh tones were flatteringly rendered in photo mode, even if colours were slightly subdued when gaming and movies were a tad grainy – though in truth none of which are likely to be noticeable if you're using the screen in isolation, rather than in comparison with another.

There are good alternatives, then, but at 5kg and with a sturdy construction the w1907v is a solid buy in most senses.