Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.
To switch the EX2510 into HDR mode, just apply an HDR10 signal, and it changes automatically. You can click the HDRi button to engage Game or Cinema HDR modes, but the default and best mode is simply labeled “HDR.”
HDR Brightness & Contrast
The EX2510 handily exceeds its 400-nit rating in HDR mode with over 456 nits of peak output. Unfortunately, there is no dynamic contrast option available, so the black level rises in step, resulting in a similar contrast ratio to SDR, 1,235.5:1. Despite this, the EX2510 looks better showing HDR material than all the other screens except the Asus. Why? Because of its very accurate grayscale and color tracking and a near-perfect luminance curve, which we’ll show you below.
Grayscale, EOTF & Color
First, we ran our regular HDR grayscale, EOTF and color test using an HDR10 signal. The EX2510 meets the standard very well with perfect grayscale tracking and almost ideal luminance. The darkest steps are a little lighter than they should be, but the transition to tone mapping at 65%. HDR content is in P3, but this is an sRGB-native monitor. As such, you won’t quite get to the 100% saturation points for red and green, as the second chart above shows. But the inner targets are reasonably close. Most HDR content will render with the correct color. Only the most brilliant shades will come up short.
To observe the effect of BenQ’s HDRi HDR emulator on SDR content, we applied an SDR signal and ran the HDR measurements. Grayscale continued to track well except for at the transition point, which showed up as a green tint. Only that specific brightness level is affected, so you’ll be hard-pressed to see the error in actual content.
The EOTF is a smooth curve from bottom to top, indicating an SDR-like gamma. At up to 50% brightness, the luminance is far too dark, which obscures shadow detail and turns the dimmest areas into black blobs. Highlight detail also lacks clarity but to a lesser degree.
