Ray F.
I do not have access to calibration tools, so this review is based on some Lagom tests and my eye perception. Technical details can be found on the BenQ official website. The good: - solid and fully adjustable stand, not wobbly at all. - lighter and thinner than BenQ BL2710. Looks almost the same as AOC Q2770, except for the glossy bezel. - light AG-coating, pictures are clear and crisp without the somewhat annoying reflection on my old Acer H236 (full glossy). I do notice very minor amount of cross-hatching when moving my head, but its definitively much less severe than some older monitors with heavy matte coating. Most people probably wont notice it at all. (9/3/14 update: it seems that the cross-hatch effect is only present within 10 minutes of usage. After that, I cannot defect any cross-hatch. So maybe the artifact is related to monitor warming up?) - full array of inputs. HDMI works for 1440p! - 8-bit color (10-bit via dithering) reduces banding compared to my old Acer H236. A good test would be a sunset picture: http://wallpaperscraft.com/image.php/63366/2560x1600.jpg If you look at the sun and the surrounding, my laptop (crappy display) shows no gradient, my Acer H236 shows gradient but also the transition between colors (visible banding), the BenQ displays a smooth gradient. - mostly uniform color and brightness (by naked eyes). - balanced overdrive setting reduces ghosting without overshooting(compared to Acer H236 that doesnt have an overdrive setting). - OSD control by solid click buttons. Power light is on the side and does not distract me when viewing dark movie scenes. The bad: - significantly more IPS glow than Acer H236 (when viewed off angle, especially when viewed from above) that interferes with dark movie and game scenes (because the screen is so large, when my head is at the same level as the center of the screen, Im automatically looking down at the lower corners of the screen). - some bleeding in the corners. The lower right corner is even a little yellowish. (for me bleeding is when you view the screen straight on and IPS glow is off angle). - black uniformity is not as good as BenQ BL2710. The GW2765HT I received showed some cloudy gray on a full black screen (powerpoint). A side-by-side comparison with BL2710 at the same brightness setting made it very obvious. - no matter how I adjust the gamma and contrast, the monitor did not pass the Lagom white saturation test (253 is very faint, cannot see 254 at all). My old Acer H236 can easily display all the squares in both black level and white saturation tests. - color distortion at off angle is slightly more noticeable than Acer H236, partly due to the increased IPS glow. The ugly: - three(!) adjacent(!) stuck (red) pixels in the center area (area 5). Noticed them the moment I turned on the screen because the BenQ logo screen has a blue/purple background. I also noticed that its more than one because of the perceived intensity, so I took out a magnifying glass and counted the pixels. This is extremely annoying and distracting because my desktop background is solid black and I use the monitor mostly for movies and games (lots of dark scenes). After search the web a bit, I found jscreenfix, and running that for 1 hour "fixed" two of the three pixels, but the last one remained stuck. However, this was only a temporary fix, as leaving the monitor off for a day or two will cause the "fixed" stuck pixels to re-appear, and they seem to be reset to the factory setting (100% brightness!), making them extremely distinguishable since the rest of the screen is set to 0% brightness (yes, 0%). Returning the monitor now.... Other thoughts: - came with random assortment of cables (mine is missing the DVI and audio cable and has one extra HDMI cable). - 10-bit via dithering. As a 27 1440p monitor, 8-bit is really fine. no one is expecting true 10-bit. According to some, dithering could also contribute to the cross-hatching problem, but overall the cross-hatching is very minor. (9/3/14 update: see above for the cross-hatch problem. Lagom test black level test shows no apparent dithering.) - slower response than my old Acer H236 (about 10-20 ms slower by a Lagom test). I consider this neutral because most 1440p IPS monitors out there are in this response range. I did not experience any lag in FPS games (single player), but I am not a hardcore gamer. - on the box it says IPS, but most likely it uses an AHVA panel manufactured by AUO. Some Australian forum users speculated that it uses the same AHVA panel as BL2710, and GW2765HT is basically BL2710 with reduced functions (no USB, CAM/CAD mode, not a "SolidWorks Solution Partner Product" (whatever that means...)) intended for home users. - the build-in speakers are not as good as those on BL2710. The verdict: - if it were not for the stuck pixels in the center area, I would have kept this monitor despite the IPS glow. Overall it has a solid build and vivid colors, and the pricing is very competitive (currently cheaper than Asus PB278 and AOC Q2770). 9/3/14 update: I decided to change the rating from 3 to 4 stars to reflect the rating I would give if the particular sample I received didnt have pixel problems.
