BENQ EW3270U 4K Ultra HD 32 LED Monitor - Black & Grey, Black,Silver/Grey

Author: Ian

Rating: 5

Review: I'm really happy with this monitor having had it a few months. Though around £700 is a lot you'll struggle to get a 32 inch display with 4K, HDR, good brightness for HDR (400+ nits), no PWM, eye care, Freesync and Gsync compatibility, and ideally IPS panel, USB-C video and power, good speakers, and a remote. I looked around a lot and the monitors were either a lot more or missed some features but weren't that much cheaper. 32 inch 4K has been really good for working with Unreal Engine and that was one of my main drivers. I also wanted to use it as a TV with a Humax box and this has also been great - the REC.709 setting looks lovely and the remote helps, (and I've been able to add the monitor to my Harmony One remote as well). The speakers are good and provide a fair bit of bass - I didn't find them disappointing like I have with some flatscreens. I can also with a laptop just use the usb-c cable for power and picture and it works great at 4K. 4K HDR gaming has also been great - no stuttering or tearing using the gsync with an Nvidia RTX 2070 super. The pictures look fantastic on games like Shadow of the tombraider, metro exodus - the pictures, especially for the former, often look real. I'm not a competitive gamer but I debated a bit about getting a higher refresh rate monitor - to say this this feels totally smooth with no issues for gameplay at 60Hz eve on racing games like forza horizon 4. 4K HDR from Netflix (note the windows app seems poor - and I use the browser which seems better) and discs has also been great though it has needed a bit of trial and error with settings. HDR 400 is the one that immediately appeals as the contrast can be altered and this enables you to set the HDR intensity to suit your own equipment and content. This was great but then I started to notice on Netflix HDR content and to a lesser extent in Metro Exodus the whole brightness of the screen would change quite frequently for some programmes. Whether this is Windows or the monitor not sure - though I'm not sure it happened with the Xbox One X but don't have that connected to the monitor right now. I think it's reading the HDR singal and implementing global dimming. However, the HDRi modes don't do this and I've been able to get a really good picture using these modes. I've seen reports HDRi varies the brightness a lot but I haven't found that to be the case at all. The thing is initially compared to HDR400 the whole picture looks dimmer and the HDR effect isn't so strong. It's like you've put sunglasses on. The contrast can't be changed for the HDRi modes. What I did is set the RTX 2070 super to use nvidia settings rather than windows settings (which seems to vastly improve the picture anyway) and then and then alter the brightness and contrast there. I've then been able to get great pictures across the board. I realise that in comparison to and HDR600 or 1000 TV this might not be so good but it's really good in comparison to non HDR video. If the screen shows the sun it makes you squint, torches look very bright, light flashes off metal etc - it all looks more realistic. What HDRi also does is manage the darker scenes better - it seems to keep better contrast and make them less washed out. Game HDRi seems to lift the brightness in the darker scenes a bit more which can be better in some circumstances but can make it look too flat and I generally prefer cinema HDRi. I'm pretty picky about picture quality and have a very good projector for films and I am very happy with the Benq. I would say check the HDRi super resolution and sharpness settings as I found the sharpness was turned right up to 10 and it made things look grainy or slightly odd / unrealistic at times until I turned it down a bit. I debated a lot on VA or IPS and ultimately it seems they both have pros and cons. VA has better contrast but less realistic colours and brightness and colour temperature can vary across the screen, especially if you're at an angle or close to the screen. IPS has accurate colours, better viewing angles, but in darker scenes can be more prone to IPS bloom - screen being brighter in one or more corners. I took the view I'd rather have the hit of IPS bloom - which is minimal on this even with HDR on and in the dark with a black screen or dark image - for darker material than issues that potentially occur all the time to varying extents but it's a personal choice. The only downside has been some quality issues. The first monitor had terrible bleed as well as a lot of brightness variations across the screen. The main bleed was a spot to right of middle and it looked like someone was always holding a little torch at the top of the screen. This was returned (got a replacement delivery next day after raising the issue, before sending off the faulty one - really impressed) and a new one was much better in terms of overall consistency of brightness across dark scenes, though had a similar bleed issue at the bottom to the right. Less severe but I returned this as well, also prompted by a price reduction. This latest monitor that I've kept had minimal bloom and no bleed. I have noticed an issue whereby the honeycomb material stuck across the bottom bezel is lifting up slightly in a couple of places and I periodically need to push it down. not ideal but given the screen itself is good I'm living with this. I went for 5 stars but would have probably done 4.5 if possible to account for the returns and the bezel but I am very pleased with the performance and picture quality of this monitor and it looks very nice - it doesn't shout out computer monitor or look like an office item; it feels more like a nice TV. Hope this helps - I deliberated a long time about what monitor to get and whether this one would be OK so hopefully this give some good insight to anyone in a similar position.

