In summary
Like its competitors, the BenQ PG2401PT is designed for colour-critical work and will suit serious photographers who are interested in printing their images.
It can be used for soft-proofing and comes with the main printing industry colour certifications. Each unit leaves the factory fully calibrated and comes with a unit-specific calibration report.
Unlike pro-graphics monitors, standard desktop monitors provide a limited range of adjustments and out of the box are too bright, too contrasty and too colour-saturated. You can’t make high-quality prints under such conditions.
Monitors like the BenQ PG2401PT provide the necessary colour and tonal accuracy as well as the controls that allow key parameters to be adjusted. This makes full calibration possible and enables users to simulate how images will appear when they are finally output to different media.
Full review
BenQ is a comparative newcomer to the market for colour accurate monitors, joining the market leaders Eizo and NEC and recent entrant LG. The BenQ PG2401PT, which was launched late in 2013, is its first product in the ‘Pro Graphics’ (PG) range. Like the LG IPS ColourPrime 27EA83, which we reviewed in June 2013, it claims a gamut that covers the entire sRGB colour space plus 99% of the Adobe RGB colour space. This makes it of interest to photographers.
Angled front view of the PG2401PT with the supplied shading hood fitted. (Source: BenQ.)
Who’s it for?
Like its competitors, the BenQ PG2401PT is designed for colour-critical work and will suit serious photographers who are interested in printing their images. It can be used for soft-proofing and comes with the main printing industry colour certifications. Each unit leaves the factory fully calibrated and comes with a unit-specific calibration report.
Unlike pro-graphics monitors, standard desktop monitors provide a limited range of adjustments and out of the box are too bright, too contrasty and too colour-saturated. You can’t make high-quality prints under such conditions.
Monitors like the BenQ PG2401PT provide the necessary colour and tonal accuracy as well as the controls that allow key parameters to be adjusted. This makes full calibration possible and enables users to simulate how images will appear when they are finally output to different media.
Accuracy in colour reproduction is quite different from simply producing colours that please eye viewers’ eyes and appear ‘attractive’. Many screens can reproduce pleasant-looking pictures, although they may not be able to translate them into natural-looking prints.
Features
The PG2401PT features a 10-bit capable AH-IPS panel that can display more than one billion colours. It includes 14-bit processing capability, with a 14-bit 3D Look Up Table (LUT) that ensures accurate RBG colour blending.
Factory calibrated preset viewing modes include Standard, Adobe RGB, sRGB, illumin. A, D50 and D65 for standard graphics work. The special Calibration Mode enables users to save calibration settings and switch between different sets of calibration settings. There’s also a widely adjustable Custom Mode that can be used for precise colour tuning.
The monitor should be bundled with Palette Master software, which was co-developed with X-rite and only works with X-Rite calibrators. Unfortunately, it wasn’t provided on the CD supplied with the review unit. More on this in the Calibration section, below.
Setting Up
This monitor is supposed to come with everything you need except a calibrator. But the printed Quick Start Guide in the box provides very basic set-up instructions and warns you to switch your computer off before connecting the monitor so we advise buyers to copy the detailed instruction manual from the supplied optical disk and read it before they begin.
The screen and stand are packaged separately and the stand is in two parts, which must be connected before it is attached to the screen. A bayonet fitting attaches the stand to the base and it’s locked in with a thumbscrew.
Attaching the screen to the stand is equally easy; you simply lay the screen face down on a towel (or other soft surface), which has been spread out on your desk and slot the base into position in the square recess on the back of the screen. They should click and lock into place.
Most users will connect the screen to their computer via the D-Sub cable, which plugs into the monitor’s video socket. The USB connection is via a standard B plug, which fits into the upstream USB port on the back of the screen.
The screen has an integrated power supply, which connects to the mains via a standard IEC connector, which is supplied. There’s a power on/off rocker switch just beside the input socket. An audio cable can be connected between the Line In socket
and the computer audio outlet and headphones can be plugged into the headphone jack, both located on the rear of the monitor.
Close-up view of the monitor stand showing the circular cable organiser, which keeps the power and connection cables out of the way of other items on the user’s desktop. (Source: BenQ.)
Once all the cables have been plugged into the screen they should be fed through the cable organiser hole in the monitor stand. This has a spring-loaded clip that holds them in position and keeps them out of your way.
You can then connect the cables to the relevant ports on your computer and link the power cable to the mains and switch it on. The screen itself is switched on by pressing the power button on the lower right hand corner of the monitor bezel.
There was nothing in the package we received about assembling and attaching the supplied shading hood and the user manual on the supplied CD had no instructions. There are no support links on the BenQ website, either locally or globally, which is odd for a technology company. Fortunately a Google search turned up a version of the manual with the required instructions, enabling us to fit it.
The hood is quite nicely made from black polycarbonate with flocking on its inner surfaces to suppress reflections. It’s easy enough to assemble but can be tricky to fit to the monitor in a way that secures it in place. (It’s best done when the monitor is switched off so it doesn’t matter if you touch the power switch on the lower right hand corner.)
