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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.
Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level
It was difficult to find five other monitors that share the Omen 25i’s feature set. Most 25-inch 1080p screens run at 240 Hz but don’t include HDR or extended color. To keep the group centered around price, we added 27-inch monitors. The comparison includes the Gigabyte Aorus FI25F, Monoprice’s Dark Matter, Pixio’s PX279 Prime, BenQ’s Mobiuz EX2510 and MSI’s Optix MAG273R. All are IPS-based.
The Omen 25i has plenty of output with nearly 400 nits available for SDR content. The BenQ and MSI screens aren’t quite as bright but still have plenty of juice for any indoor environment. The OMen 25i sports respectable black levels that take its default contrast ratio to 1,204:1. This is quite good for any IPS panel, but the other monitors also operate in that range. Contrast is visually the same for all the screens here with none having a very distinct advantage.
After Calibration to 200 nits
Our calibration to 200 nits brightness (see our recommended settings on page 1) didn’t change the Omen 25i’s contrast much. But the MSI and Monoprice monitors achieved notably higher contrast numbers with calibration. There is still no major difference between the monitors overall though. One might see a little more depth from the MSI, but the HP is still comfortably above average among IPS screens in this test. You’ll also see in our next tests that the Omen 25i also has a larger color gamut than all but the MSI, which will enhance its picture quality further.
The Omen 25i’s ANSI contrast is slightly lower than the static number, due to a couple of hot spots near the bottom of our sample’s screen. It’s a minor uniformity issue; the test result is still quite good. Any IPS monitor that can achieve over 1,000:1 ANSI contrast is ahead of the curve.
