BenQ BL2420PT Designer Monitor (AQCOLOR Technology, 23.8
BenQ BL2420PT Designer Monitor (AQCOLOR Technology, 23.8 inch, 2K WQHD 1440P, sRGB/Rec.709, Compatible for MacBook Pro M1/M2), Black
Flicker-Free
Stable feedback technology prevents the harmful effects of flickering from tiring or damaging the eyes.
Height Adjustment
Ergonomics can play a huge role in productivity. Set your monitor at the right height to stay comfortable and keep working.
| Weight: | 7 kg |
| Dimensions: | 20.67 x 22.17 x 9.41 cm; 7 Kilograms |
| Brand: | BenQ |
| Model: | M352705 |
| Colour: | Black |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | BenQ |
| Dimensions: | 20.67 x 22.17 x 9.41 cm; 7 Kilograms |
Good colour accuracy but not bright enough
Colour accuracy is great, resolution is goo but there is little bit light bleeding from the corners that I don’t appreciate and also it’s not as bright as I would like.
Very Pleased
This monitor has exceeded my expectations. I bought it as an alternative to the Apple brand monitor that costs twice as much. It’s has an excellent picture quality, good colour rendering, very good feature set and a decent set of cables with it.
Awesome 4k monitor for Mac
This thing is amazing for the money ! Set up & hooked it up to my M3 MacBook Air 5 minutes after it came out the box. A absolute bargain & would recommend to anyone with a mac who doesn’t want to spend the best part of 2 grand on an overpriced Apple display. The stand & the puck are fantastic features as well & every lead you will ever need for it is also supplied. A lot of bang for your buck here & can’t recommend this enough.
Overall Quality
This product worked 100% percent for me in everything I have asked it to do. Some photographic work and general internet use. After only a few days from setting up there is still a lot to do. Speakers are not the best so suggest a pair of bluetooth small speakers will enhance any audio that one may need associated with this monitor. Overall very satisfied and comfortable with the 5 star rating.
Almost perfec
Going from a 2020 iMac 27 inch, I can’t believe how poor the speakers are in this model. Most people say they are good but you really do need to buy external speakers or use headphones. I wish the numerous Youtube reviewers who had this sent to them for free were more honest….
Superb quality for the money
Quality monitor for the money. I don’t use it for gaming but Im sure if I did it would be more than adequate. Connecting to an Apple Mini Mac, only use the HDMI cable. I connected all three cables as they were included and confused the monitor and myself. By only using HDMI the screen powers up just by clicking the mouse or keyboard. If you add the USB and USB-C you have to use the toggle key at the back to select which connection cable you want to use. Not used the round thing to adjust colour as perfect out of the box.
Purchased because it was designed to use for designers on software. It’s a good screen, and works well with Mac. However, it is frustrating that the Mac resolution means I can’t use it in 4k without the screen resizing and everything appears far too small. So while it says 4k you probably will not be able to run it at full res. Quality is decent and it definitely feels it compared to my other monitor.
Honestly, I didn’t like this at first. The packaging and initial setup were fine and on initial thoughts, there was a lot too.love about the monitor. However, connected to a Mac I found some programs didn’t play nice with it (Adobe Illustrator for one) and it flickered. I also couldn’t get the screen to match my MacBook Pro (M1 Max) after messing about with it a while, putting it in the specific MacBook setting. I downloaded DisplayPilot from BenQ and things were a lot better as you get more granular and easier control and can also match the ICC Sync settings of your Mac.
That said, as great as I now find the monitor, it won’t match the brightness of the MacBook Pro and its Mini LED screen so don’t expect it to. I’ve got used to the slight difference but have managed to get it pretty decent, especially for design and video/rendering purposes using the DisplayPilot software.
Overall, it’ a great monitor for the price – it won’t match a 1k+ monitor but the features, ports, looks and pretty great screen are fantastic for the price. The Puck is great too – I can swap between Mac and Windows easily rather than reaching round the back of the monitor each time and the USB-C connection is great too. 4K is a bit small text size wise so I have mine set to 3008 x 1692 which is a happy medium and allows plenty of room for artboards and pallets on screen without squinting to see teeny tiny text when it’s at 3840×2160.
Overall – pretty happy with it – despite the initial niggles that nearly made me send it back. Stick with it, customise the settings yourself and you’ll find it a great monitor. =)
My 8 year old 27″ iMac could no longer handle my 50mp RAW files on Lightroom and as Apple discontinued the 27″ iMac I was forced to buy a Mac Mini Pro which doesn’t come with a display. I looked at Apple Studio display which cost 1500 but it was out of stock everywhere so I bought this as I know a lot of photographers use this monitor.
