BenQ EW2420 Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on October 13, 2011 12:00 AM ESTViewing Angles
With it’s VA panel, the BenQ looks better at off angle viewing than a TN display would, though not quite as good as an IPS panel can. Moving off-angle you begin to get an image that washes out a bit, but not the color shifts that are common to TN panels. Moving as little as 15-20% off to the side can lead to the loss of color so I would recommend keeping the monitor as close to lined up directly with your eyes as possible. The stand only has tilt adjust, so if you need height or swivel support to keep it in line, you might want to consider a different stand or mount that can use the 100mm VESA mounting holes.
Color Quality
With a VA panel and LED lighting, the BenQ EW2420 seemingly has everything in place to produce a very good image. Using the included profile, we find a Delta E (dE) of over 10 with the highest levels of error coming in the grayscale, where we least want them to occur.
Using ColorEyes Display Pro, we set our calibration target for a D65 white point, 2.2 gamma, and 200 nits of light output. We are using an i1Display2 meter for our measurements and making sure to give the display an hour to stabilize in readings. The BenQ EW2420 supports DDC controls so I attempted to calibrate using DDC and to calibrate manually using the RGB gain controls available to the user in Standard mode. The difference between the two methods resulted in a dE difference of 0.04, well within any margin of error, so I used the DDC mode since the results were as good, and the easier method is more likely to be used.
After calibration we see that the dE was moved from over 10 down to just over 2. A closer look at the individual calibration numbers show that the grayscale tracks very well at the points measured, and the colors in the GMB color checker that are producing most of the error are heavily weighted towards blue. Additionally one of the samples in the GMB color checker, a shade of cyan, falls outside of the sRGB gamut so monitors that can’t do the AdobeRGB color space are always going to produce a large error on that sample.
Blue color errors are both preferable to other color errors as our eyes are less sensitive to them than to errors in red or green. This is another reason to pay close attention to the detailed breakdown of the dE number and not just focus on the overall number.
With 100 nits, we see very similar performance, though the dE in the grayscale goes up at the lower end of it. As mentioned before, this could be due in part to darker output levels than the 200 nits result leading to measurement errors.
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Lyrick_ - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
They're perfect with swivel, I could not function without it. 16:9 for media consumption and gaming. 9:16 for document reading and developing.16:10 is going away, hopefully forever.
TegiriNenashi - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
"16:10 is going away, hopefully forever. "People would eventually get tired looking the world through short embrasure even faster than they got bored with 3:4. Many people living rooms have limited widths to the only way for TVs to go bigger is getting more height.
kmmatney - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
16:10 is still better for gaming.TegiriNenashi - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
For me ideal AR is 16:11 -- compromise between 4:3 and 16:10. Thank you hollywood for ridiculous letterbox (2.55:1!). F..king "Director Artistic Intent"IceDread - Friday, October 14, 2011 - link
16:10 is superior for work and gaming so yeah.IceDread - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
I appreciate anandtech continues testing of screens and that input lag is tested.However, it's really annoying with all these small screens.. I really would like to see more 30" screens on the market! This is of course nothing you can do something about, I'm just frustrated that my dream 120 Hz 16:10 30" is still no where near the market. Not even a small 16:9 30" 120 Hz screen...
JarredWalton - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
The market appears to be abandoning 30" now and going for 27" 2560x1440 displays -- and ironically, the 27" panels cost just as much or more than some of the older 30" displays! As for your dream of a 120Hz 30" LCD, that's a difficult thing to provide, as you need more bandwidth than even dual-link DVI can provide. I'm not even sure of DisplayPort can send that much data, but I suppose using two DL-DVI links to drive the panel might be possible. Problem there is that you'd have to have some form of new connector, or use two DVI connectors on a graphics card, and I'm not convinced everything would work out well if we go that route (e.g. driver bugs and such).cheinonen - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
Technically DisplayPort 1.2 has just enough bandwidth to do 2560 x 1600 x 30 bits x 120 Hz, but I'm not sure when we would see such a beast. I'd love to get a look at one if someone wanted to make it though. It seems that moving to 16:9 from 16:10 is more cost effective for the manufacturers, even if we aren't really seeing that being passed along to the consumer.ggathagan - Friday, October 14, 2011 - link
The only reason that 16:9 is more cost effective than 16:10 is due to consumers .If buyers stayed away from 16:9 panels, they would not be so prevalent in the market.
This is one of many markets that rely on buyers' lack of discrimination.
Zolcos - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
The most frustrating thing about the lack of higher res 120hz monitors is that the technology has been around for some time now.- Anandtech reviewed a 120hz 1080p LCD over a year ago
- 120hz at resolutions higher than 1200p requires DisplayPort 1.2, and AMD video cards supporting it have been around for a year.
The tech is not only available, but in gamers' rigs right now. If only someone would actually make a true 120hz lcd at some 16:10 or 4:3 resolution greater than 1200p I'd drop 2 grand on it right now, I don't even care about the color accuracy.