There should no doubt as whether the engineers at HP dream in black-and-white or in color. The question should be: How many colors do they dream in? The answer: over one billion. That's how many colors HP's new DreamColor LP2480ZX LCD is capable of displaying:

"The HP DreamColor Display features a new liquid crystal display (LCD) that provides a range of more than 1 billion colors in a 30-bit, LED-backlit display. The display is now shipping worldwide for a U.S. list price of $3,499."


Three and a half grand might seem pretty steep for a display, but for a number of professional-level, color-accurate-critical applications, the level of accuracy that the price buys is truly mission critical:

"The display is the result of an unprecedented technology collaboration with DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA) and addresses an increasingly critical need for affordable and consistent color accuracy in the animation, game development, film/video post, broadcast, product design and graphic arts categories."

The LP2480zx is a 24-inch widescreen display with a native resolution of 1920x1200. HP Claims that the display's white luminance range is from 40cd/m² up to 250cd/m². HP also claims a 1000:1 contrast ratio and 12ms back-to-white-body response time or a 6ms gray-to-gray response time. Inputs include two DVI-I, one DisplayPort 1.1, one HDMI 1.3, one component (YPbPr), one S-Video, and one Composite. The display is HDCP compliant.

In order to utilize the full 30-bit color palette accurately, you need a high-end, workstation-grade graphics card that supports that color depth, such as the AMD ATI FireGL series.