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Author Topic: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor  (Read 8061 times)

brianrybolt

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Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« on: October 14, 2016, 11:29:31 am »

I am in the market for a 27 inch monitor with a limited budget.  I read a review here on the forum about the above monitor.  I would like some feedback about what you feel the pluses and minuses are of this monitor and are you happy with it.

Thanks in advance,

Brian

Royce Howland

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2016, 11:49:14 am »

I just bought a BenQ SW2700PT, and in fact I'm looking at it right now as I type this. :) It seemed well-spec'ed out and a good value to me, so I'd thought I'd give one a try. I normally run and recommend NEC SpectraView displays. So far the only real downsides I see about the SW2700PT are that it feels more cheaply constructed than my various NEC models, kind of a lighter weight and a more flimsy plasticky feel to it. Also the Palette Master Element calibration software is a bit rudimentary, and getting it going initially was a bit flakey. I had to run the installer twice on my Windows 7 machine because it didn't complete correctly the first time; and I had to do some fiddling around with the USB cable that needs to be plugged in for the calibration software to correctly launch. Other than that, it was plug & play.

On the plus side, the monitor has great colour gamut, seems uniform in its brightness, and calibrates very nicely in comparison to my current NEC PA302W's. The display is crisp and clear, and all the design things one might normally think of for a solid imaging display seem to have been accounted for. Even the hood included in the box by BenQ is a nice little touch that NEC charges extra for.

On the whole I'm pleased so far. I'll run with it for awhile before making an active recommendation of this model, because how it holds up over time remains a question. But so far it's looking good for a higher quality imaging display on a budget. I'm also going to be quite curious to see how the BenQ 4K 32" model, the SW320, stacks up when it ships.

brianrybolt

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2016, 05:27:01 am »

Royce,  Thank you for the feedback.  Will be ordering one.

FabienP

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2016, 04:18:11 pm »

I also bought one a month ago and can recommend it without reservation.

Comparing it to my previous monitor, which is an early CCFL wide gamut display (Dell 2408WFP), I was pleased by the screen brightness and colour uniformity (no backlight bleeding). The resolution for a 27" monitor is adequate. I was at first worried that the pixel pitch might be a bit small for reading texts but that is not the case.

Calibration with the included Palette Master Element software and an Eye-One Display Pro worked as one could expect on Windows 10 (0.35 deltaE average, worst colour 0.7 deltaE with D65, Gamma 2.2 and 120 cd/m2). The name of the included software contains "Element", so I assume that a more complete calibration software could be bought at an additional price. As it is, it is somewhat limited (e.g. will only validate the profile with 16 measurements) but does its job. I am curious to see for how long the monitor/calibration software will be supported.

Cheers,

Fabien
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dmward

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2016, 11:46:19 am »

 I just took delivery and have the SW2700PT setup with a 21" iMAC.
I calibrated the monitor with Spyder Elite 5+ in duel monitor configuration and naturally, it calibrated the SW27 in sRGB.
I then calibrated the SW27 with the Spyder 5 hardware and the BenQ calibration software.
Visually there is no difference.

How do I know that the calibration is in the aRGB color space?
When I use the monitor controls to set it to aRGB the brightness goes up which tells me that it is no longer using the calibrated profile.

I like the monitor, just trying to figure out how to get it properly setup.
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Garry Gibson

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2016, 02:11:06 pm »

I have the 27 inch monitor and I love it. When I got it I had an xrite Munki and called Benq customer service and asked if I should use their calibration software
or the Xrite. The Customer Service rep told me to use the Xrite as it was better software.

So far I have been very pleased, I would say however that I have not done an other calibration than that. I do notice that my prints
are slightly light but it is an nth too much. With my previous monitor, even after being calibrated I fought the too dark prints.

It is a pleasant monitor to work on for other tasks and I would recommend it highly.
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dmward

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2016, 03:49:24 pm »

I called BenQ to ask about the color space calibration.
According to Robert, when calibrated with their software its done in aRGB.

Based on all the bad mouthing of the Spyder 5 hardware I ordered an X-Rite iONE. Will be interesting to see what differences there are in the calibration.
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FabienP

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2016, 05:00:23 pm »

I called BenQ to ask about the color space calibration.
According to Robert, when calibrated with their software its done in aRGB.

Based on all the bad mouthing of the Spyder 5 hardware I ordered an X-Rite iONE. Will be interesting to see what differences there are in the calibration.

