HP 27F Monitor Review

The HP 27f has a decent design overall. It has a stylish, slim bezel, and the main display portion is well built. Unfortunately, the stand doesn't support the monitor well, as there is significant wobble, and it has very poor ergonomics, as it can only tilt. Unfortunately, there is no option to VESA mount the 27f.

The stand is fixed and has a small overall footprint. It doesn't support the monitor very well, and the monitor wobbles a lot when nudged.

The HP 27f has a fixed stand that can only tilt. There is no height adjustment, and it cannot swivel or rotate.

The back is very simple, with only a slight silhouette of the HP logo. All of the inputs face out of the back, and unfortunately, it cannot be VESA mounted. There is also no cable management.

The borders are very thin, and they look great.

The 27f looks great when viewed edge-on. The stand extends almost 3" behind the screen, preventing the monitor from being placed close to a wall.

The HP 27f has decent build quality. The monitor itself is well built, but the stand does have some issues. It isn't very solid, and doesn't support the display well; even the impact from typing causes the monitor to wobble significantly. Overall, it is similar to the HP 27Q, but the stand is slightly worse.

The HP 27f has mediocre contrast, very similar to the Dell P2417H, and about average for an IPS monitor. Unfortunately, blacks tend to look gray in a dark room.

There is no local dimming feature on this monitor. The video is for reference only.

Decent peak brightness, with no variation between scenes, which is great. There should be no issues using the monitor in a bright room.

HDR is not supported on this monitor.

The HP 27f has decent horizontal viewing angles, typical for IPS monitors. Colors remain accurate up to about 40°, and then they rapidly oversaturate. The brightness drops gradually as you move away from center but remains within acceptable limits up to 47°, and the black levels remain accurate at any viewing angle.

The HP 27f has very good vertical viewing angles. Within 25°, the image remains accurate, but beyond that, it degrades rapidly as colors quickly become over saturated and the brightness drops.

Excellent gray uniformity. There is very little dirty screen effect, great for playing sports games or browsing the web. In near-dark scenes, the uniformity is even better, and shouldn't cause any issues.

The HP 27f has decent black uniformity. There is some clouding throughout the display, and some backlight bleed around the edges, but this isn't too noticeable.

Out of the box, the HP 27f has great accuracy. The white balance is excellent, with very few issues. Color accuracy is good, but there are small inaccuracies in almost every color, although they are minor enough that most people won't notice them. Gamma doesn't follow the target curve, with some scenes over brightened, and some over darkened.

After calibration, the 27f has excellent accuracy. The white balance error and color error are nearly entirely corrected. Gamma follows the target curve almost perfectly.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and should not be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.

s.RGB Picture Mode: Custom (calibrated)
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: Custom

Very good color gamut on the HP 27f. It has excellent coverage of the standard s.RGB color space, but only decent coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, which is less than ideal for professional photo or video editing.

s.RGB Picture Mode: Custom
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: Custom

Very good SDR color volume. It has excellent color volume in the s.RGB color space, but it can't produce deep, dark colors very well, and like most monitors, it can't produce bright blues or magentas.

In the wider Adobe RGB color space, it has good color volume. Like with s.RGB, it is limited by the mediocre contrast ratio, so it can't produce deep, dark colors very well.

HDR is not supported on this monitor.

HDR is not supported on this monitor.

There are no signs of image retention on the 27f, even immediately after showing our high contrast static test image for 10 minutes.

Great gradient handling, with only slight banding visible in some darker shades.

There is only a minor row error, and this is completely unnoticeable.

Great reflections handling, similar to the HP 27Q and ViewSonic XG2402. There should be no issues using this monitor in a bright room.

Response Time Level 1
Response Time Level 2
Response Time Level 3
Response Time Level 4
Response Time Level 5

The monitor has a great response time. There are 5 overdrive settings, and each setting adds a bit more overshoot. The best Response Time setting is 'Level 2', as this mode improves the response time the most without adding noticeable overshoot.

The 27f is completely flicker-free, which is great, but it lacks the option to add flicker to reduce persistence blur.

At the native resolution of 1080p, the HP 27f has a decent 75 Hz refresh rate. At non-native resolutions, only 60 Hz is supported. This shouldn't be an issue for most people though, as most graphics cards will upscale without you even knowing. Many websites advertise the 27f as a 60 Hz monitor, but 75Hz is supported out of the box with no additional steps, and it is fully supported with no dropped frames. On NVIDIA cards, the 1920x1080 resolution must be selected from the list of 'PC' resolutions in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

The monitor supports FreeSync over HDMI, which is great. To enable FreeSync, select the 'Gaming - FreeSync' Picture Mode.

Update 01/15/2019: Unfortunately, the HP 27F does not support NVIDIA's FreeSync implementation, as it does not have a DisplayPort connection, which is required.

Excellent low input lag, great for casual gamers. The non-native resolution was tested at 60 Hz, as that is the only refresh rate available in non-native resolutions. The input lag is much better than the HP 27Q.

The 27f has a great 27" screen, which allows you to see more fine details in your work, but the 1080p resolution may be limiting to some people. It doesn't provide a very immersive gaming experience, and it isn't ideal for multitasking.

There is no 3.5mm jack for connecting speakers or a headset, which is uncommon.

The HP 27f has very few additional features. It does not support HDR, and has no built-in speakers. There are a few image adjustment options that can help when gaming, including:

• Dynamic Contrast: Automatically adjusts the contrast on a per-scene basis.
• Black Stretch: Adjusts the gamma to make dark objects in dark scenes easier to spot, similar to the Black Stabilization feature found on other monitors.

The controls are easy to use, and provide decent tactile feedback.

• Proprietary Power Adapter
• Manual
• HDMI Cable