The BenQ EW2420: Too good to be true?

Thanks for your valuable input NCX :). Really, whichever way you look at it, the EW2420 is a great buy for the price. I am actually finding as I use it more that the lack of responsiveness is becoming easier and easier to ignore. There are times when the 'smokey trails' occur - like in the example you gave of particularly dark objects (zombies) moving against a lighter background (daytime scene). One such scenario I encountered recently was on Arma2: Opreration Arrowhead in the dark desert. I did notice the trailing and thought 'ah well'... But somebody opened up with a machinegun and filled the night sky with green tracer fire. That is, in a not at all sad way, the most beautiful visual I've seen on a game and it is largely due to the excellent contrast of this thing - seeing as I have recently used a Samsung XL24 and a high-end CRT as well I think that is saying something.
 
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Trifid - to aid your decision (or perhaps hamper it slightly) I have had confirmation from BenQ that the BL2400T has a more aggressive matte anti-glare coating. I can tell you that one of the reasons the colours are so lovely and vivid on this thing are from the semi-gloss coating. Less light is absorbed in this layer and you don't get that same 'grainy' effect - that's not to say the BL2400T won't give exellent visuals, it's just that I am really liking the EW2420's coating. It seems similar to something I have seen on Samsung OLED prototypes and I'm sure it's this way for emissivity reasons.
 
bigjimmyauk said:
NCX&PCM2 i don't have a calibration eye could you recommend some settings for the EW2420 i'm picking it up at dinner time and don't want to spend hours trying to get the setting right.

and first port of call is the langom test page to check for dead pixels lol
Click to expand...

I'm afraid too much depends on the individual unit you have to recommend any settings. I can see that my unit behaves, by default, very differently to NCX's panel. There's also the issue of preference which to be honest is the most important aspect of 'tweaking' - if you need critical colour accuracy then a proper calibration is a must. For entertainment purposes and my general enjoyment of the monitor (which is what it is for) I found on my unit that the colours were surprisingly well balanced once the contrast was raised to 58 (from default 50) and brightness lowered to 68 (from default 100). This does result in a fairly bright image and if I'm working late at night I do lower the brightness accordingly.

@crackerbear.

Whichever monitor you go for you will be left wondering what you're missing out on. The contrast and colour reproduction of this is noticeably better than any other panel I've used of this price (i.e. TN panel) whilst the responsiveness is noticeably worse. Having said that the responsiveness is becoming less and less of an issue as I use the screen more and more - I don't ever adjust to the contrast and colours of a TN panel in the same way, I'll say that much.

I have been gaming quite a lot on this recently (partly to try to get used to it and of course partly for the sake of the review). I usually do enough gaming to be good at the games I play and therefore I demand a capable system overall (including monitor) - but I haven't found the EW2420 detrimental to my in-game ability at all.
 
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So you're happy then? By the way I am probably going to keep my EW2420. You know how fussy I am so this should say something about the quality to price ratio we are talking about here. :D
 
That sounds good. I often find the colour balance to be out of kilter on LED-backlit monitors (far too cool - a strong blue tint) but this is the first LED-backlit monitor I've used that hasn't suffered from this. Compared to my recently calibrated CRT reference display there is no noticeable tint either way. I have found that individual panel variation can play a significant role in this though - it's always recommended to try your own settings and see what works for you and your monitor. I remember reviewing two XL2370s a few months apart and one of them suffered a slight blue tint whereas the other an insanely high blue tint with a little too much green too. You may want to try setting the gamma to "2.0" instead of "2.2" and see if that pleases you (it can be a quick fix on some monitors).

Absolutely agree about the semi gloss coating - think it's a great 'compromise' although I don't really see it as a compromise but rather... Progress ;).
 
Haha... I don't know why mine was so well colour-balanced out of the box. Must have been lucky. You can go to the 'Picture' bit of the OSD, then go on 'Color' and then change 'Color Temperature' to 'User Mode'. Observe the default values (R= 88, G=88, B=84) and then set them in user mode so that blue is a little lower and perhaps red and green is raised a bit. If you want a quick fix that's a bit less confusing you might try setting the gamma mode to '2.0' instead of '2.2' - this is accessible in the picture menu.
 