This is surprising, because I would assume the software to be using the native gamut of the monitor, which exceeds Adobe RGB in some areas. Clipping it to Adobe RGB would reduce the gamut volume for no apparent benefit.

Maybe you were provided with this answer because the gamut of the monitor is close to Adobe RGB?

Cheers,

Fabien
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FabienP

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2016, 05:18:53 pm »

I have the 27 inch monitor and I love it. When I got it I had an xrite Munki and called Benq customer service and asked if I should use their calibration software
or the Xrite. The Customer Service rep told me to use the Xrite as it was better software.

So far I have been very pleased, I would say however that I have not done an other calibration than that. I do notice that my prints
are slightly light but it is an nth too much. With my previous monitor, even after being calibrated I fought the too dark prints.

It is a pleasant monitor to work on for other tasks and I would recommend it highly.

Garry, this sounds like a bad advice to me. While it is true that the X-Rite software is more feature complete, using it instead of the supplied Palette Master Element means that you will forgo using the internal 14bit look-up table of the monitor. Instead, you will be using the 8bit look-up table of the graphic card which could lead to perceptible gradients in even colours such as in a blue sky.

Since the internal look-up table of the monitor is one of the features that make this monitor stand out of the competition at this price point, it would be suboptimal not to use it. That being said, since the monitor is calibrated out of factory, you might not notice large differences between both methods if the monitor only requires minor adjustments in the look-up table.

Thinking about this issue, as well as the other one raised by dmward above, it would seem that the support technicians at BenQ are not well trained when it comes to colorimetry questions. I guess that is one way to cut costs and that could explain why this monitor is substantially cheaper than a NEC or Eizo while achieving 90% of what can be done with similar offerings from the other brands.

Cheers,

Fabien
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alatreille

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #9 on: January 01, 2017, 07:01:17 pm »

Hi People,

I've just picked up one of these monitors to complete a significant amount of post production while I'm away from the Studio.  I have two NEC PA 27's back there.

I've been using the Palette master Calibration, and was a little perturbed today when I did a re calibration and saw the resulting variation.
See attached image.

Has anyone else had such a large variation as this?  My understanding is that it's meant to only have a Maximum ΔE of <2

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks very much.

Cheers

Andrew
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ChrisMax

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2017, 07:30:10 am »

One of the problems with this monitor is screen uniformity in fact all monitors in this price range seem to suffer the same defect.  I use the i1Display Pro to check the uniformity and the best screen so far had a Luminescence error of 8% and a Color Temperature error of 300k across the screen which is almost termed as acceptable by some (I've used the generic backlight setting for the best result).  Also apparent on the third monitor is a blueish cast on the right lower screen and a redish cast on the left.  BenQ tells me they are willing to go through their entire stock to find a good one for me well we'll see if that is true.  At some point the cost of shipping may be of some concern to them.  I just may have to cough up the extra $400 for an NEC!
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Gennaro_27

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2017, 06:56:39 am »

Someone knows if the BenQ SW2700PT is compatible with a macbook pro unibody late 2009 (Mac Os: Snow Leopard) ?
I mean apart from the non possibility to display the 10-bit depth of color transition.

Thanks
G.
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Keith

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2017, 10:53:58 pm »

I just received this monitor a couple weeks ago along with a new i1 pro. Pallet Master gives an error about halfway through the calibration process, seems it looses the i1. I'm driving the monitor with a 5 year old toshiba laptop (2nd or 3rd generation i7 with 8gb ram, SSD) with one usb 3.0 port. Is it possible the usb port is not providing enough power to the screen via the included PC to Monitor usb cable?
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Royce Howland

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Re: Anyone own/use a BenQ SW2700PT 27 inch Adobe RGB Monitor
« Reply #13 on: February 23, 2017, 06:31:27 pm »

When you say "i1 pro", do you mean an i1 Display Pro colorimeter? Or an i1 Pro 2 spectrophotometer? I've been unsuccessful calibrating my SW2700PT with my i1 Pro 2. Although the BenQ Palette Master software is supposed to support it, it always just craps out partway through. However with the i1 Display Pro, I have no problems. So if you're having trouble with the i1 Display Pro, and feel that device itself should be working, then yeah... I'd guess there's an issue with connectivity over USB. Adding hubs often makes matters worse rather than better, but you could try a powered USB 3 hub and see if that helps.
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