It was so easy to set up as it comes with all the leads (thunderbolt 3) you need to connect to the current Mac minis and Macbook pros. The stand was easy to assemble and is made of sturdy aluminium. The little puck which comes with the monitor is really useful and makes it so easy to change any of the display settings, trust me there are tonnes of settings you can adjust to suit your needs.
A lot of people go on about scaling issues as this is a 4k monitor and current Apple Macs are set up for 5k. Trust me, this is not an issue. You can go into the display settings on your Mac and adjust the resolution to suit your eyes. Depending on your eyesight, you might find 4k is too small to read text and prefer a ratio closer to 3k (like I have), but either way you will see much more display, especially useful when editing photos when you can view the whole picture on screen without needing to scroll. You can even switch the display to the same resolution as your old non retina 27″ iMac, but once you try 3k or 4k you won’t go back. I was also concerned that this has a matte (non gloss like iMacs) finish, but when the monitor is on I don’t even notice it’s not glossy.
The colours are vivid and bright, contrasts have rich tones and the display is sharp and virtually identical to Apple’s colour profile, you won’t need to calibrate but you can tailor the display to suit you own needs or choose from many preset settings. The only downside are the built in speakers, they sound a bit tinny (no bass) but that didn’t bother me as I only use my Mac for surfing the net and editing pictures. If you need HQ surround sound then you could buy a set of external speakers or spend nearly another 700 for the Mac Studio.
I reckon if you bought the 32″ version of this monitor it might make using the full 4k easier as the display will be larger than on 27″, but I didn’t want such a big screen plus the 32″ is claimed to be less sharp.
When you view your old pictures which filled the whole screen on your old iMac, they won’t fill the whole screen on this monitor and will appear much smaller. That’s because the old non retina 27″ iMac was around 2k and this screen is 4k, so this has double the resolution ie a picture that was 2000 pixels wide on a 2k screen will appear half that width on this screen as the pixels are half the size on this screen – so you fit more on screen and it looks fantastic.
I’m glad I bought this screen as it’s the best display I have ever used and really makes editing photographs much easier and more enjoyable. It really stands out way above my old non retina 2k iMac display which I always thought looked amazing until I bough the Benq.
Turns out you do need QHD for 24" screens!
Most review say 1080p is fine for 24″ screens, but I tried some admittedly budget Dell monitors in that category and they looked very soft. These on the other hand are lovely and crisp. As others have mentioned the bezels are big and the energy star rating is poor, but the screens are amazing!
Great for the price.
I have two of these monitors for design work and they are very good.
Lots of inputs, great colours and crystal clear.
Don’t rely on the sound though as it’s very poor.
High quality image.
Bought at a good price, for use mainly in portrait orientation. Fits the bill very well. The only problem I have is where to place it within my setup (not a comment about the quality of the monitor).
Great monitor!
Great monitor, resolution, contrast and brightness are very good. The design is few years old but screen capabilities are still very good and on top of that there is lots of slots you can utilize and monitor comes with quite a few different cables to enable best connectivity.
Recommended for photography
For the price you pay this is amazing for a photographer, sharp true to life colours, easy to calibrate to your printer, after trawling lots of reviews of more expensive models I didn’t regret buying this one bit, just buy it and see for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.
I’ve spent a while trying to find the right monitor to replace my ageing Dell Ultrasharp, as anything above a certain standard seems to cost a heck of alot of money. I was going to buy another dell but it was over 700 to buy another one so I thought I would look around first. I had read a few reviews about BenQ monitors and they always seemed to get good reviews.
I did try reading some of the amazon reviews but I’ve never really taken them too seriously as they either seem to be by people who are more concerned about asthetics or how they run with the latest armageddon game than how the damn things work, so I thought I would have a gamble and ordered this monitor – and boy – was I surprised. In a very good way…
It was very well boxed and protected, comes with an excellent stand, a puck and some excellent documentation plus a Cd with some software. I put it together quite quickly, plugged-in to the PC and wow…. the colour calibration on sRGB was almost perfect straight out of the box.
I am a full-time photographer and the monitor is attached to a PC with win 10, a Ryzen 5 CPU and a graphics card with 6GB of RAM. The only software on the PC is Photoshop, Bridge, Lightroom, Premier, Aurora HDR and Portrait Studio 19. Anything else I need or use is on another office PC. This monitor will be used as my main screen next to my Dell Ultrasharp, which is now my ‘second’ monitor for the palettes etc.