Design and Ergonomics
Design-wise, the PG2401PT is typical of its class, with a narrow bezel and a separate stand, which is easy to attach if you want the monitor to sit on your desk. The screen is also slim enough to be mounted on a wall using an optional mounting plate.
The range of adjustments available when the monitor is mounted on the supplied stand. (Source: BenQ.)
The screen can also be rotated through 90 degrees clockwise into a ‘portrait’ position or tilted forward through five degrees or backward through 20 degrees. It can be swivelled through 45 degrees to the left or the right and its height is adjustable through 150 mm.
In addition to the regular interfaces, the PG2401PT has two built-in USB 3.0 ports on the left hand side panel, plus a card reader slot that supports all regular-sized varieties of SD, MMC and Memory Stick cards.
The monitor has a light sensor (located on the bottom bezel), which detects the ambient light levels and adjusts the monitor backlight automatically to provide the appropriate brightness for the conditions. A selectable eye protect meter can display the ambient light conditions on the screen.
Users can also set the Smart Reminder function to display a pop-up message reminding the user to take a break and rest their eyes. Intervals and durations for these pop-up reminders are selectable from five options.
Another detector is the Eco Sensor, which detects whether someone is sitting in front of the screen and turns the screen off within 40 seconds if nobody is detected. You can select the detection range from near, middle and far distances (though actual measurements aren’t specified).
Available menu options depend on the input sources, functions and settings. Using the touch-buttons on the lower bezel we were able to make the important adjustments to brightness, contrast and colour temperature, which are essential for calibration. But other menus shown in the user manual were inaccessible so we can’t report on them.
The touch buttons worked quite intuitively and made it easy to both select the parameter for adjustment and set adjustments precisely. When changing settings, it was simple to move by one step in either the positive or negative direction by selecting the relevant arrow and then tapping the button. One tap changed the setting by one level.
In the two Calibration modes, you can save calibration results, which can be a time-saver when switching between different calibration targets. The Custom Mode can be employed for additional colour adjustments.
We found the shading hood could be easy to dislodge both when removing the calibrator and when we adjusted the tilt or swivel angle of the screen slightly. The problem was caused by poorly-matched lock-on points, which were slightly too small on the hood to fit comfortably over the matching protrusions on the screen’s bezel.
Maybe this would solve itself in time. Alternatively, it could be a result of previous handling as the unit we received had been used at least once (and probably several times ) before we got it.
Calibration
Because no software was provided on the CD supplied with the review unit, to obtain it we had to visit the product page on the company’s website and click on the Downloads tab. This takes you to a page from which you can download BenQ’s proprietary software, Palette Master, which is available for both Windows and Mac platforms.
Saving a profile created with Palette Master.
Palette Master is designed for specific use with X-rite’s i1 Pro colorimeters, with which it can produce and store an ICC profile for use by image editors and printers. It also lets you view before and after screens for checking the calibration results.
The colour deviation chart produced in the Advanced measurement mode.
Advanced measurements let you check screen uniformity (brightness only) and produce a chart (shown above) that plots deviations from colour standards. While we have an i1 Display Pro colorimeter and used it to check out the Palette Master software, we found none of the tools is as useful or comprehensive as the toolkit provided with the Spyder4 colorimeter.
Consequently, we ended up using the Spyder4 and associated software for this review. Calibrating the PG2401PT with the Spyder also provided us with an objective tool for comparing it with other monitors we have reviewed in the past year or so.
Advanced Analysis of measurements taken with the Spyder4 Elite showed this monitor to be a very good performer overall, with a perfect score for the gamut and 4.5 out of a possible 5 each for colour and luminance uniformity. Tonal response, white point and contrast tests were rated at 3.5 out of 5, giving an overall rating of 4 out of a possible 5.
Overall Rating
The overall rating shows the PG2401PT to be a good performer across all the parameters that were measured. It’s not quite a match for the best Eizo monitors we’ve tested but it’s close enough to be a serious competitor, particularly when the price is taken into account.
The results of the individual tests are presented below.
1. Colour Gamut
The review monitor performed very well in this test, as shown in the graph above. The green triangle shows the boundaries of the sRGB colour space, while the purple triangle delineates the Adobe RGB colour space. The red triangle shows the measured colour space for the monitor, which matches and actually covers a larger colour space in green wavelengths than the Adobe RBG colour space and is significantly larger than sRGB.
2. Gamma
Gamma plots show the relationship between the brightness of a pixel as it appears on the screen, and the numerical value of that pixel. They are a good indicator of how mid-tones are reproduced. If gamma is set too high, mid-tones appear too dark.
The graph of the measured gamma (above) shows it to be virtually identical to 2.2, the recommended gamma for image editing with Windows PCs.
3. Colour Accuracy
The plot of colour accuracy shows only slight deviations from the ideal theoretical values.
