As a lot as I really like the Acer Predator XB241H, I recognize that not everybody has near £400 / $400 to spend on a 24in 1920×1080 gaming monitor. Fortunately, there are many different 24in screens on the market that value a heck of lots much less. Case in level: BenQ’s GW2480 goes for simply £123 / $150. What’s extra, it additionally seems to be method much less ‘gamery’ than loads of the opposite high canines in our best gaming monitor rankings. Let’s discover out if it’s any good.
First impressions had been definitely excessive. Before I set about testing it with my X-Rite i1 DisplayPro calibrator, I used to be stunned by the richness of its colors and its all right-looking distinction and element ranges. Great, I believed. A pleasant low-cost IPS monitor that may really be fairly respectable.
Admittedly, it doesn’t include any of the frills you may anticipate out of your typical gaming monitor. There’s no AMD FreeSync or Nvidia G-Sync help in your graphics playing cards, as an illustration, and its ports are restricted to single VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort inputs in addition to separate headphone and microphone jacks.
You do get all of BenQ’s numerous eye-care options, nonetheless, making it a sensible choice for all that different stuff you may use a PC for like, say, this right here web website and possibly composing the odd phrase doc. Indeed, the GW2480’s flicker-free show will certainly assist minimize down on the previous eye-strain if, like me, you sit gazing a pc display screen for 90% of your working day, and its a number of low blue mild image modes will assist maintain any pesky complications at bay even additional.
There’s additionally a dynamic brightness sensor that stands proud of the decrease bezel which might monitor the quantity of ambient mild in your environment. This will then mechanically alter the display screen’s color temperature for max viewing consolation, turning hotter within the night when there’s much less mild round, and cooler within the morning. It definitely takes the trouble out of regularly flipping between completely different image modes, and it really works like an absolute dream.
It’s all the identical stuff you’ll discover on a lot of BenQ’s different displays, such because the EW277HDR and EL2870U. It’s only a disgrace the GW2480’s color accuracy isn’t pretty much as good.
No matter how laborious I attempted, one of the best sRGB color gamut measurement I may get out of my i1 DisplayPro was 88.5%, and that was utilizing its default Standard image profile and regular color temperature setting. Fiddling round with its User image mode and adjusting the monitor’s RGB values solely made issues worse – not by a lot, all advised, however you’re solely 87.1% right here. That’s fairly disappointing for an IPS display screen, particularly when distinctive color accuracy is supposed to be this explicit kind of show know-how’s principal calling card.
Its distinction ratio was even worse, coming in at a measly 169:1 on its default settings, and a mere 310:1 after I whacked up its gamma choice to its highest setting. That’s a far cry from BenQ’s claimed determine of 1000:1, which is what I’d usually anticipate to see on a show like this. What this implies in apply is that very darkish video games akin to Little Nightmares, as an illustration, simply ended up wanting like a bleary mass of gray after I booted it up, with hardly any seen shadow element.
It’s much less of a problem in brighter, extra vibrant video games – as my time enjoying Ni No Kuni II can attest – however issues like draw distances within the recreation’s caves and caverns had been nonetheless a bit on the misty facet.
This isn’t helped, after all, by the GW2480’s astronomically excessive black degree measurement, which got here in at an enormous 1.28cd/m2. True black is 0.00cd/m2, and whereas most displays can’t really do that as a result of nature of their backlights, the overwhelming majority of them nonetheless handle one thing within the area of 0.10cd/m2, if not a bit decrease. Sometimes I’ll see black ranges go as excessive as 0.50cd/m2., however often that’s so far as they go, making the GW2480 very underwhelming certainly.
The monitor’s most peak brightness wasn’t significantly superb, both. The GW2480 managed simply 220cd/m2 on its highest setting, which is nearly sufficient for those who occur to be sitting by a vibrant, sunlit window, however a teensy bit extra leeway wouldn’t go amiss.
In all equity, the GW2480 seems to be effective generally – it’s not such as you’re going to recoil in horror at its mildly limp and lifeless colors as quickly as you flip it on (until your total recreation assortment occurs to include murky Little Nightmares-alikes, that’s) – and for the cash, it might be value a punt as an affordable second display screen. But you additionally don’t must spend that rather more to get an infinitely higher show.
Indeed, BenQ’s bigger EW277HDR goes for simply £200 within the UK (it’s US value of $260 is a barely more durable promote), and it’s not solely way more color correct than the GW2480, however you’re additionally getting HDR help thrown in as properly – though it ought to be famous its HDR expertise is tempered considerably by the display screen’s peak brightness of 400cd/m2. You get the identical sensible, ultra-thin bezels and eye-care tech as properly. The solely factor you’re lacking is a DisplayPort enter.
If a 24in display screen is all you’ve obtained room for, although, then it is best to actually contemplate getting AOC’s G2460PF, which works for a fraction extra at £220 within the UK, however a way more tempting $198 within the US. This is about to get replaced by the G2590PX (which has simply arrived in my field palace for testing, by the best way, so be careful for a full assessment quickly), however each fashions supply AMD FreeSync help, a height-adjustable stand, extra inputs, a USB hub, and a splendidly excessive 144Hz refresh fee. I’ve but to place the G2590PX by way of my color accuracy checks, but when it’s something just like the G2460PF’s, then it ought to be among the finest 24in gaming shows cash can purchase proper now.
The BenQ GW2480 will nearly do the job for these on a funds, however it’s nowhere close to pretty much as good worth as BenQ’s EW277HDR or AOC’s G2460PF.