I haven’t used the puck as I see no need for it. It’s in a drawer somewhere. I honestly dont need it because once I have my monitor profile then that’s what i work with. I calibrate my monitors every two weeks using a Spyder X and use this PC for editing and nothing else. Once the monitor is calibrated there was a slight colour shift, but that shift was to bring the monitor into the gamut I use. The colours set at the factory were already good so if you dont have a monitor calibrator, you can get away with working straight out of the box. It really is that good.
This monitor is perfect for me because it provides accurate colour, doesn’t change any colours or tones over time, doesn’t get too hot, doesn’t have any dead pixels and doesn’t have any light bleed. It does everything its supposed yo do – perfectly and with consistency. The stand it great, too. Its got a good range of travel up and down so it’s really easy to tilt, swivel, raise or lower the screen. Also, the USB connections and the cable connections are on the side of the monitor – which I thought strange at first, but have come to accept that this is where the sockets should be located as they are easy to get to, with no more scrabbling around underneath the monitor to plug something in or remove a cable. Take a note other manufacturers – BenQ have the perfect place for sockets…
I now want my Dell to hurry up and die so that I can buy another BenQ and have two perfectly matched monitors side-by-side because it’s BenQ all the way for me now. I’ve tried Dell, and they’re good and long lasting, but they’re maybe too expensive. And I’ve also tried Samsung, but all they’re good for is office computers or gaming. As a photographer who spends most days pushing pixels around a screen, the BenQ is a perfect monitor. It’s a photographers monitor which does all a photographer could ask for – with consistency, reliability and at an affordable price.
What more could I ask for…?
Just what I was looking fo
Needed a monitor for colour grading, editing and so on…this one was within my budget and I’m happy with it! Nice colour out of the box, and works fine for occansional gaming – there’s a response time setting that seems to work well enough
Best value 2K monitor on the market
Great quality n, real RGB colours ,so happy with the price & quality of this monitor
highly recommended for any creative. I use it for photo editing & I know im getting my colours right with this monito
This is a review of the BenQ PD3200U 4K screen.
I decided on this monitor because of the screen specification and the ergonomic functionality. I really like the control puck for navigating the on-screen setup menus for the monitor, which makes changing settings much easier and the ability to program the buttons to act as hot-keys for certain functions (such as changing the selected display input) is great. This monitor also has eco functions for blanking the display whilst you’re away and is configurable or can be switched off. All the controls you need for adjusting the display settings for calibration using a colorimeter are there in the on-screen menus.
The built-in KVM is very useful and convenient as it allows me to switch between my desktop PC and laptop docking station which are both connected to the monitor, with my keyboard and mouse connected to the Benq’s KVM USB ports. My keyboard is an old cream-coloured Dell clicky-type with PS2 connection that I’ve kept for about 20 years because it still works and is great to type on compared with modern keyboards, so I’m using a StarTech PS2-to-USB adaptor to connect it to the Benq and it works fine. The mouse is a fairly old wireless Logitech one whose USB dongle is also connected to the Benq and it also works fine.
The screen is excellent (it comes with a calibration results printout from the factory) and appears have acceptably uniform brightness (I displayed a mid-gray image full screen in a dark room), it also calibrates very well with an X-Rite Display Pro colorimeter and needed no adjustments. I guess I could use DisplayCal software with the Display Pro to more accurately test the uniformity but so far I haven’t done so.
The large work area you get with the 32″ screen is great and the detail is pin sharp. Whilst the bundled Display Pilot software is welcome for making it quick and easy to configure the display, I only really used the display partition functionality to ‘snap’ application windows to predefined areas of the screen, but now that functionality is provided by the latest Fancy Display Powertoy included in Windows 10 so I hardly use the Benq software. The full coverage of the sRGB gamut is enough for me (I don’t require full AdobeRGB coverage as I’m not a pro photographer using AdobeRGB devices such as printers) and the 30 bit colour support is nice to have, though I won’t be seeing the benefit of that until I upgrade my venerable PC’s GPU or (more likely) build a new PC with a GPU supporting 10 bit colour per channel.
I’ve read some reviews and articles that say this monitor has an issue where the screen blanks for a few seconds intermittently when used in 4K – I didn’t encounter that at all until last week when editing photos in DXO Photolab 3 on my MS Surface Pro 4 connected to an MS Surface Dock. It didn’t happen outside of using DXO PL so I don’t know if it’s the same issue that others have described with certain graphics cards. If you spend a lot of time using the Benq for working intensively with photo editing/processing, then the screen-blanking (if it occurs with your GPU) may be an issue. One thought I’ve had is that I’ve only encountered it since enabling the eco power-saving function to automatically blank the screen whilst I’m not in front of it, so I’m wondering if that’s the issue in my case?
