Hello,
I just had the BenQ SW271 and NEC PA271Q in my studio and wanted to offer my general impressions of each monitor, as I found no place were I could compare them side by side before purchasing one.
I have used a NEC PA271W for years and was hoping to upgrade to a 10 bit, 3840x2160 monitor. I am a professional film maker, photographer, and career artist working with a 4K Canon C200, a Credo 50 DB on an Arca Swiss 6x9, and a Sony AR7II.
Ergonomics,
The BenQ screen was considerably lighter than the NEC screen and has a much narrower bezel. I was surprised how much I liked the narrow bezel. The BenQ has a much larger base, but the smaller base of the NEC provides plenty stability. Once I became familiar with the monitor controls, neither seemed of offer a distinct advantage for my purposes. Both screens could be positioned easily on their stands, though the NEC adjustments were smoother. The NEC monitor has a more ridged, well built cabinet, but I don't know if that indicates better construction throughout. The NEC screen produced slightly less glare, but the BenQ was also very good in this respect.
Color and Uniformity
Out of the box, the BenQ screen was pretty green. From a 10% grey to a 80% grey, you easily see a green cast. After deciding to purchase the NEC screen, I profiled it with my Eye-One Photo and saw little change between the factory balance and the new profile. Looking at the screens with a 20%, 40%, 80%, and 100% grey, full-frame images the NEC generally had better uniformity, though the BenQ did not look unacceptably bad, as I had seen in some reviews. On the NEC, with the 40% grey image I could see darkening in the far upper left and right corners (only about 1.5" in from the bezel). On the BenQ, with the 20% and 40% grey images, I could see a slight darkening on the whole top 3rd of the screen. On both screens, the 80% and 100% grey images looked uniform. With a white image, the NEC showed no color shift across the screen, and the BenQ shifted slightly from magenta to green. I didn't spend any time comparing how photographic images looked on each screen, because I didn't profile the BenQ to remove the green cast.
3840 x 2160 verses 2560 x 1440.
A photographic image displayed full screen on the BenQ looked clearly sharper, as expected. However, when I displayed a photographic image at 100% on the NEC, then matched the image size on the BenQ (about 230%), the image looked sharper on the NEC. This is something that is important to me because I routinely spend many hours editing and retouching photographs at 100% or more. When viewing a Word document, text was clearly sharper on the BenQ, even when enlarged to match the image size on the NEC. I thought a 3840x2160 screen would be a clear advantage, but was not convinced of that after using the screens side by side for several hours.