BenQ EW3270U 32" Ultra HD Monitor Review: HDR For The Enthusiast
OSD Setup & Calibration
The EW3270U’s OSD will be familiar to any past user of BenQ monitors. It’s logically arranged and includes just everything you're likely to need. Pressing any control key brings up a small menu, which lets you change picture modes, engage low blue light, or change inputs. The first two buttons are programmable for a variety of functions.
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The EyeCare menu offers four different low blue light modes for specific tasks. Selecting one enables the Brightness Intelligence+ option, which uses the front-mounted sensor to adjust color temperature based on room lighting. If you turn on Adjust By Duration, the color temp will change during your work session to help reduce eye fatigue.
In the Picture menu, you’ll find the EW3270U’s calibration controls. Only the User mode enables them all. There are six gamma presets, all of which deliver tight tracking. Number 3 is closest to 2.2 gamma. Color Temperature has three options, plus a user mode with precise RGB sliders. Only a slight change is needed to achieve excellent accuracy. You also get hue and saturation controls that operate on all six colors at once. AMA is BenQ’s overdrive implementation, and it has two levels. Premium shows some ghosting, so we went with High for our gaming sessions.
The Picture Advanced Menu contains 11 image modes. The two HDR presets emulate higher contrast for SDR material. When an HDR10 signal is present, you can switch between HDR and Cinema HDR modes. Their color and EOTF tracking is slightly different, so we’ll show you both in our benchmark results. The other options here deal with aspect ratio, overscan, and edge enhancement and can be left alone in most cases. BenQ also includes an HDMI Range control which worked fine for us on its Auto setting.
Audio has a single volume control for the speakers, and 3.5mm output along with Mute. The input selector toggles between the two HDMI ports, DisplayPort, and USB-C. The EW3270U will auto-sense your source signals and locks on very quickly to the first active one it finds. The first two control keys can be set to a variety of different things to allow quicker access to commonly-used options. Signal Info is sparse and shows only resolution and refresh data, along with input and the model number. Here is where you’ll find the factory reset if you want to return all settings to their defaults.
Calibration
A full calibration is possible only in the User mode, which locks the EW3270U into its DCI-P3 color gamut. The sRGB preset is fairly accurate but only its brightness can be adjusted. The Standard mode isn’t too far off the mark, and will be the best choice for most users. The HDR modes cannot be changed, which is a shame because we discovered some grayscale issues that really need to be addressed (more on that on page 5). For the best possible picture with SDR material, please try our settings below.
| BenQ EW3270U Calibration Settings | |
| Mode | User |
| Brightness 200 nits | 68 |
| Brightness 120 nits | 34 |
| Brightness 100 nits | 26 |
| Brightness 80 nits | 18 |
| Brightness 50 nits | 6 |
| Contrast | 48 |
| Gamma | 3 |
| Color Temp User Define | Red 100, Green 96, Blue 100 |
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Screen Size & Aspect Ratio: 35" / 21:9Should Be:
Screen Size & Aspect Ratio: 31.5" / 16:9
Can you not use an aftermarket monitor calibration tool like from Datacolor or X-Rite with this in HDR mode? I am VERY interested in this monitor at this price point.
Literally nothing else would matter to me lol
Score - 7/10.
The score doesn't seem to match the words - am I missing something here?
Unfortunately, you're likely going to need to pay double that for anything close any time soon. : D
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824011229
4K, high refresh rate HDR displays with G-Sync are coming soon, and they're going to be very expensive. Keep in mind, that's only a 27" screen for $2000. And at 27", you'll probably have a hard time even distinguishing the difference between 1440p and 2160p while gaming, so it would probably make a lot more sense to get a screen with the more moderate resolution and get much higher frame rates instead, at a fraction of the cost. After all, what good are high refresh rates at 4K when even today's best graphics cards will struggle to hit 60fps at max settings in many games.
I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, reality won't be so kind. Acer plans to sell their 27-inch 4K HDR 120Hz panel for no less than $2000
https://wccftech.com/acer-predator-x27-g-sync-4k-120hz-hdr-monitor-is-available-for-preorder-at-2000/
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824011229&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=11552995&PID=8293747&SID=
Hi there, can you give me a personal feedback?
How good is this monitor to watch movies (normal 1080p (resized ofc) and 4k HDR?) the colours etc?
its really that better than TN panels for media? (if you had any)
And gaming at 60hz? i mean soft games ofc, my gtx 1070 can manage 60fps in 4k in trine and similar games nothing too heavy ofc.