The sum up, this is a great screen for creative work where your output is in the sRGB colour space, it’s solidly built, of good quality, has ample connectivity and the built-in KVM works well, BUT, if the eco-function kicks in and the screen blanks, the monitor will soon auto-power off and the KVM and USB hub will stop functioning – this that happens it presents a few significant problems:
1. If your PC is in sleep mode you can’t use the keyboard or mouse to wake it up.
2. Any USB devices such as disks will be abruptly disconnected from the PC.
The only other negative that comes to mind is that the built-in speakers are a bit tinny and prone to distortion at high volume, but I didn’t choose the Benq 3200U for it’s sound quality.
Good monitoring with the features I was after.
Bought this as a second monitoring for work-from-home activities after my old Ilyama gave up the ghost.
A large selection of connectors from hdmi(1), DVI, D-sub and Display port.
I was also after a monitoring that would rotate 90 degrees which is great for document reviews/reading.
Colour quality looked great without any modifications out of the box, but still need to investigate / play around.
Not used heavily for gaming yet as been a bit too busy, but from a quick outlook is more than capable for my gaming needs (single player non-mmorpg).
Simply put, the best monitor I have owned or even seen in nearly 50 years of computing.
I am running it from two computers :
A. Older home build with i7-4930 and a pair of GTX760 driving DisplayPort
B. DELL Workstation with 20 thread XEON and NVidia Quadro P5000 driving DisplayPort
I have both connected by DisplayPort cables to the DP and mDP sockets on the PD3200U. Switching between them is very easy with the OSD and even easier when you attach the Input function to one of the three programmable switches on the front lower bezel. I’m also using the USB part of the KVM switch to share one keyboard and one Microsoft wireless bluetrack mouse between the two computers, and switch over is faultless between the two.
The monitor has effectively a four port USB 3.0 hub, the input of which can be programmed to be either computer A or computer B. The display input and the KVM usb input are switched separately with the OSD (display first, then usb). The USB KVM switching is also programmable onto one of three custom touch buttons, so the whole changeover between two working machines is much easier than I have made it sound!. you also have another two USB 3.0 ports free which attach through the KVM to the currently selected machine, which are very useful. There’s an SD card socket next to the USB ports which is also (you guessed it) switched to the currently selected PC/USB. As far as I can see it is so far bombproof. I’ve tried all combinations of PC;s being off or asleep or awake, and all situations are handled fine. Be aware of the “USB Awake” function under the OSD “System” menu. It sets USB power to remain off or on when the monitor is asleep. It defaults to OFF, so you may well want to change it to ON if you are using the KVM at all seriously.
The Display itself is breathtaking. Pin sharp at 3840×2160 32bit colour, with an excellent colour rendention they feel able to supply you with an individual calibration chart for. It locks onto a PC very quickly when switched between PC’s. I can see zero dead pixels on a bright display, and zero “always on” pixels on a dark screen. I also haven’t yet noticed any backlight bleedthrough when the room is darkened.
If you want an all round monitor to give you a great picture on anything from CAD through graphics to watching video clips or browsing, you really don’t need to look any further. It’s completely at home with any of those situations. There is also a “darkroom” function for dimming the display and changing the colour balance when the lights are off, which works very well. I’m not a gamer, but I don’t think this would be first choice as a gaming monitor for an enthusiast, as it doesn’t do higher sync frequencies or G-SYNC or Freesync type functions.
The OSD is easy to use, having five touch buttons for function which turn into <, >, V, ^ and OK after selecting a menu function. The function attached to the first three switches is up to you, they are programmable from many different available functions. . There is an interesting “hockey puck” which is a “wire & plug” connected device, about 60mm in diameter which will nest in the base of the stand or can be put anywhere on your desk. It has three programmable switches again, and Back switch in a quadrant around the top, then an inner quadrant of four switches to select up, down, left and right on menus, and a final OK button in the center. An unusual addition, but could be handy, especially if you can’t find the monitor OSD switches in the dark!.
