The beauty of the new HP Pro 727pm monitor is immediately apparent, but it might impress less than its hefty price tag. What makes this monitor so expensive and can the price be justified?
HP is making strong strides when looking at their professional range, as we awarded the HP OmniStudio X all-in-one PC our “editor’s choice” label. With this HP Series 7 Pro 727pm, HP certainly hits the mark as well.
Especially when people often work in hybrid settings and calendars are filled with video meetings, a monitor needs to be capable of more than before. Where exactly is the difference? Think of sufficient connections, a built-in webcam, speakers, a KVM switch, and a sleek design. The HP Series 7 Pro 727pm ticks every box.
Design
Visually, it’s on point. The HP 727pm has a professional, sleek appearance with thin screen edges and a sturdy metal base. At the back, you immediately see that HP has an eye for detail: the design looks as sharp as the front. No messy connections or strange protrusions, just neat and tidy.
The monitor also has a VESA mount, hidden behind a removable cover. With the right adapter, you can easily attach the screen to a monitor arm without compromising the minimalist design.
During this test period, it was noticeable how comfortable the screen is. So not only nice to look at, but also ergonomically sound. You can tilt, rotate, and slide the screen up and down until you find the ideal working position. Everything feels sturdy, stable, and logical.
Connections: Future-Proof and Generous
This monitor comes with a Thunderbolt 4 port with 100W power delivery, allowing you to charge a laptop, transmit video signal, AND transfer data through a single cable. Also handy: you can daisy chain multiple screens, as long as your laptop supports Thunderbolt. If your laptop doesn’t support that? Then you simply work via USB-C without the advanced chaining capabilities.
HP throws in a few more connections:
- 1x HDMI 2.0
- 1x DisplayPort 1.4 (in and out)
- 2x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and 5 USB-A ports
- 1x Ethernet port
- And even a built-in KVM switch, so you can control multiple devices with one keyboard and mouse.
So your laptop stays charged while you work, AND you avoid a cable mess. What’s unfortunate though: the included USB-C cable is just under a meter long. For a premium monitor, that’s a missed opportunity. You’re better off buying a quality Thunderbolt cable of 1.5 to 2 meters right away, something that should have been included in the box for this price.
Image Quality to Savor
The 27-inch IPS Black panel offers excellent 4K UHD image quality (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) and a brightness of 400 nits. The viewing angles are excellent and the screen is anti-reflective, which is always a nice bonus. With a contrast of 2000:1, the HP Series 7 Pro 727pm scores above average (for an IPS panel) and the colors are natural and realistic in both HDR and SDR.
The panel can perform well, and that’s what you’re paying this price for, but you have to set it up yourself.
It achieves a DeltaE of 6.1. This means that some colors clearly deviate from how they should look. An excellent DeltaE score is below two. Important nuance: the colors are good, but because HP speaks of an already calibrated monitor, it’s noticeable that they look much better after you tweak some settings yourself. For instance, with this unit, the green had to be turned down significantly to get a good white tint, both in sRGB and DCI-p3.
Thanks to the IPS Black technology, the black levels of the screen are decent. Edge bleeding is barely or not visible, which proves once again that we are indeed dealing with a high-quality panel.
Image, Webcam, and Sound
A major drawback of this monitor is the low refresh rate. 60 Hz is really the absolute minimum nowadays, especially at this price point. 100 or 120Hz provides a much smoother user experience when scrolling or viewing system animations.
HP is strongly focusing on conference capabilities with this monitor. The built-in 5MP camera is Zoom-certified and uses Poly Studio. With Poly Studio, you get features like automatic framing, light and white balance correction, background blur, and Windows Hello. Auto Lock and Awake ensure that your system locks when you move away from the monitor.
The speakers are also neatly integrated. You get four speakers, but they don’t provide top-quality sound. The audio isn’t very dynamic or rich at higher volumes. It lacks deep bass and can even sound tinny in exceptional cases. However, at normal volumes, the sound is better than what you typically get from a monitor.
Conclusion
This is an excellent monitor, especially after calibrating it yourself and adjusting the colors. The 4K screen looks sleek, feels sturdy, and features Thunderbolt, a KVM switch, and four speakers. The panel is excellent, but it doesn’t reach its full potential out of the box. Manual calibration is recommended.
Additionally, the 60 Hz refresh rate somewhat dampens our enthusiasm. Business users who work in hybrid environments can make good use of this. Creative professionals like graphic designers or video editors can also use it, but they’ll need to adjust some settings. For those who aren’t necessarily looking for perfection straight out of the box, but want a beautiful monitor with sufficient connectivity options, this remains a very interesting option.
HP Series Pro 727pm – 760 euros excl. VAT
.pro’s
- Beautiful 4K panel
- Thunderbolt 4 with daisy chaining
- Webcam, speakers, and KVM switch
.contra’s
- Low refresh rate
- Colors are insufficient out of the box
- Included USB-C cable is too short