BenQ SW271 PhotoVue 27 inch 4K Photgraphy IPS Monitor | AQCOLOR Technology for Accurate Reproduction

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I replaced my EIZO CG241W which I have had for awhile now, a pretty expensive monitor, and one that has worked well for me in the past and was easy to calibrate to do photo editing. I was looking to change as the monitor was getting old, even though it calibrated fine. I read reviews and was again looking to buy a "high end" monitor BUT was struck by the reviews, especially from "Toms Hardware" regarding this monitor. While still pricey, it is nothing compared to the monitors I was looking at. I really wasnt expecting to be "blown away" BUT: The monitor can beautifully packaged, arrived quickly from Amazon. Ergonomics is excellent as good as any monitor I have ever used. Plugged it in and fired it up and was literally astonished at how good this thing is. While I have only been using this monitor for several days, I have calibrated it using my calibrator and can say, little improvement compared to that right out of the box. Extremely even lighting throughout the screen real estate, grey scale amazing and color rendition as accurate as anything I have ever witnessed. I am also a radiologist and have a high end DICOM NEC monitor I use to read CT scans, MRIs, etc and can say, this monitor rivals the contrast of the best DICOM monitors, not an easy feat. Maybe there are better monitors but I cant imagine any being much better, especially for the $ of this compared to the EIZO and NEC I was considering. The one caveat of course is that a calibrator is NOT included with this monitor as compared to the more expensive EIZO rivals so if you are planning on doing manual calibration you need to figure in the cost of a calibrator. The good news is that the factor settings are so good, unless you are real professional photo editor or demand verification of what is almost perfect out of the box, you dont need one. This is monitor is on my all time all star list of great products. I really wasnt expecting something so good after using an professional EIZO for years.

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I am an advanced hobbyist photographer and bought this monitor to implement an AdobeRBG 10bit workflow for art-grade photo prints on a Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000. This is a solidly built piece of equipment, the stand is very heavy and well constructed. I love the handle built into the stand. Packing was very good: I would not be concerned about damage in shipment. The panel itself is the usual plastic, but its high quality in appearance and feel. The performance of the panel overall, is excellent. Im getting verified 10bit workflow in Photoshop through an Nvidia Quadro P2000. I love the puck! Now cant live without it. Switching color spaces with the push of a button near the keyboard is a really nice innovation. The puck itself is a pretty high quality build. The buttons feel good and the display responds well. Monitor menus are pretty nice compared to the Dells Ive been using for two decades. This panel blow away my Dell u2718q 27" 4k monitor. They are setup side by side and the dell looks like dog vomit compared to the BENQ, but then, they are not in the same class are they? This is where the good ends and the not-so-good, to just dumb, begins: - This panel has a single stuck blue pixel. This is a thousand dollar monitor targeting color perfectionists, so its going back to amazon for a swap. - There is some noticeable light bleed on the edges. Its not bad, but its not great. - The monitor ships with a DVI-to-mini-DVI cable. However, all the high end Nvidia Quadro cards have full sized DVI sockets, not mini. There is no mini DVI socket on the monitor, so the cable it comes with is useless if you bought a Quadro P1000 or higher. So I had to buy a new DVI to DVI cable. Lost a night of work because of this. - The driver CD that ships with the monitor doesnt contain the pallet master software. Just download it right?? No... BENQ had an outage last night and so I could not download the pallet master software to verify the calibration and lost another night of work. Its back up today so I was able to download it. - While I was doing that, saw there was a more recent monitor driver dated 2-5-2018. The one installed is dated 5-5-2017, so I obviously wanted to update. I downloaded the file and discovered it was packed in RAR format. Now kids, I am a huge nerd going way back, but my rar days are over. Luckily my little brother is still a huge nerd and unpacked it for me so i didnt have to download some shady unpacker. I install the driver and guess what? Its the exact same one as the existing one 5-5-2017. Its mislabeled on the BENQ website. I open the INF to very and sure enough. Its v1.0.0.0. So that was 15 minutes ill never get back. Thanks BENQ for wasting more of my time. - In general, BENQs website performs well if you live in 1994. Its hosted in Taiwan. RTT to the site is over 200ms. My guess is that BENQ sells a few items in the US, so it might be nice to go ahead and drop a replica of the site over here. That, and hire just one native English speaker to proof your copy. Thanks. - That calibration report. Yeah there is one, but you will need an electron microscope to read it. The issue is, they have enough content to fill an 8.5x14 sheet of paper but decided to print it on 8.5x11. Summary Good thing BENQ know how to build monitors, because they are not good at anything else. Wait, they shipped me a stuck pixel... so Ill rephrase: Theyre pretty good at building monitors that look great, except for a pixel or two, and light bleed, and they are not good at much else. With BENQ, its death by a thousand cuts. For the price, Im still a buy recommendation, but just barely. My advice is to buy this product from amazon so that you can send it back for any reason. BENQs dead pixel policy would not cover my situation. BENQ should hire a few Apple execs, and implement 4% of what Apple do in terms of fit/finish/polish, which will make BENQ 400% better off than they are now, which means that right now as a business they seem very immature. XOXOXO