The inputs are conveniently placed in three different places on the 32 inch PD3200U. There is a large shallow box on the rear of the monitor enclosure. Looking though the monitor from the front, the main AC power socket is on the left bottom edge of this box, with a power on/off hard switch next to it. On the middle/right lower edge is an audio line input and some of the USB connections. There are the two USB hub inputs (USB Upstream 1 & 2), and the first two USB 3.0 hub outputs. There is also the connector for the “Hockey puck”. On the right hand side of the box, top to bottom) are the four display input connectors, HDMI1, HDMI2, DisplayPort and mini DisplayPort. Then there is another small box on the rear of the enclosure. On it’s rightmost edged, from to bottom, it has the SDCARD reader, the last two USB 3.0 hub ports, and audio out for driving external speakers of headphones. The monitor also has internal speakers which are very clear. In summary of the connections to help plan you wiring – as you sit at the monitor, the main AC “kettle” socket is low left. Mid to right are two USB 3.0 “hub” inputs and two of the four hub outputs. They all emerge pointing down. On the right, half way up, and emerging to your right, are the four display input signals. At low right, and emerging right, are the SDcard socket, 2 more USB 3.0 sockets and Audio out. These are conveniently at the edge of the monitor for easy access for inserting pen drives etc.
I can’t praise this high enough. It’s the best 600ukp I ever spent and the best monitor I have used. There’s 200ukp worth of DisplayPort/USB 3.0 KVM thrown in there too. The only thing that surprised me rather than disapointed me was that the five function switches at the bottom right bezel are touch switches and not mechanical switches as the apeared in the literature. And one small thing that again is a shame rather than a disappointemnt, is that there are three prommable switches not four. Would would have allowd shotcuts for dusplay selection and usb connection. beteer still would have been the ability to bind two commands to one key, so then just two switched would select all of display and usb or machine A or machine B.
A superb monitor for 600ukp which I doubt you would better with 1000ukp.
Opticia
Great for graphics/photo work
Used for graphics/photo work on a WIN10 desktop.
Pros; sturdy base, colour accurate, built in USB hub, plenty of video input options, no edge bleeding or dead pixels.
Cons; mediocre speakers (if that is important to you)
Overall; good value at this price point happy to recommend
Looks fantastic.
I don’t game so can’t comment on that. I do edit photos and videos and this screen is just lovely. Being able to turn it to a portrait stance is a actually incredibly handy, especially for editing for a mobile phone.
Probably the best all-purpose monitor around
Cannot fault this product. For the price it’s probably the best all-purpose monitor around. Don’t do gaming though so no idea what it’s like for that.
So impressed with this that I am getting another to replace my ageing Dell, which is same resolution but 4″ bigger.
I compared this screen side-by-side with the BenQ EW3270U. It is worth the extra money.
The picture quality is mindblowingly good. This was particularly apparent when comparing side-by-side with the otherwise excellent ED3270U.
The key thing that’s worth paying for with the PD3200U is that it’s an IPS screen. It makes a huge difference. Because the monitor is so large, your viewing angle into the centre of the screen is quite different from your viewing angle to the edge of the screen. This means that it’s important the colours/brightness don’t differ that much with viewing angle. The IPS screen delivers this. Sitting directly in front of the screen, slightly above or below it, or to the left or the right, the whole screen looks uniform across its whole area. This was not the case with the ED3270U which is a TN panel.
The PD3200U is ideal for design work as it covers 100% of the sRGB gamut and is colour accurate with top-notch factory calibration. This makes a noticable difference. Not a single colour is over- or undersaturated, too bright or too dark. Your design work appears to you exactly as it should. With the ED3270U, colours were noticably different — in particular much greener.
For entertainment, the monitor is also pretty fantastic. Other monitors that don’t care so much about colour accuracy may shunt around the gamut so that games and films seem to pop even more. But frankly I don’t need them to pop any more than they were meant to pop. They already look brilliant on this monitor. Personally I could only spot a minor difference at all between this monitor, on its normal setting at 50% brightness, and the ED3270U monitor in 10bit HDR mode (on HDR content).
The PD3200U also comes with a media card reader (useful) and USB 3.0 hub (useful) which can be switched between two computers (maybe useful?). The ED3270U has none of these — a minor point, but you will probably end up having to buy a card reader and USB hub separately, so that is an extra hidden cost there. One thing I will note: the Hotkey Puck is useless. Either you store it on the stand, placing it further away than the front-panel buttons (so why would you reach further for it?); or you keep it closer, cluttering your desk with a windy mess of cable. If they had been smart enough to make it wireless, it might have had a use potentially.
The stand is extremely sturdy and well made, and allows for a lot of flexibility in positioning. However, I am 6ft2in and found it couldn’t rise high enough for me, so I mounted it on a separate VESA mount. I will note here that the provided bolts are already screwed in place (confused me for a moment) and actually aren’t long enough to go through a VESA mount and form a solid connection, due to a slightly poor countersunk design. I found it necessary to swap in my own M4 15mm bolts. It now hangs well from an Ergotron LX arm — but note, this monitor is heavy, so you will need to adjust the tension (and don’t go for any flimsy arm).
