After attending an impressive 45-minute demo in January, gave me the opportunity to demo its 32-inch with HDRi Technology. I played around wi🙈th this incredible product for about t🍸hree weeks.
An essential thing to note is that even though this monitor has gaming capabilities, it's meant to provide a superior visual and sound experience for all types of digital entertainment. Retailing f𓄧or $799.99, it's a Mercedes Benz of 🍷monitors with more high-end features than anyone ever knew they needed. BenQ's target user here is the casual gamer.
Contrast this with monitor♋s that appeal to competitive and esports-driven gamers who prioritize speed over picture quality. Those monitors are also much smaller, ranging from about 24-27 inches. BenQ makes monitors specifically for competit🅠ive gaming under its brand.
The BenQ EW3280U Monitor's HDRi Lighting Tech
A major aspect of this monitor is its HDRi lighting tech. On the BenQ EW3280U monitor, a reactive sensor constantly analyzes the light levels in the monitor’s surroundings. As the lighting 🌱changes, the monitor reacts to these changes instantaneously.
If it’s bright, the scr𝔉een will compensate in a way that makes the picture more vibrant. If it’s dark, the picture will darken to prevent the viewer from experiencing eye strain. The monitor reflects these adjustments rapidly. Viewers won't notice these changes unless there’s a major jump, such as someone turning a light on in a dark room. Overall, this helps ease a person into a dark, shadowy scene that follows an action-p🔯acked daytime scene.
Many games and shows already incorporate HDR technology, which is compatible with monitors, graphics cards and consoles that support it. As , HDR "is an established family of standards that enables monitors to show brighter, more vivid images with increased color impact." BenQ's HDRꦫi is an additional enhancement.
This proved to be a neat feature. I messed around 𝓀with the Hue lighting settings in my living room to see how the monitor might react in different background lighting. As I changed the lighting from various shades of dark blue to bright pink to neon green, the monitor instantly reacted. Changes were subtle, making it easy for a person’s eyes to adjust to the surroundings.
There are several different HDRi sub-settings. A Cinema mode highlights colors and details for a top-quality viewing experience when watching movies. When a person switches to gaming, they can then set the monitor to the Game HDRi setting. This setting is less vibran﷽t, instead emphasizing contrast so players can take better advantage of their in-game surroundings. The Display mode is for 🐼computer desktop use.
There weꦫre times when the HDRi feature wasn'🧸t helpful, such as when I was on a video chat and wanted to change the settings so my face wouldn't be so bright.
The Real Test: How Does The BenQ EW3280U Monitor Perform?
I played a number of different games on this monitor, including , and. Destiny 2 and Doom Eternal both have HDR support, while Apex Legends does not.
Doom Eternal was vis🌄ually stunning — so much, in fact, that I got motion sickness. Twice, I had to turn the game off. Most people aren’t prone to motion sickness from video games, so I don’t expect this to be a common issue. I adjusted some graphics settings and was fine from there on out.
Destiny 2 looked incredible on this display, almost as though I was playing a movie. The game ranges from visually stunning to excessively drab and the▨ native HDR beautifully꧃ accommodated these changes.
The first time I played on the monitor, its sheer size impacted my gameplay. I suspect I noticed the differences because battle royale games require significant concentration. My home monitor is also 32 inches, but it has a smaller viewable area. After some trial and error, I found a new mouse sensitivity and a new FOV that made the experience more comfortable. Still, I couldn’t quite get the picture right.
It's hard to use images to showcase the differences due to the fact that the display changes based on the lighti🔯ng around the monitor but is also impacted by the light that illuminates the screen. However, to me, the Game setting seemed too dark.
Cinema felt too bright.
Display felt generic, but I ultimatౠely settled on that mode. Raising the Contrast value also helped a bit.
Still, it ne🐠ver felt quite as precise🅰 as I would have liked.
Exploring Additional Monitor Features
One aspect of note is the monitor’s Eye Care technology with low blue light, anti-flicker and eye reminder options. As many late-night gamers know, it can be tough to go to sleep after a few rousing rounds of a favorite game. Though the blue light settings impacted the quality of the picture, it helped alleviate some of a game's visual stimulation. Though I didn't keep rigorous data on my sleep patt🅷erns, it seemed to help with the post-game wind-down.
BenQ's EW3280U uses Fr🌟eeSync technology. FreeSync and G-Sync are designed to prevent screen tearing ꦓand stuttering. G-Sync uses patented technology within the monitor, while FreeSync uses the Adaptive Sync standard built into the DisplayPort standard. Most hardcore gamers prefer G-Sync to FreeSync, but there's no visible difference. FreeSync will work꧑ on both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, while G-Sync wo⛦rks with Nvidia only. While FreeSync is a welcome feature, the monitor's 60 Hz refresh rate means it's difficult to notice the benefits.
The monitor has a built-in subwoofer. It has different settings for sound options including Cinema and Game modes. The former is meant for an overall denser sound, while the latter allows gamers to hear the subtleties in a game’s background ambiance, such as footsteps in Apex Legends.
The subwoofer's sound quality🐬 is solid, though, as one might suspect, I preferred using an external speaker system. When playing something like a battle royale, which requires a high level of sound awareness, headphones are still the player’s best bet. But, as a built-in option, the monitor's sound capabilities are far bette🍰r than standard quality.
If there was one thing lacking, it was the fact that there's ♋no height adjustment opt🦋ion.
A Monitor Built For Casual Players With Taste
As someone who considers herself a hardcore gamer, I’m not sure this would be my first choice. It's designed for someone who wants a single screen for films, games and digital tasks such as editing or graphic design. BenQ makes fantastic monitors for each of these specific cases, but they made th🐻is monitor to handle all🌄 of those things. As such, it's an ideal monitor for a♈ casual player who wants to kick back and enjoy an awesome viewing experience after ꦉa long day of work.
For this review, BenQ loaned its 32-i💯nch to TheGaꦺmer for a period of four weeks.