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Author Topic: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q  (Read 4751 times)

drewharty

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BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« on: December 01, 2018, 10:28:30 am »

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.
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digitaldog

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2018, 11:37:55 am »

Great report.
FWIW, the BenQ hasn't been getting very good user reviews from those I've read.
Difficult to beat the SpectraView.
Yeah, you really need to compare sharpness and often color/tone at 100% (1:1) in differing applications.
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Rajan Parrikar

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2018, 10:04:59 am »

Great report.
FWIW, the BenQ hasn't been getting very good user reviews from those I've read.
Difficult to beat the SpectraView.
Yeah, you really need to compare sharpness and often color/tone at 100% (1:1) in differing applications.

On this site itself, I recall a very good review of the BenQ SW320 by Holko.

I had the SW320 and while I didn't write up a review, it was excellent especially for the price point. (Earlier I had the 27" NEC Spectraview - great monitor.)

Josh-H

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2018, 01:45:41 am »

On this site itself, I recall a very good review of the BenQ SW320 by Holko.

I had the SW320 and while I didn't write up a review, it was excellent especially for the price point. (Earlier I had the 27" NEC Spectraview - great monitor.)

The BenQ is indeed excellent for the money. You have to keep in mind its a fraction of the SpectraView in cost and a minuscule amount of an Eizo. Compare it against other monitors costing similar (which is what you should really do - otherwise its like comparing a Ferrari to a Chevy) to itself and its performance is excellent. What you get with the BenQ is really great performance for your cash outlay. Bang for buck I wrote its hard to beat and I stand by that.
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nemophoto

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2019, 04:54:01 pm »

Thanks for the post! I've had two NEC PA241W monitors for about 5-years and have been looking to upgrade for awhile, especially since using my Dell 4k laptop. I recently saw a magazine review of the 5 best monitors for photographers. They made the same comment about the green cast with the default calibration, but once it was recalibrated, the monitor was dead on.

I had also been contemplating the Dell 25" UP2516D which has a lower res than 4k, but higher than my old NECs.
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ericstaud

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2019, 12:55:34 pm »

I've got the PA272 and SW271 side by side at the moment. One quirk about the SW271 that I had no idea about before purchasing...it's got two native resolutions, either 4k (2160 tall) or 1080p (1080 tall). The user can choose 5 different resolutions in the display preferences in Mojave 1080, 1440, 1692, 1890, 2160, but when you pick any of the middle three (1440, 1692, 1890) this warning text appears "using a scaled resolution may affect performance"

I tried running the SW271 at 1440 (to emulate the PA272) and it taxed the video card significantly.  When running photoshop with larger images I could see the image refresh from top to bottom when I turned multiple layers on and off. This does not happen at 1080 or 2160 resolutions.

Maybe I need new reading glasses, but I've found with the PA272 over the last year that it's hard to read emails and such at the 1440 resolution, I'm always leaning in to check spelling. Using the SW271 at 1080, everything is much easier to read, because the whole UI is is about 1/3 larger. In photoshop the tools are 1/3 bigger, but the image is still mapped to the 4k resolution (viewing an image which is 2160 tall at 100% would fit perfectly on the screen from top to bottom).

Running the system UI at 2160 on the SW271 is basically unusable for me... without a magnifying glass.

Anyway, the executive summary is that the SW271 acts like a super sharp 1080p screen in regards to the UI, and acts like a 4k display with images.
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davidgp

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2019, 02:56:10 pm »

I've got the PA272 and SW271 side by side at the moment. One quirk about the SW271 that I had no idea about before purchasing...it's got two native resolutions, either 4k (2160 tall) or 1080p (1080 tall). The user can choose 5 different resolutions in the display preferences in Mojave 1080, 1440, 1692, 1890, 2160, but when you pick any of the middle three (1440, 1692, 1890) this warning text appears "using a scaled resolution may affect performance"

I tried running the SW271 at 1440 (to emulate the PA272) and it taxed the video card significantly.  When running photoshop with larger images I could see the image refresh from top to bottom when I turned multiple layers on and off. This does not happen at 1080 or 2160 resolutions.

Maybe I need new reading glasses, but I've found with the PA272 over the last year that it's hard to read emails and such at the 1440 resolution, I'm always leaning in to check spelling. Using the SW271 at 1080, everything is much easier to read, because the whole UI is is about 1/3 larger. In photoshop the tools are 1/3 bigger, but the image is still mapped to the 4k resolution (viewing an image which is 2160 tall at 100% would fit perfectly on the screen from top to bottom).

Running the system UI at 2160 on the SW271 is basically unusable for me... without a magnifying glass.

Anyway, the executive summary is that the SW271 acts like a super sharp 1080p screen in regards to the UI, and acts like a 4k display with images.

That problem will affect any 27 inch monitor in Mac OS X and that it is the main reason why Apple sells 5k displays instead of 4k, because Mac OS scales much better on them than 4k. I'm using a Benq SW320 with Mojave (that scales much better text than High Sierra) at native 4k. That it is usable, with the majority applications, but for sure as you say a 27 inch display at 4k it is not.

Windows does a much better job scaling the UI elements of the programs than Mac OS. Here Apple is paying for the decision of not allowing UI elements to increase size independently of resolution. I suppose that it has other advantages. 

nemophoto

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Re: BenQ SW271 Compared to NEC PA271Q
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2019, 03:04:00 pm »

The other thing manufacturers usually say is that, while a monitor may be able to emulate other resolutions, they are best run at "native" resolution rather than an emulated one. You will find almost any monitor will do this. I use a PC, not a Mac, so I can't vouch for the comment regarding 4k vs 5k, but I think you will find you don't see the issue if you run the native 4k. I believe you will find "5k" truly a marketing point and geared towards the sale of Apple monitors more so than a true hardware issue. I say this because the same graphics card in you Mac could be popped into a PC without issue (though sadly it doesn't work the same in reverse).
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