Overall, this is the more expensive monitor, but for what you are getting the price feels like good value. In my opinion, once a screen is this big, viewing angle becomes a major issue and so that means only an IPS will cut it. You will notice the difference.
I’m a photographer and bought this display to edit my pictures on as I need a colour accurate display that can display 100% of the sRGB colour space. What a monitor this is. The colours are incredible and the resolution is fab, resulting in a sharp, accurate image, which is exactly what I wanted. It even came with a calibration report from Benq, showing how close the display is to being fully accurate, which I was very impressed with. I would recommend this to all photographers out there!
EU power lead?
It is a very nise monitor! Easy to assemble and nice bild quality.
The only issue I have with mine is that it came with EU power lead (which is not a big deal)
Apart from that, everything is perfec
This monitor is, simply put, a truly excellent buy… if what you’re after is exceptional image quality with QHD (2560×1440) resolution, combined with a robust frame and stand.
I wanted a bigger monitor so l tried a 43″4k Sony TV (which l loved) and also this monitor. I had both on my desk side to side for almost a month. I compared both items, found the trade offs and picked the one that suited best my needs.
I’ll start by telling you who this monitor isn’t for: FPS gamers who pursue refresh rates higher than 60Hz, or users in general who prefer unrealistic ‘pop up’ colors.
For those of you who value ‘quality of image’ above everything else, and a premium, solid feeling to your monitor and stand, I dearly and absolutely recommend this monitor.
But if you want to find out more about it and what made me buying it, then please keep reading the review.
I didn’t know much about what make a good monitor until l bought this one. I’m this type of people who read it all (and l mean it) about the technology and reasons that makes a product better than the other. So l spend around 2 weeks reading everything l found about TVs, different panels and human perception (mostly sight).
This monitor has a QHD, VA, 10 bits panel. The Sony TV l compared it with had an 4k, IPS, 8 bits panel. Here, for most users the greatest features to look at is the resolution and panel type. No doubt the Sony TV was slightly sharper, which was noticeable (it had higher DPI), but then its colors were unrealistic (like too flashy) and its contrast was very rudimentary, basically black then white and nothing in between. Conversely, the Benq image is perfectly sharp (exactly equal to Full HD on 24″ for reference), the colors are much realistically represented and more importantly, the higher contrast offers a vast array of ‘shades of gray’ so it goes from black to grey1, grey2, greyN, white.
If you aren’t familiar with good image quality as it was my case, you’ll only notice the difference once you have a static dark image and you look at it in different TVs/monitors. Only then you realize the vast amount of information that gets lost in your favorite movies, games or pictures. The difference is truly, really ‘day and night.’
So, even though l fell in love with the Sony 4k TV, its 43″ and what not, l just couldn’t give away the absolutely superior image quality of the Benq, so the Sony TV went back (l also wrote a review of this TV for those of you interested in using a 4k TV as daily computer monitor).
Who is this monitor for?
Those of you who use a professional monitor for daily office work or photo editing.
– For office work, the monitor offers 32″ of real estate, a ‘low blue light’ mode to take care of your eyes, a ‘light sensor’ that adjust the brightness to the room light (and works perfectly) and a robust stand to prevent the monitor wobble while you type. Trust me, it’s rock solid.
– For video/picture editing, the monitor offers excellent color reproduction, real blacks and l guess more importantly for you guys, Rec.709 and SRGB ‘factory calibrated’ color spaces.
– For general users (like me):
Do you watch your movies on your PC? Select Rec.709 color space and be ready to enjoy an amazing experience with a truthful color reproduction that won’t miss any detail in the darker shadows.
Do you enjoy games like “Alien Isolation,” “Metro series,” “Battlefield – night operations map,” and any other game set in dark environments? Then you’ll be up for a treat. You can turn off the lights and play in a pitch black room without having to worry about loss of contrast due to the lack of light (3000:1 is enough, trust me), ‘grayish blacks,’ or ‘light bleed.’
Overall, l would say there are to categories of monitors: IPS with unrealistic ‘pop up’ colors and VA with realistic ‘washed out’ colors. Pick the one you prefer. l often compared this to HI-FI gear where we find ‘colored’ audio reproduction and ‘neutral.’ l dislike colored sound and prefer neutral… same with my colors…
Bonus: the monitor has a little remote which allows you to set the different functions (e.g. Rec.709, ‘low blue light,’ etc.) easily by just pressing a button. l can’t state how useful this is and how much l love not having to go through the menu to find the functions l use daily.
