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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metril - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Now that others have pointed out, I see the 1080p tag. I agree that a table would have been beneficial. I guess, I'm so used to see tables like in the other reviews that I've come to expect one in any review. It provides a quick overview before I go and read the review. Nonetheless, thanks for the review. :)brucek2 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
The list of tags right under the article's title includes "1080p", and then there's the discussion on the next to last page how all current 120hz monitors are 1080.Of course the table is a good idea. I feel like there usually is one? Maybe something got lost in the editorial pipeline?
thwaak - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
I agree, this was a major oversight. I had to skim the article till the second last page to determine that it was 1080p, and even then it's really not even directly stated.Rob94hawk - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Yeah had to read it a few times to figure out what the resolutions was.r3loaded - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Are there any 120Hz IPS monitors? I'm sure many people would want one.jackstar7 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Overlord is one of the places you can get the closest thing to 120Hz IPS (at 1440p). Takes some gfx horsepower, but is worth it.Rob94hawk - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
No offense but 2560x1440, 2560x1600 gaming is where it's at. Reviewing a 1080p monitor is like reviewing socket 775 all over again.birru - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
That's a complete exaggeration. High resolution gaming is awesome, and there's real value there, but 1080p is absolutely relevant. Especially when you factor in trying to maintain 120fps or 144fps to keep up with these high refresh LCDs while avoiding tearing. Even with my GTX 780 I've found that with some recent titles I have to scale back the eye candy a touch to keep the experience at a solid 60fps. And that's at 1080p. So with a top of the line single GPU you'd certainly have to reduce visual fidelity a bit more at higher resolutions. And of course it gets worse with triple screens if you want to go that route. 3x1080p is feasible with one GPU. 3x1440p and you're looking at SLI or Crossfire.Resolution costs money; how sharp do you want to go?
sxr7171 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Same issue here. 780GTX and I need to turn settings down in Crysis 3. This is at 1080p. Can't imagine how that would work out at 1600p. I guess SLI is a must with those resolutions along with all the problems.brucek2 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Per Steam, 1080p and under is something like 98%+ of all gamers (and this is billed as a "gaming monitor" review.)Sure I'd expect that the percent of newly purchased monitors may be somewhat higher, but I bet it's still well south of 10%.