BenQ XL2720T Gaming Monitor Reviewed
by Chris Heinonen on June 17, 2013 4:35 PM ESTLooking at the white uniformity of the BenQ XL2720T, we see a large drop-off in the upper left, and another drop on the right side that isn’t quite as drastic. I like to see everything stay within 5% of the center value ideally, which means 180-220 nits if the center is at 200 nits, but this one measurement drops down to 167 nits and is clearly darker. The right side only drops down to 172 nits, but that is still fairly low. Most of the display stays within that 5% threshold, but on the edges it has an issue.
With the black uniformity, we see some bright corners on the left side, and the surrounding numbers are much lower than they are, and with an all-black screen it is quite easy to tell the difference. The center actually has the highest black level of anywhere other than that one bright corner.
The contrast uniformity on the display varies by a lot. The center comes in at 795:1 (not quite the 820:1 we measured earlier, but the black reading changing by as little as 0.001 nits can influence this highly), but the rest of the monitor swings from as low as 754:1 to as high as 946:1. With contrast ratio higher is going to be better, but looking at the chart really shows that the overall uniformity of the white and black levels on the BenQ isn’t ideal.
The grayscale uniformity shows this as well. The center is still quite good, coming in at a dE2000 of 0.92. The reason for the higher value here than on the calibration page is that uniformity testing uses 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% values, not 0-100% in 5% increments. Since the 0% value is the highest, it has added weight here, but doing uniformity testing with all 21 values would be unreasonably time consuming to do. We see that the dE2000 rises up to 3.46 in that hot-spot on the left side of the screen, and has a few other areas above 2.0 as well. Most of the screen is still good, and as I said these numbers might be lower if I measured 21 points per location, but that’s still a large difference on the display.
With the colorchecker uniformity, we see the same issues, only worse. Since the colorchecker starts with a higher error than the grayscale, we see that many points on the screen have managed to rise above 3.0, which is considered not visible to the human eye when in motion. We also see that corners are measuring really well, while the center of the screen is further off. This is a bit strange, but overall the uniformity isn’t as strong as with other displays.
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Panzerknacker - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Yes they did, TN panels just produce such mediocre image quality that there is no immersion anymore of any kind. Lighting effects are just colored spots on a TN, black levels are non existant, if you move from CRT to TN you will just give up on gaming, trust me. Plasma is the best of the currently available displays, good respons and superior image quality, but they start at 40 inches which is too big and you cannot comfortable use them for still images such as desktop due to burn in problems.qiplayer - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
See my 5800x1080 fast gaming on youtube channel qiplayer. Im here looking for 120hz, I actually own 3 asus ve278, the image is great the only downside is blur image when moving fast. But whatch the vid, you'll see that you can actually game quite fast also on 60hz monitors.bji - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
The retina display in my macbook pro looks better than any CRT I ever saw, hands down.Also I put an older Mitsubishi Diamondtron 21 inch next to a fairly old Dell 24 inch IPS panel and I didn't find that I favored one over the other.
BillyONeal - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
The retina is an IPS panel, so I don't see what point you're trying to make here.A5 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
You must only be remembering the good CRTs. Bad CRTs were really, really bad.Not to mention heavy, power inefficient, giant bezels, expensive, etc. I sure as hell wouldn't be able to afford 2 1080p+ CRT monitors, and they probably wouldn't fit on my desk, either.
mdrejhon - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Panzerknacker, have you tested LightBoost? Google "LightBoost:They give you perfect CRT quality sharp motion on an LCD:
-- Fast panning as perfectly sharp as stationary images.
-- I can read text even during fast scrolling
zehoo - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Perhaps you should try one of the Korean IPS or PLS 2560x1440 panels that overclock to 120hz if you want better colour reproduction than a TN panel while still having low input latency (models with OSD bypass) and a decent refresh rate. I haven't been able to go back to a 1080 TN 120hz panel since using one.Of course 120hz TN lightboost hack panels is where it's at for the moment if you need low input latency and fast refresh rates for competitive gaming. The trade off being superior colours. By the way I moved from CRT to LCD and didn't stop gaming. Though I only moved when 120hz TN panels first became available.
EnzoFX - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Processing lag. I would think this would still be #1 priority for a gamer. I'm surprised it's so high.Guspaz - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
The first page is called "INTRODUCTION, DESIGN AND SPECS", but there are no specs on the page. I don't even see any mention of the resolution. Is it 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1440, 2560x1600? There should be a table on this page listing all the details: manufacturer, model, size, resolution, panel type, price, inputs, etc.metril - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
The first thing I looked for was the monitor resolution and other necessary information. I found nothing. How am I supposed to trust this review if none of the relevant information is presented?