Cons: l have only found one ‘fault’ to this otherwise exceptional monitor, which is the ‘stand by light,’ as mentioned by other reviewers. To this date you can’t set the stand by light to off while the monitor is in operation. l notified Benq which replied right away. l was told the information had been passed to the engineer team. l hope a firmware update can fix this issue. It is an issue because to add insult to injury, the light is white. So, when you watch a movie in a totally dark room, you have this white stand by light annoying you constantly (although l have personally comes to terms with it and l literally ignore it). A solution would be to put a piece of dark tape on it, but you don’t want your stylish monitor having an ugly sticker on it, do you? Come on Benq, we’re waiting for the icing on the cake.
When will l upgrade? Only when Benq offers the very same monitor at 4k (there is a 4k variant but it’s IPS). Or, a very exact model in 4k and 40/43″… Other than that l’m set for years since l know l won’t find anything better unless l got for a OLED TV (and these seem to have a ‘burn in’ problem when used as a PC monitor so…).
Please see the attached pictures of the aforementioned Sony TV (left, bigger) and this Benq monitor. Keep in mind you’ll likely won’t notice a great difference among the images since your monitor will likely not be able to reproduce those beautiful ‘shades of gray’ l mentioned before… Also, l did my best setting the camera manually to capture those differences but l only succeeded to a certain extent.
Ideal for astrophotography and why I don’t need an Adobe pallet monitor.
I don’t use Adobe software as it doesn’t give me the things I need for processing images that Pixinsight or MaxDL or Astro Pixel Processor does.
I also image using narrow band 5nm filters, Hydrogen-alpha H-a at 656.3 nm which is the Red end of spectrum. Sulphur SII at 671.6 nm which is also Red and Oxygen OIII at 500.7 nm which is the Blue part of the spectrum. I never image in the Green part of the spectrum. So bearing in mind the absence of Green, which in my images is only used as a false colour for either the Ha or Sii depending which pallet I fancy to produce an RGB image with,
I print in sRGB, I display my images online in sRGB, I think Chrome is the only web medium that properly displays the Adobe pallet . I send image files to my friends who have sRGB monitors and they also use sRGB for their image processing. Adobe colours also look awful on an sRGB display and your going have to change it to sRGB anyway if no one else has an Adobe monitor.
I don’t have a 10 bit graphics card to run my PD2700Q to its full potential as it is a true 10 bit display.
The GTX 1080 I use is only 8 bit and it works brilliantly…. But something to take into account with these monitors.
( An 8-bit image/output is 256 different shades/values per channel, That’s the 16.7 million….. A 10-bit image/output is 1,024 shades/values per channel. That’s the 1 Billion in the specs )
So I may get a true 10 bit graphics card later if I feel the need.
As for the monitor. I must admit I have never had an IP panel before. I’ve always used 24″ TN ones and never had any problems with them,. Reading reviews about IP panel glow, dead pixels, dodgy calibration out of the box made me think a long time before I hit the buy button.
I’m glad I did as this monitor is amazing, No glow, bad pixels, calibration out of the box is spot on, The software tuning is great to use, proper W10 monitor icc profile installed from drivers provided. I have no problem with the image scale in W10 as some have pointed out in reviews of this kind of monitor, I can read the words on screen easily without having to change the zoom.
The colour and uniformity of the display output is stunning, blows away the TN panels completely, everything looks fresher more vibrant with more depth, not washed out in any way from any angle your viewing the screen at. I just love using it and after 4-5 hours my eyes are not being pulled out of their sockets. 27″ is a lot of screen and very apparent with my 24″ sitting on either side of it.
The build quality is solid, The base is large without taking up a lot of desk space, it’s also metal and heavy so your not going to be getting screen wobble if you knock your desk, The tilt and swivel and rotate is smooth, height adjustment is a little tight, exactly as you need it to be or you will be chasing the right height forever.
The monitor is also very pleasing on the eye, I know that’s a strange thing to say, but your looking at it all the time so you don’t want distractions dragging your eye from the screen and wishing the thing wasn’t so in your face ugly.
All the cables you need to connect up to graphics card are supplied, I didn’t get the DP to DP cable just the mini DP one but that’s ok it works. Plus the USB cable for the built in ports,
I don’t use monitor USB hub as my computer has more than I use built in anyway.
As for the speakers and headphone socket, I have no idea, I don’t use them as I have a sound dock which is perfect,
I never saw the point of speakers or USB ports etc on a monitor and still don’t. but each to their own ideas.
The control buttons for adjusting on screen menu work fine, No problems in using them and the marks on right hand side bezel lines up with the on screen menu buttons, so your not pressing the wrong ones. If I do have a niggle it is with the control buttons, Why can’t they be put on the bottom bezel and at the front ???