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This is an excellent monitor. I did debate about getting a 4K monitor a 2K one and I decided on the SW2700PT because I didnt want to go through the extra expense of upgrading my graphics card and I am happy I did. If you want to use the Palette Master software you will need one of the following products to calibrate the monitor: Xrite - i1Display Pro, i1Display Pro 2, i1Pro or i1Pro 2 Datacolor - Spyder4 Im assuming it would require either the Pro or Elite. Fortunately I did have the Spyder4 Pro which I was going to sell since I had already upgraded to the Spyder5 Elite. You dont have to use the Palette Master, you can calibrate the monitor via the graphics card. The Palette Master does not use the graphics card unless you specify the software to use it. However I have calibrated it with the Spyder5 and use the advanced setting to rate the monitor I was very happy to find it rated 4.5 out of 5. One thing about the SW2700PT is the very even illumination as well as the very fine detail. One very nice feature is the OSD Controller. Instead of using the buttons on the monitor this controller plugs into the monitor allowing to change settings via a wired remote. I only use this monitor primarily for photography but I have what some older B&W movies and setting the monitor to B&W it made them pop. Absolutely amazing picture. I should also mention that this is my second monitor. After notifying Amazon that I couldnt get the first monitor to power up the replacement was on its way. Great service from them.

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(original review)"Why did I wait so long to buy this monitor? Great color, nice hood, love it. " (original review) Looked great -- but it is beginning the decent into what made me replace my Apple Cinema. A two inch smudge has appeared in the center of the screen. And likely it will just get worse and worse. My experience tells me I will tolerate this for a year or so and finally be forced to replace this monitor. Of course I need a monitor on a daily basis so I will not return this one. But I am quite disappointed. What I get for buying an unknown brand, I had never seen in use.

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Where do I start? The packaging... Nothing short of the best ive EVER seen for an electronics product (including very high end equipment Ive purchased new for my home theater). It was borderline hard to get out of the box because it was such an exact fit. Once I did though, the tooless design for attaching the stand, base and light guard was a dream. The image (from the view of a VERY critical photographer) Exceptional out of the box. The factory calibration was the best Ive ever had in a monitor and was shockingly better than another similarly reviewed monitor by another manufacturer. That being said, I was able to edit photos within 10 minutes of setting it up and have loved being able to switch between sRGB and Adobe RGB with a tap of a button. Bottom line - spend the money, spend it now. Stop looking for better. Unless youre going to get a $1,500-$2,500+ monitor... this one simply can NOT be beaten. EXCELLENT BUY

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I purchased the SW271 nearly a year after adding it to my "wish list" on Amazon; couldnt decided whether to spend that much on a monitor; then after realizing my workstation computer was 7 years old and in need of upgrading--the decision was made for me--the CMOS battery started giving problems. After replacing that cheap little item,, I started adding bigger more expensive things, and well... I got carried away. I replaced my older EVGA graphics card with EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, EVGA platinum power supply--and on the list went. I wont go any further, except to say that I replaced one of my two older (but goodies) 24 inch HP LP2475w monitors with this Benq SW271. I am not a professional photographer or graphic artist. I am just an enthusiastic amateur who likes both film and digital photography. I own a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000ED and all its trappings (that I bought before they became either impossible to find or outrageously expensive--and unsupported by the manufacturer--I use Vuescan for my scanning now and love it). I use Lightroom 6 for my editing needs. So I needed to educate myself somewhat on color management. I am far from an expert; I use Spyder 5 Elite and until I got this monitor, I used the Datacolor software. But I soon realized that Benqs Palette Master was special, in that it actually works with the monitors hardware itself (it loads the LUTs into the monitor and not the graphics card). But I ran into big problems with that part. I downloaded the Palette Master software and the latest driver for my new monitor. Neither of them would work properly on my Windows 10 Pro OS; I suffered much stress trying everything I could, but the software just would not work at all. It kept trying to load drivers and whatnot, and I had to keep using task manager to shut it down. I just gave up after about a week and used the Datacolor software, but kept having the niggling feeling that it just wasnt right. Imagine my surprise yesterday when Microsoft decided to finally update my computer with the "April Update" Version 1803 from 1709--and as soon as I rebooted into Windows, there was the poor Palette Master waiting for me. I followed the instructions from Image Science off the internet and quickly using the advanced program, I got my monitor calibrated and validated and from the report I could see that it passed with flying colors, to use a pun. Of course, I realize that it is the manufacturers software and can only hope the low delta numbers are correct. (After all, how can I really know? I am a skeptical person:) To sum up an already too long review: I am really loving this monitor; it is elegant and beautiful, and I am going to enjoy scanning and editing both my film and digital images. I do hope this helps someone else having problems with the Palette Master Elements software and prevents all the frustration and initial disappointment that I had.

