BenQ EL2870U 28 inch HDR 4K Gaming Monitor | Optimized for Gaming with Fastest 1ms Response Time

Theres a glut of cheap 4k monitors, and quite frankly so far they havent been very impressive. I picked this up for $450 on a cyber monday deal and after plenty of delays it finally arrived. Simply put, next to my LG panel IPS 27 1440p display and my ancient but sturdy Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW, its the weakest display. The resolution is fantastic. The size is great. The feature set is solid with multiple ports (I only need one but whatever) and USB 3.1c hub (sans some of the more extreme features like a SD card slot). FRC is nice, although it only supports 40hz-60hz meaning not an extreme range but still welcome. That said: Stick this next to a 27 inch iMac from yesteryear it looks cheap and its entirely due to the lack of uniformity on the panel. First theres the very striking "shadow" across the top 1/8inch of the screen. Then theres the color shift, no matter where you head is, just scanning across a uniform color shows the weakness of the panel as flat color looks anything but flat. . Fast scrolls also reveal the overzealous low latency correction (you can see bizarre ghosting of red on a white background as a yellow halo). Also strangely, Mac OS doesnt seem to want to detect the scaling resolutions, (not a big deal as you can option click the scaled resolutions). Precision color this is not. If youre not a discerning type, this probably is a "good enough" for many users although I find the color shift supremely annoying. Basically, if youre happy with this display, never stick it next to a quality display as youll become very unhappy with it. Also I couldnt seem to get in Windows 10-bit to work at 60 Hz, which makes me believe that its only available at 30 Hz. In any case, its not true 10 bit as its an 8-bit panel with FRC, meaning, it accepts the 10-bit color space and simulates colors by switching between nearest-neighbors in the 8 bit range between each cycle. Over all, though the monitor is much easier to assemble/disassemble which will make my return quick and easy. I guess you get what you pay for, the BenQ PD3200u even at $200 more than the EW3270Us current price seems like money supremely well spent. Its IPS or bust at the 32 inch size as its too easy to see the color shifting....

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Nice size display with good resolution and decent build quality, but Im returning it. We were looking to standardize on a high quality 4K monitor for use with the latest MacBook Pros and iMacs that have only USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 port for external displays. The specifications and price on this EW3270U looked good, and I called BenQ to confirm full compatibility of the USB-C with Macs . Unfortunately the monitor was a disappointment. I got past the rather confusing on-screen menu choices required to optimize the settings for our work and was immediately disappointed with the brightness of the BenQ. At maximum brightness it looks REALLY DULL & DIM when used next to the very bright, sharp retina display of any recent (2017+) 27 inch 5K iMac, especially in a well-lit room. The brightness alone would not have been enough to cause me to return the BenQ. We could have found a use for it, for example in a dimly-lit video editing bay. So I moved it to an iMac Pro... and immediately started having what appear to be USB-C related problems. Thunderbolt and USB-C HDs and SSDs that had been working just fine would now frequently fail to mount at boot time. The iMac Pro has four 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB-C connectors supporting 10 Gbps USB 3.1 and DisplayPort 1.2. My storage devices had their own USB-C ports and the BenQ had its own port, but with the BenQ connected the reliability of the drives was degraded. Its unlikely a cable issue. USB-C cable compatibility is a disaster, however at one point I tried replacing ALL the USB-C cables with costly certified full 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 cables that should support anything needed by either the BenQ Display or the external drives. The problems persisted. I have no BenQ software installed, so thats not causing the low-level panics It got worse. Shortly after moving the BenQ to the iMac Pro the iMac had the first of many low-level panics, which dumps your work and forces a reboot. This persists at random but frequent intervals and either stops or is drastically reduced when the BenQ is disconnected. It happened at least 30 times on the iMac Pro. When I moved the BenQ and a couple of external drives back to a 2017 5k 27" iMac THAT computer started to have panic restarts, although not nearly as frequently. BenQ support was polite and seemed reasonably knowledgeable, however they had little to say, no fix and seemed rather unconcerned. Given the USB-C problems and the disappointing lack of brightness this monitor just wasnt worth keeping. Were purchasing more LG 5K Thunderbolt / USB-C monitors that work fine with iMacs (including the iMac Pro) and MacBook Pros. Theyre only 27" and cost 2x the price of the BenQ. But theyre 100% compatible with our new Macs and the LGs have screens just as sharp and bright as the latest 5K iMacs and MacBook Pros.

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