So that’s my specific reason for buying this monitor. it may not be your reason. I hope it’s of some help in your choice.
A couple of things to think on.
For those who are having problems with screen flicker or monitor switching on and off after a certain time of use, Before you send it back for a refund. Check your graphics card is properly powered, as this will cause such problems. Change the lead to a new socket on your PSU or use a different connector to the card. Also make sure that your fans are not clogged with dust. They do pick up dust quickly. Also make sure your graphics card can run the monitor or dual/triple setup your looking to buy.
People who moan that the specs aren’t what they expected… Read the specification on manufacturers web site first not just the blurb on the page here….
I bought this to replace an LG 27in 4K monitor and I’m amazed! The colour accuracy is amazing! sRGB using the Mac OS colour profile makes your photos look so beautiful. They look like a national geographic book. I preferred it to the 4K monitor as that was always set at 1440p anyway since the text was too small. So basically this monitor is more useful, half the price and so accurate. We’ve got an LG 4K oled tv and the colours are as vibrant, accurate and natural. Buying another one! It’s the best monitor for day to day work I’ve ever seen…
Ordered this monitor beginning of December, and I have been using it daily with a MacBook Pro 15” Early 2013 since then.
I mostly use this monitor for photography (using lightroom and photoshop), some light 3D modelling and rendering (Maya w/arnold and renderman), and some video editing and motion graphics (After Effects, Premiere).
Other than that, I also use it to watch youtube videos, movies and series, and it does that perfectly in my opinion.
The Box contains everything you could ask for.
A USB cable that connects the computer with the monitor’s USB hub, and exntending the connectivity of my laptop, an HDMI cable and a miniDP to DP cable. In addition to that it also includes a little hook which can be attached tothe back of the monitor to use as a headphone hook, where you can hung your headphones.
The instructions were clear, as was the process itself. The monitor was ready for use within 5 mins.
At first when i tried connecting my macbook to the monitor, with the miniDP to DP, it wouldn’t allow me to choose a resolution over 1080p, and at first that was a bit worrying. But after trying the HDMI cable, everything worked perfectly.
The colours of the monitor are a bit different that what I can see on my Macbook screen, even with the pre-configured M-Book profile, which is supposed to replicate the way the macbook pro screen behaves, That is not an issue though, as I am now using the Benq primarily for any artistic work while I am at home, and most of my work is being done at home.
I am using it as the main display, and I am using the macbook’s screen as a secondary display having tutorials or podcasts playing on that.
The colours look great, and from what I have seen thus far, when I view something I edit on this monitor, on another screen, like my phone or a friends computer, the colours are much much closer than what I intended them to be, compared to when I was editing just on my laptop.
That saves me from some unpleasant surprises that I had in the past, with some colours looking a bit different than what I was seeing on my own screen.
The overall quality of the monitor is really top notch. It feels premium. The matte coating, for which I was a bit worried at first, because a lot of matte monitors that I have seen make the image look grainy. Thankfully that is not the case with this.
I would say it’s not very very matte, which I prefer since I prefer glossy monitors (maybe because I am so used to my glossy display on the macbook).
With that being said though, I find myself enjoying viewing a creating content on this monitor rather than the one on my macbook.
Another plus is the integrated speakers, which even though they are not the best quality around, they are clear enough for me, and most certainly they are louder than what I already had.
Some negative things about it in my opinion are the USB ports placements on the back side of the monitor, facing down. It makes it a bit difficult to plug something in without rotating the monitor and really trying to plug them in.
The second con is the lack of USB C.
Now I know that my current computer doesn’t have USB C, but since this monitor was released in 2017, it would be nice to be a bit more futureproof.
The negatives though, which I don’t really consider dealbreakers at all, are far outweighed by all the good things I mentioned about it.
Overall I believe this is a great 1440p monitor. I have no regrets purchasing this over the other monitors I was looking at purchasing like Dell U2518D, which I am sure is a good monitor as well.
But for my needs, this Benq is just perfect.
Good, but setup time could be shorter.
An excellent monitor. The only downside is that getting the picture 100% right takes quite a bit of fiddling in both the monitor’s settings and (in my case) Intel’s graphics controls.
what a great screen – easy to put together and setup, and it has all the common inputs, vga, dvi, hdmi and display port. The adjustments up/down tilt and swivel, and rotate into portrait are all finger light yet it’s stable and stays where you put it. The screen colours are bright without glare, and the OSD easy to use and navigate. Can’t fault it.