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This is a very nice display, however I am forced to give it a 1 star review until my replacement arrives. The first one I ordered has a small purple splotch near the bottom left - about the size of a pencil eraser. Its not huge, and not overtly noticeable, but once you know its there it is all you can see. I know this monitor gives a lot for the price, however thats no excuse for a defect like this. I find it hard to believe when it was calibrated this wasnt noticed in QA, but alas mistakes happen and I know display panels just do not get scrutinized much by manufacturers anymore. Otherwise, the panel looks pretty good. Very small IPS glow in one spot on the bottom. Other than that not any bleed that I noticed. Already put in a request for a replacement, so if the second one is without defects I will update the rating. *** UPDATE 5/10/2017 *** Let me just say bravo to Amazon. They sent my replacement monitor overnight and I had it today after work. Second monitor has a flawless display. No purple splotch, no dead pixels, very minimal IPS glow in one spot on the top, and negligible black light bleed. Calibrated with a Syper5 Express and ready to rock. Updating to 5 stars.

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The reviews everywhere for the SW2700PT are favorable (including here on Amazon) and it seemed like a solid choice for my new monitor. On paper, this is the 27" QHD IPS monitor to beat for an entry level photography model, $599 is an outstanding deal in comparison to the $1000 starting price point for everything else with good reviews. Colors popped as expected and backlight bleed/IPS glow is minimal (barely noticeable). It has a striking industrial design and the wired puck remote control to adjust settings is a nice touch. Also, this thing is built like a tank, very heavy/sturdy construction. I confess, I really wanted to like the SW2700PT - I had a BenQ monitor many years ago that I really liked. I tried two of these and wound up returning both due to screen uniformity issues with light/white backgrounds. I tend to split my screen into left and right hand applications (Photoshop and browser mostly). The first monitor had a 7" wide x 5" tall, kidney shaped "hot spot" on the right hand side of the screen where light/white backgrounds were much warmer then the rest of the screen, it started mid way down the screen and went almost to the bottom of the screen. The second monitor had two smaller "hot spots" on the left hand side of the screen, again with light/white backgrounds - one near the upper left corner and another starting mid-way down the screen going towards the bottom. Perhaps these monitors are better suited for true dark room work with hood attached and the brightness cranked way down OR I happened to receive two duds. Either way, I cant justify the purchase. Perhaps Ill try another AdobeRGB wide gamut certified monitor in the future but due to budget I decided to forego it and tried a less expensive (older) Dell U2715H. While it lacks a few features in comparison and isnt constructed as well, it doesnt suffer the screen uniformity issues. Also, this is minor in the scheme of things, but I discovered an issue with the SW2700PT on the PC after plugging in the USB cable - when the monitor is plugged in via USB (to enable the handy SD card reader and USB ports on the left hand side), Windows Device Manager shows a "USB <-> Serial Cable" device with a driver issue - see attached images. I tried the included CD and searched online for a driver, but found nothing (even after looking up the Vendor and Product IDs). I reached out to BenQ support and twice, they said I shouldnt be using a "USB to Serial Cable" and should instead attach the monitor directly to the computer via USB, which it was the whole time. This issue occurred with both monitors. Am I to believe no one at BenQ support has seen this issue?! Very strange.

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Im an avid photography enthusiast, and obviously take my passion seriously. Several years ago, I wanted/needed a monitor that would enable me to get the most out of my images and after a lot of research, I went with a Viewsonic monitor. Viewsonic had an excellent reputation, but from day one, I was to say the least very disappointed. Fast forward to today. I have had the monitor for several weeks now, and have to say, I love this monitor. It plays well with i1Profiler monitor calibrator. I wrestled with the decision 2K (which this monitor is vs. 4K) but I think this is fine and I get good resolution of pics for post processing even at 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 magnification. Perhaps in a few years Ill move to a 4K if they have an updated version specific for photography. The 2K vs. 4K debate for me is one Im not sure how to apply to a monitor. How many K is enough? How do I take into account my sensor resolution to decide on monitor? Other issues include some 4 K monitors have been reported to slow down response, and then the need for video cards to name two. In any event, I think for now, this is a sweet spot, and I dont see any compromises. Size is great for me, and Realestate on my desk presently wont allow for larger, and I dont want smaller. FYI I am running the monitor from my late 2016 MacBook Pro 13 inch and all is good. I would buy this again and would have no problem recommending it to anyone wanting an excellent tool to process photos. Enjoy sek I

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Days 1 & 2: I love this monitor! The only thing I wish was different is that it was 4K, but this resolution works nicely. 4K would be useful for future-proofing the device so that it isnt outmoded in 5 to 6 years. Ive been using terrible monitors for a long time for editing photos, so I wanted to buy a good monitor once and never look back. I researched for a year on market trends and standards, backlighting technology, design practices, technical milestones in the industry, and specific models of photography monitors, and combined that with my knowledge of physics and computer science to inform my expectations for a monitor before buying one. This one meets every technical criteria and does so in 2560x1440 resolution. If you are looking for an industrial-strength color editing monitor, this is every bit what it needs to be. Make sure your ENTIRE photography work flow is compatible with this monitors capabilities. This monitor requires a graphics card that is capable of outputting 10-bit color (Windows shows this as "30-bit color" because it is 10 bits per channel (10 Red 10 Green 10 Blue).

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