Finally, less time means better performance. Nathan Davis gets excited.
The plastic 2W speaker set that clips under the monitor is an interesting addition, with above average quality sound given the small size of the speakers. Nonetheless, for spitting out anything other than Windows sounds, like tada.wav, we'd suggest grabbing something else for total aural satisfaction.
A nifty USB port placed directly at the top of the monitor provides a prominent placement for the BenQ webcam capable of 640 x 480 at 15fps (or 30fps at 320 x 240).
The screen itself is beautifully clear and sharp and with a great viewing angle of 140° there's no lack of audience provisions. However, reds seem highly sensitive to blurring if set high enough with the default 'reddish' setting. This was easily fixed by tweaking the custom colour range settings. For an LCD screen, black representation is superb. However, backlight consistency over the screen varies slightly with a thin region situated at the top.
We did find one problem with the phase control. In particular, you have to make a trade-off between whites/yellows and blues/greens, because it was necessary for one or the other to be a tad noisier than the other.
Speaking of pixels, BenQ will only replace the display if there's a defect pixel in the centre ninth of the screen - or a minimum of eight defects elsewhere. Be sure to pick a good one.
Overall this baby has to be the brightest TFT monitor we've looked at. Sitting in at 300cd/m2, even when boosted to full, it retains its crisp colours thanks to the 500:1 contrast ratio. Our obligatory gaming tests produced very pleasing results, with impressively vibrant colours and no visible blurring.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012