Lenovo’s redesign of this almost three-year-old primary 24-inch monitor changes a couple of basic layout options for the better and gets some cosmetic updates, but at $250 it ultimately still seems overpriced for what you get (directly converted, about £185, AU$320). It’s still too expensive as low as $200 (£170, AU$430), the street price its predecessor eventually dropped to in places. Most monitors its size with the same 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution and a bare minimum of ports cost less than $150 (£150, AU$200). Still, paying too much for too little is the norm for cubicle dwellers whose IT departments only buy from a small, fixed list of suppliers.
Lenovo’s own P24h, which came out earlier this year, isn’t as pretty but has a ton more features for just a little more money, including a USB hub, DisplayPort out and is brighter at 300 nits vs. the X24 with 250 nits. And there’s also the higher-resolution 2,560×1,440 L24q which is a lot cheaper.
The onscreen menu controls are now in a more usable location rather than around the back.
The display does receive two notable design improvements over its predecessor, though: the onscreen display controls are now in the front, where you can see what you’re doing, and the connectors have been moved a bit to the right from the middle, where the stand made maneuvering your hand difficult. In addition to HDMI and DisplayPort connections, the audio-out jack seems to be new, and it’s not clear whether the claimed faster response time is just a new option. The difference between 7ms and 4ms gray-to-gray doesn’t matter that much for general use, though.
The rest of the changes are cosmetic, including updating it with the most recent version of the Lenovo logo and shaving 0.9mm/0.04 inch off the side bezels and 3.5mm/0.14 inch from the depth.
At CES in 2016 Lenovo announced a different, accessorizable X24 which never seemed to become available. Since they’ve all got the same name, be careful with your model numbers when comparing prices and features.
