The BenQ EL2870U could also be a comparatively low-cost 4K monitor, however don’t be fooled into considering it is a bargainous entry into the great, brightly colored world of excessive dynamic vary gaming. This just isn’t the HDR display we had been in search of.
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If the BenQ EL2870U delivered your first style of HDR, whether or not in gaming or video content material varieties, you’d be forgiven for disgustedly jamming it into the identical field as 3D and sealing it shut. You know, that scratty little field that’s been opened and taped closed once more so many instances the corrugated innards of the cardboard is beginning to present, and there’s extra tape on it than when a 3yr-old tries to wrap up his mom’s day current all on his personal. Aww.
Yeah, the identical field which has had “do not open again until 2039” scrawled throughout it in black markered capital letters.
Which is a disgrace, as a result of when finished proper, HDR might be completely beautiful. Whether you’re watching Amazon or Netflix in 4K HDR, or gamboling by the wonderful alien vistas of Mass Effect: Andromeda or Destiny 2, whenever you’re doing it on a succesful panel it may possibly take your breath away.
Something like a beautiful LG OLED display, or one of many AU Optronics VA screens being utilized in Nvidia’s Big F**mat Gaming Displays. Sadly, a 300cd/m2 TN panel just isn’t what we had in thoughts.
But that’s what we’ve bought in BenQ’s 28-inch 4K HDR Video Enjoyment monitor. Yeah, that’s a class now. But should you’re hoping to glean any enjoyment out of 4K HDR video you’re going to be sorely disillusioned.
We tried the EL2870U’s 4K HDR chops out utilizing each the HDR10-powered streaming goodness of Netflix, the few HDR-capable video games round, and with a bunch of various producers’ 4K HDR showreels. The solely factor that gave us any pleasure had been these showreels, however then that’s exactly what they’re designed for. But you’re not going to spend your evenings watching the identical 10 minutes of over-saturated hype-footage again and again, so they do not supply fairly as useful a check.
Even although the check footage is sharp, vivid, vibrant, and does one of the best job of any of the 4K HDR content material we may muster to indicate this TN panel at its finest, it’s nonetheless properly in need of doing excessive dynamic vary content material justice.
The large downside is that this panel simply doesn’t have the mandatory vary.
The very brightest areas look high-quality and the footage is crisp at 4K, but it surely’s the darkish areas the place you may actually see the place this panel fails with HDR. There’s no depth to the shadows, and positively no element – it’s all dancing pixels and unusual visible artefacts.
The downside is way worse whenever you attempt watching a HDR stream in Netflix – together with Amazon, it’s probably the place most HDR content material will come from within the brief time period. And it simply appears plain unhealthy. The colors find yourself trying crushed and there’s not one of the promised element within the darkest areas of scenes HDR ought to ship.
Good excessive dynamic vary content material is ready to present additional depth and element at each the best and the darkest extremes of the content material, however the restricted panel used within the BenQ doesn’t actually stand an opportunity.
And there is no such thing as a manner in hell you can ever use the monitor in pure HDR mode, making that button on the entrance completely very important. Though you continue to should delve into the Windows settings to show the HDR choice off to rid your self of all traces.
It’s made all of the extra apparent as I’m testing one other BenQ HDR-capable monitor in the intervening time. The BenQ EX3501R is a 35-inch curved ultrawide with a VA panel, 100Hz refresh charge, and is genuinely able to making HDR look good. And makes the EL2870U look even weaker against this.
But the BenQ EL2870U is completely not a nasty monitor, particularly not as a price range 4K gaming display. I’ve my very own private points with the picture constancy of the twisted nematic expertise utilized in lower-res screens, however the 4K TN panels have been proven to be among the finest ever made. The one used right here within the BenQ has respectable color copy, and doesn’t have the identical form of washed-out really feel you’ll get with virtually all 1440p and 1080p TN screens.
It’s additionally properly responsive and has AMD’s FreeSync tech baked into it to maintain issues operating easily on the native 60Hz refresh charge… as long as you will have a strong Radeon GPU that’s able to operating 4K video games at 60fps. So an AMD Vega 64, with some in-game settings dialed again, then.
The distinction ranges are fairly respectable – although clearly not HDR respectable – and the black ranges are okay too. TN panels by no means get all the best way right down to an honest illustration of precise black, however the BenQ is able to a minimum of displaying clear delineation between the completely different shades it may possibly produce… it’s simply not in a position to produce that lots of them. That mentioned the white saturation actually is kind of poor, making it troublesome to make out actual element in brightly lit areas.
But that’s to be anticipated from this panel expertise, and whenever you’re speaking about less than £400 for a 28-inch 4K gaming display it’s probably not an enormous challenge. In the US it is a bit of extra, beginning out at $499, however for that cash you’re getting a giant display monitor, with just about one of the best TN panel you should purchase, and AMD’s FreeSync tech thrown into the cut price.
You can, nonetheless, nonetheless purchase a real LG IPS 4K show for under a bit of extra (however nonetheless round $400 / £400) and you continue to get the FreeSync goodness. Close, BenQ, however no cigar. And please, cease making an attempt to promote it as an HDR display, it’s doing you no favours.
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