4. Screen Uniformity
The two Screen Uniformity tests check the brightness and colour consistencies of the display in nine sections of the screen, at various luminance levels. Separate graphs are provided for luminance (brightness) and colour measurements across four luminance levels. We present the upper and lower graphs for each category.
4a. Luminance Uniformity.
Luminance uniformity was consistently excellent despite a very slight deviation in brightness in the lower third of the screen.
4b. Colour Uniformity
Colour uniformity was also better than average.
Before and After Views
The ‘before’ (top) and ‘after’ (below) displays produced by theSpyder4 Elite showing the effects of calibration. The close similarities between these displays shows the BenQ PG2401PT ships with excellent colour settings.
Conclusion
The BenQ PG2401PT introduces some valid competition in a market that has long been ‘owned’ by Eizo and, to a lesser extent, NEC. We haven’t reviewed any NEC monitors so we can’t compare them with the BenQ screen or other monitors we have reviewed.
Although we have some reservations about the price of the BenQ PG2401PT, which is higher than the entry-level Eizo monitors with the same screen sizes, performance-wise it should meet the needs of most photo enthusiasts for image editing and printing. The screen itself is bright without being glaring and the brightness level is very easy to adjust to personal preferences.
It displays image colours with a good simulation of ‘natural’ colours without a tendency to over-saturate any hue. It is also usable with computers running the current ‘flavours’ of Windows and Mac operating systems and its fast response times and negligible input lag make it particularly well suited for video editing.
There’s nothing to complain about when it comes to build quality and ease of use, although we’d like to see instructions on assembling and attaching the supplied shading hood in the user manual. But the shading hood it itself a genuine bonus at this monitor’s price point.
This monitor comes with a number of printing industry certifications, including GRACoL Coated #1 Certification from the IDEAlliance, the primary certification for paper printing and FOGRA Softproof Monitor PreCertification from the Fogra Graphic Technology Research Association, which covers soft-proofing systems.
In terms of value for money, the PG2401PT is less than half the price of Eizo’s top-of-the-range ColorEdge CG247 24-inch monitor, which is priced at AU$2650. But it’s 30% to 40% more expensive than the Eizo Flexscan Foris FG2421, which sells for AU$755 and the Eizo Flexscan EV2436W 24-inch monitor, which has an RRP of around $695.
Image Science (http://www.imagescience.com.au/), which appears to be the only reseller stocking the PG2401PT, has it priced at AU$1199. The NEC PA242W, which has similar specifications to the PG2401PT, has been reduced in price from AU$1575 to $1199, matching the BenQ product.
SPECS
Panel Size: 24-inch
Active Display Area (H ø— V): 518.4 x 324.0 mm
Panel Type: VA (LED backlit)
Viewing Angles (H, V): 178/178 degrees
Maximum Brightness: 350 cd/m2
Native Contrast: 3000:1
DCR (Dynamic Contrast Ratio): 20M:1 (typ.)
Response Time (Typical): 4 ms
Native Resolution: 1920 x 1200 pixels (16:10)
Pixel Pitch: 0.27 x 0.27 mm
Display Colours: DVI: 16.77 million from a palette of 4.4 trillion; DisplayPort: 1.07 billion from a palette of 4.4 trillion
Wide Gamut Coverage: Adobe RGB: 99%
Gamma Look-Up Table: 14 bits per colour
Colour Look-Up Table: 14 bits per colour
Preset Modes: Standard, Adobe RGB, sRGB, illumin. A, D65, D50, Calibration, Custom
Accurate Colour: 14-bit 3D LUT, HW Calibration, Delta E≤2 (avg), Brightness Uniformity Function
Other features: Eco sensor, Eye protect sensor, touch control key, AC switch
Video Input Terminals: D-Sub, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, Headphone Jack, Card Reader
USB Ports / Standard: 1 upstream, 2 downstream / USB 3.0
Certification: GRACoL Grade #1 by IDEAlliance, FOGRA Softproof Monitor PreCert, windows & Mac compatible
Power requirements: AC 100 – 240 V, 50 / 60 Hz
Power Consumption: 74.6 W (maximum), 30.9 W (based on ENERGY STAR), less than 0.5 W in Power Save Mode
Height Adjustment Range: 150 mm
Tilt / Swivel / Pivot: 20 degrees Up, -5 degrees Down / 45 degrees Right, 45 degrees Left / 90 degrees
Included accessories/warranties: Signal Cable (VGA, DVI, Mini DisplayPort, USB 3.0 cable), Factory Calibration Report, Shading Hood, Palette Master Software, 6 month dead pixel warranty, 3 year back-to-base manufacturer’s warranty
Dimensions (W x H x D): With shading hood: 548.9 x 561.8 x 337.4 mm; Without shading hood: 542.6 x 555.4 x 254 mm
Net Weight: With shading hood: 7.93 kg; Without shading hood: 7.0 kg
Rating
RRP: AU$1199; US$999
- Build: 8.8
- Ease of use: 8.8
- Viewing quality: 9.0
- Versatility: 8.8