Thanks for the review it's very good to see :).

I would just like to pick up on a point you made -

"going to this webpage http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php also opening up a second tab with googles homepage on there. Now switch to the langom test page,wait 10 seconds then switch tabs to google homepage and you will see the 15 black boxes from the langom page drift away on the google page. I timed this 5 times and made a average of the time it took for googles homepage to become white again. The average time was 2.1 seconds remember that is an extreme example of black to white transition."

I've done that several times myself and the transition is almost instantaneous. It is supposed to take this monitor 25ms for a white-black-white transition so if it's taking 2100 milliseconds to go from black-grey to white and you see afterimages that's something else (not the monitor). I can't think what exactly it could be but I don't get that on my system.

P.S. Check out the second post here http://www.pcmonitors.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21&p=81#p81
 
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You could send it back under DSR, claim a refund and get it from somewhere else or alternatively claim it as a fault. It's usually easier and quicker to just send it back under DSR as it is the law and you can't wriggle away from it as a company (it overrides any external conditions set by the company - but you need to contact them within 7 days of purchase).
 
Have you also installed the driver that came on the CD? I don't think that a hardware calibration would really help. He has tried all hardware settings under the OSD and if the gamma curve is tweaked using ICC that's no good for his gaming.
 
"I'm not sure why you would be viewing your monitor from this angle. Because if you are you are a retard and should be shot"... Haha - quote of the day. Lovely video review there (but I see what you mean about the backlight bleeding on your unit).

@doc.

I have used plenty of broad-gamut units. The colours on this are obviously not THAT vibrant because this is a standard gamut unit. The colours are still very vibrant for a standard gamut screen, due partly to the semi-gloss screen and of course excellent contrast. I am fairly sure from your description of this 'haze' that your monitor has a gamma issue. Do you get a sense of Deja vu reading the following? http://www.pcmonitors.org/monitor-reviews/dell-st2320l

If so don't waste any more time - send it back on Monday before it's too late. And just to check - you aren't sitting off-centre (to the right of the screen in particular) are you?
 
I couldn't stand that on the ST2320 and even mentioned that it could've just been my individual unit. But I was only marking what I had seen in my own unit and the score at the end suffered badly because of it.
 
No I completely agree. I don't think NCX (or myself for that matter) is reviewing this monitor from anything other than an entertainment point of view. I have already commented in my draft on the gamma shift issue as for many people out there this will be a problem. And kmetek it is 'semi-glossy' (closer to matte than glossy) - don't confuse people.
 
Hang on.. You got it from an individual? Well this shouldn't change things anyway.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/bus...ral/oft698.pdf

Quote that URL and let him know that it is made abundantly clear throughout the document that a consumer must be able to try out a product (as they would be allowed during face-to-face sales in a shop) - this is the whole point of the distance selling regulations.

Paragraph 3.58 in particular -

"Can I insist that consumers who cancel an order within the
cancellation period return the goods as new or in their
original packaging

No. Consumers are under a duty to take reasonable care of the goods
while in their possession as discussed in paragraph 3.44. The DSRs
allow consumers to examine goods they have ordered as they would
in a shop. If that requires opening the packaging and trying out the
goods then they have not breached their duty to take reasonable
care of the goods. In these circumstances you cannot insist that
consumers return the goods as new or in their original packaging.
You may ask consumers to return goods with the original packaging,
but you cannot insist on this."
 
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Well I'm comparing it to the majority of screens I've just reviewed (which are IPS), a high-end CRT and a monitor with a coloured LED backlight array - and it's damn good.
 
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The replacement could be a new screen - but if you're not sure...

I did say acting under DSR would be quicker - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17682898&postcount=158.

It isn't too late to do so - just say you are not happy with the unit and quote the specific paragraphs we referred to a few posts above. By law, they are required to give you a refund. You will have to cover the postage costs but I'd advise this as the quickest route by the sounds of things.
 
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