HP E27d G4 monitor review | Laptop Mag

Our Verdict

HP'southward E27d G4 is an excellent choice for business concern users thanks to its gorgeous matte screen, user-friendly features and flexible design.

For

Bright, vivid matte screen
100W ability delivery via USB-C
Plenty of ports
Flexible design
Slim bezels
Built-in IR camera

Against

Pricey
Poor webcam quality
No internal speakers

Laptop Mag Verdict

HP's E27d G4 is an excellent option for business organization users thank you to its gorgeous matte screen, convenient features and flexible design.

Pros

+
Bright, vivid matte screen
+
100W power delivery via USB-C
+
Plenty of ports
+
Flexible design
+
Slim bezels
+
Congenital-in IR camera

Cons

-
Pricey
-
Poor webcam quality
-
No internal speakers

HP E27d G4 monitor specs

Size: 27 inches
Resolution: 2560 10 1440
Technology: IPS
Webcam: 1080p
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Ports: Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, 4 USB
Charging: 100W (USB-C)
Weight: 18.1 pounds

If there was ever a good time to upgrade your home part, it'southward now. While the ongoing coronavirus pandemic volition hopefully fizzle out in the months ahead, there is no timeline for when we'll render to work full-time. Moreover, the rush to buy office supplies appears to accept leveled off, with supply finally meeting demand. For the best office setup, you need a adept monitor connected to your laptop or desktop. That'south where the HP E27d G4 comes in.

I've been using this 27-inch monitor for the past month and have very few criticisms near how it has handled multiple workflows, gaming and even streaming. The motion picture is colorful and vivid with excellent white residuum, it has a sleek design with sparse bezels, there are tons of ports, and a clever pop-up webcam means you can stop using the awful one built into your laptop.

It isn't a perfect monitor by any means. Some of the buttons and ports are difficult to reach and at $599, the 1440p E27d G4 is expensive for a non-4K panel. But if you tin can ignore those downsides, the E27d G4 gets you a practical monitor for your setup with all the features and connections you lot'll need to create the ideal calm work station.

HP E27d G4 design

Simple, sleek and slim, the HP E27d is a handsome monitor, but non ane that will attract too much attending. This isn't a gaming monitor so don't expect RGB lighting or aggressively angled stands. No, the E27d keeps things business-like.

The stand is a silver plastic square with a slim tower-shaped arm rise from the rear. Firmly fastened to that arm is the 27-inch monitor with a blackness dorsum panel at the top of which you'll spot a stylish chrome HP logo. The rear of the monitor has angled rhombus-shaped sides, giving an edginess to an otherwise muted blueprint.

There are a few highlights to the E27d G4'southward design. First, the forepart bezels are relatively thin, especially those bordering the top and sides. The bottom bezel is a bit chunkier to conform an HP logo, rear buttons and an LED ability indicator. Above the peak bezel, is the other noteworthy feature: a popular-up webcam.

A congenital-in webcam is always appreciated though this 1 isn't bully. There'southward no clever mechanism for lifting and lowering information technology - only press your fingers against the dorsum and pull upward. To hide the webcam, button it downward. As for the quality, expect a notch above what you'll detect on a laptop, just nowhere most what a proper external webcam delivers. What the webcam does bring, notwithstanding, is an IR photographic camera so y'all tin can log in to Windows 10 via Windows Hello facial recognition without lifting the chapeau of your laptop.

There are no speakers on the E27D G4. For sound output, you'll need to spend extra on the bachelor soundbar.

The E27d G4 is a very flexible monitor, capable of swiveling, height aligning, tilting and rotating. You lot can rotate the screen 90 degrees into portrait mode when you're working with spreadsheets or documents, or adjust the height from as low as one inch to up to seven inches to get the perfect viewing angle. Speaking of which, the screen can be tilted from -5 to 20 degrees and swiveled xxx degrees in each direction.

HP E27d G4 installation and setup

Keep your toolset in the garage, the E27d only needs the lightest coat of elbow grease to be assembled. Heck, the hardest part is figuring out how to remove all the pieces from the box.

Once you've solved that puzzle, information technology's just a thing of placing the arm on the square base of operations and hand-screwing them together. From there, the monitor tin easily exist mounted to the arm with a satisfying click. If you prefer, the E27d G4 supports a 100mm VESA mount for using a desk or wall mountain.

HP E27d G4 ports, cabling and interface

There is a generous selection of ports on the rear of the E27d G4, and HP was clever to separate those used most oft, making them easier to access. To that cease, two USB 3.0 Blazon-A ports are conveniently located on the left side of the rear panel adjacent to a headphone jack.

Everything else is in a port hub centered on the dorsum console. There, you'll find every connection option in the book, including two additional USB Type-A ports, ii USB Blazon-C inputs — one downstream and another upstream with 100W charging — an HDMI 1.four, DisplayPort one.2 (in and out), and an Ethernet port.

