The HP 2311gt is one of the cheapest ways to experience 3D this side of a $16 movie ticket. That said, if 3D isn't important to you, at $260 at the time of this review, the monitor could be considered overpriced. So, looking past its 3D capability, is there anything here that's worthwhile?

Design and features

Smooth and clean are fair ways to describe the HP 2311gt's overall aesthetic. Running my fingers along the back of the monitor yielded a feeling akin to lying between soft, high-thread-count sheets. Well, maybe it's not that smooth, but it does feel nice. Still, the build quality felt hollow, plasticky, and, well, kind of cheap. But hey, smooth.

Also, why every monitor isn't designed with back-facing connections laid out in an easily accessible manner baffles me to no end, but I'm incredibly thankful this one is. The 2311gt's support of HDMI, DVI, and VGA connections are welcome, but DisplayPort would have been an exciting bonus.

While the 2311gt isn't gimped on connections, ergonomic support is another story. Ergo options are limited to a 25-degree back tilt, with no swivel, pivot, or height adjustment.

The right and left sides of the bezel measure 0.9 inch and the full panel is 21.9 inches wide, with the bottom of the panel hovering 2.7 inches from the desktop. The foot stand measures 10.6 inches wide by 6.2 inches deep and provides great stability for the monitor, as knocking it from the sides yielded nary one wobble.

For anyone familiar with HP's OSD (onscreen display) design, you won't find any surprises here. Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness are present. Also included are five presets: Movie, Gaming, Text, Photo, and Custom.

Three color temperature options are included: Warm, Cool, and Normal (somewhere in between warm and cool). RGB color controls are also included, allowing for the fine-tuning of red, green, and blue.

The OSD array is located in the lower right corner and consists of four horizontally aligned buttons, with small white icons along the bezel denoting each button's function. The far left button activates the menu, followed to the right by the Up, Down, and Enter buttons. Navigating the menu proved a straightforward endeavor, easy to get the hang of.

The passive 3D polarized glasses fit over my normal eyeglasses easily, but were a bit tight around the temples, whether my eyeglasses were on or not. Not as uncomfortably tight as Nvidia's first-generation glasses, but not as form-fitting as Samsung's either.

Design and feature highlights Connectivity: HDMI, DVI, VGA Ergonomic options: 25-degree back tilt Resolution: 1,920x1,080 pixels Aspect ratio: 16:9 Audio: n/a VESA wall-mount support: No Included video cables: DVI, VGA Backlight: LED Panel type: TN Screen film: Matte Number of presets: 5 Overdrive: No Picture options: Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness Color controls: RGB and 3 color temperature options Gamma control: No Additional features: Passive 3D

Performance

I tested the HP 2311gt through its DVI input, connected to a Windows Vista PC with my own DVI cable. The display posted a composite score of 89 on CNET Labs' DisplayMate-based performance tests.

The merits of antiglare (AG) screen coating are much debated these days. Some viewers prefer the coating not be applied at all, while others favor only a limited amount. And others are completely indifferent. AG coating doesn't adversely affect a monitor's quality, and its benefits or lack thereof are strictly a question of preference.

That said, there is a light AG coating on the HP 2311gt's screen, reducing potential reflections while keeping some of the pop that glossy screens enjoy. A full glossy display can increase the perceived contrast of a monitor screen -- which some people prefer -- but can also make it difficult to see what's on the screen in direct sunlight.

DisplayMate: The 2311gt displayed light gray up to level 253. Level 255 is considered white and every level between it and 1 is a variation of gray. Once calibrated, the monitor could not distinguish between level 255 and 254, matching the white-level saturation performance of the Samsung PX2370, which also topped out at 253. The 2311gt's performance here indicates the display will likely not be prone to washing out light colors. As for dark gray, the 2311gt displayed down to level 2 while still maintaining a very deep black, indicating the display is capable of a very low black level.

The monitor struggled in many of our color-scaling tests, which evaluate how smoothly it displays different shades of various colors. The 2311gt yielded plenty of color abnormalities in these tests, exemplified by unwanted jumps and inconsistencies in the scales, instead of displaying them in a smooth and linear fashion. This indicates that the display will likely have some color accuracy problems.

In our Dark Screen test, the monitor showed obvious but not egregious clouding on the middle bottom and top edges.