Author: Ian Wardell

Rating: 1

Review: I purchased this monitor five days ago from Amazon UK, but which I’m now having to send back due to a couple of issues. I have been in contact with BenQ, and they appear to be of the opinion that my problems do not stem from a faulty monitor. If they are right, and given that the main problem occurs on *both* my 10-year-old desktop PC and a 3-year-old laptop, then we can conclude that this particular model of monitor (the BenQ EW3270U) has compatibility issues with certain computers. I’ll start upfront by saying I was delighted with the quality of the picture. It was bright, detailed and very large. And I have no idea what people are talking about with the angles issue. It seemed absolutely fine to me. If only the monitor didn’t have other issues, I would have been very happy indeed. Most often, buying a monitor is a straightforward process. Yes, it’s a hassle inserting the cables, since where they are plugged in to the monitor are unerringly awkwardly placed. And yes, on first switching it on it is necessary to adjust certain settings like brightness, contrast, and the size of the text. But that should be just about it and perhaps only takes 30 mins or so to unpack it and set everything up. Then the only thing to worry about is the actual quality of the picture and the frame rate when playing games and videos. It didn’t happen like that, on the contrary, it was very stressful. First things first, after I opened the box it came in, I discovered there was no power lead. That was immediately concerning as I wondered whether someone had bought this specific monitor before me, encountered problems, and sent it back, but neglected to include the power lead. So I immediately was worried. And I had to hunt around my flat trying to find another power lead. This took some considerable time until I eventually managed to find one. So then I set my new monitor up and switched on. Now, I normally have my monitor at a very low brightness level. Initially it was way *way* too bright, so I quickly pressed the control to access the brightness and contrast controls… only to discover they were greyed out. This was further stress as I had no idea what to do in order to get these controls to function. To cut a long story short, I did eventually manage to get the brightness and contrast controls working, but I have no idea what specific action of mine achieved this goal. Incidentally, I note that in the questions on the Amazon page for this product, someone else mentions this brightness issue being greyed out. This suggests it might be a common problem with this specific model .. unless, of course, that someone sent his monitor back and was then sent on to me without Amazon resolving the problem! Anyway, I was a bit concerned with this brightness issue, but felt everything was probably going to be OK at that point. And the picture was very nice and large. But then the next day dawned… I use Microsoft Excel connected to a program that sends data from the net onto my spreadsheet and updates that data on a continual basis. I use Excel and this program constantly, and have done so with virtually no problems for many years. This day, Excel after being connected to this program was crashing after 2-3 minutes *every time*. Initially, I never realised it had anything to do with the new monitor. I assumed it had to be an issue with my PC and software. But I eventually hooked up my old monitor again, and lo and behold, the problem disappeared! Moreover, although manually changing values in Excel had been laggy with my new monitor, this disappeared on hooking up to my old monitor. I also discovered that this precise same problem occurs with my laptop too, although far less frequently. Again, this problem disappears either using the laptop’s own screen or my old monitor. So, mysteriously, my new monitor was managing to crash software on both of my computers! Initially, this seemed bizarre to me. I had imagined that a monitor is simply a passive device that displays the information from the output of a computer. However, this is definitely not the case. For one thing, powering up my PC or laptop with the new monitor changes the resolution of the screen. So it seems the monitor sends a message to my PC or laptop telling it to modify certain settings in order to make it compatible with this new monitor. We can surmise that it is this change in the settings that is somehow precipitating the problem – not only on my PC, but also occasionally on my laptop too. I attempted to resolve the problem by: 1. Turning off hardware acceleration within Excel. 2. Making sure I had the latest graphics driver for my GTX670 graphic’s card. 3. Changing to a lower resolution and changing scale and layout. 4. Trying both the appropriate BenQ monitor driver and generic monitor driver. 5. Purchasing a DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable and using that instead of a HDMI cable to hook my PC up to the monitor (why they don’t include this cable with the monitor I do not know). Incidentally, the HDR and automatic brightness setting were both turned off. None of these measures apart from “5” made a blind bit of difference. The DisplayPort connection did make the problem occur less frequently, but it still occurs. Even at this stage, I felt I could somehow sort the problem out. I contacted BenQ since it seemed to me that they would certainly be familiar with this issue and would make the appropriate recommendations. My only concern is that they might have responded by telling me that the monitor isn’t compatible with my PC or laptop. I certainly didn't expect the response I actually got, where I was simply fobbed off and incorrectly told me the monitor is passive, and no help was given whatsoever! I now suspect that with the missing power cable, someone did indeed have this specific monitor before me and perhaps sent it back due to the very same problems I’ve experienced. So I have now boxed it up and am going to send it back.