The e27d comes with plenty of cords for connecting to your laptop or desktop, no matter how sometime or new information technology is. In the box are cords for HDMI 2.0, a DisplayPort 1.2, USB-C and a power cord.

Adjusting the settings or picture controls can be a hassle because the buttons are all located on the bottom edge of the monitor and don't protrude enough to see. Instead, you demand to discover them past feel. Directly below the LED indicator, is the power push button and next to that is the principal menu button. From there, you can adjust the color temperature (warm, neutral, cool, low blue light, and others), brightness, contrast, sharpness and response fourth dimension.

You can also change from performance mode, which enables all the monitor functions, to Ability Saver, which disables the USB hub and ports and the power delivery.

HP E27d G4 performance

The E27d G4 has a 27-inch, 2560 10 1440-pixel IPS display with a 60Hz refresh charge per unit and 3-millisecond response time.

The panel was detailed enough for me to read small fonts in Google Docs or beyond a range of websites. I also love the screen's anti-glare coating, which effectively dispersed the overhead lights in my room, resulting in an image free of reflections or glare. As for the colors, they are fine — neither slow nor punchy, simply good plenty for most business users.

To examination the panel, I watched a trailer for Wonder Woman 1984. I largely liked what I saw. Colors were accurate and colors were bright enough, with the superhero'south reddish and golden armor standing out confronting the pale palate of a government building. Details were crisp; I could run into wrinkles on Chris Pine's forehead and individual scales on the ballsy suit Gadot wears at the cease of the clip.

I didn't need to make whatever major changes to the film afterwards setting up the E27d. The white rest was properly calibrated out of the box and colors looked accurate and natural as I switched betwixt my favorite tech sites. I even watched a few Champions League soccer games on the HP and thoroughly enjoyed the viewing experience thanks to the large size of the panel. I wish this monitor supported HDR, even so, for those lively colors.

I used the monitor at around 50% brightness throughout my testing, any more resulted in eye fatigue in my dimly-lit room. I enabled the bluish light filter a few times and it seemed to have given my eyes the rest they demand and deserve from staring at screens all day.

HP E27d G4 benchmarks

The E27d G4 gets a solid B course in our benchmarking tests, beating almost of its direct competitors and reaching or exceeding what HP advertises.

The HP E27d G4 reached an boilerplate of 299 nits of brightness, practically matching its promised 300 nits of height luminance. It outshone the Dell S2721HGF, which striking a top average of 234 nits of brightness, and the much pricier ViewSonic Elite XG270, which landed at an average of 277 nits.

Covering 123% of the sRGB color gamut, the E27d proved to exist more bright than the Dell S2721HGF (110.3%) but not quite as colorful as the ViewSonic Elite XG270 (130%).

Those results repeat what nosotros saw in the more demanding DCI-P3 color exam in which the HP covered 88% of the gamut whereas the Dell S2721HGF (78.1%) while the ViewSonic Elite XG270 (94%) led the pack.

Color accuracy is a stiff indicate for the E27d G4, which scored a Delta-E rating (lower is better) of 0.25, proving itself to be more accurate than the ViewSonic Aristocracy XG270 (0.3) only less so than the Dell S2721HGF (0.22).

Bottom line

The HP E27d G4 is a great monitor for mobile professionals looking to upgrade their dwelling house offices. What it lacks in elevation-tier specs is offset with enterprise features, like an anti-glare panel, IR camera for facial recognition and 100W power delivery.

Those additions brand the E27d a practical choice. Just plug in your laptop with the included USB-C cablevision then utilize the IR webcam to instantly login. From there, enjoy the bright and bright reflection-costless 27-inch screen all while your laptop is beingness charged. On superlative of that ease-of-utilise, the E27d has a built-in Ethernet port and the arm is extremely adaptable, allowing you to orient the display in portrait mode.

My month or so using the E27d was largely enjoyable, but there were a few bumps along the way. The webcam, while convenient for logging in, provides subpar epitome quality, so an external webcam remains the best solution for conference calls. Also, some of the buttons could be improve positioned and in that location are no onboard speakers.

The price, at $499, is pretty high, but the HP E27d G4 is worth the coin thanks to its flexible design, proficient picture quality and multiple productivity features that make this monitor super convenient to use.

Phillip Tracy is the banana managing editor at Laptop Mag where he reviews laptops, phones and other gadgets while covering the latest industry news. After graduating with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin, Phillip became a tech reporter at the Daily Dot. There, he wrote reviews for a range of gadgets and covered everything from social media trends to cybersecurity. Prior to that, he wrote for RCR Wireless News covering 5G and IoT. When he's not tinkering with devices, you tin can observe Phillip playing video games, reading, traveling or watching soccer.