First and foremost, the monitor now supports third-party hardware calibration for those using CalMan Studio or Light Illusion’s ColourSpace. This is a “good news, bad news” situation. Good, because hardware calibration is superior to software calibration, and third-party solutions are more widely supported than proprietary software like BenQ’s own Palette Master Element; Bad, because these are two of the most advanced and expensive color calibration solutions on the market and they’re aimed squarely at the high-end cinema crowd. DisplayCAL is wonderful for evaluating uniformity – I wish every piece of software (including Palette Master) had this test built-in. Unfortunately, most manufacturers wouldn’t want to include this test in their software, because it would reveal a lot of problems with uniformity – a common problem among all budget-friendly monitors. Response time is 5ms grey-to-grey, which should be good for video (and gaming), as response times below 8ms are generally considered good by today's standards. The monitor also features a built-in USB3 hub with two ports, and an SD card reader.

SW271C｜27-inch 4K AdobeRGB USB Type-C Photographer - BenQ

After I launched the software for the first time, it immediately recognized the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter and showed me the following screen: Thank you for your time, extraordinary knowledge and opinions. What you recommend will greatly influence my final decision on a monitor. FYI, for the most part, I use PS and LrC to edit in Windows 10.

Measuring the colour difference (Delta-E again), with the i1 Display Pro, the average was 0.86, maximum 1.73, very good results. As with all the BenQ PhotoVue monitors, the SW271 is calibrated before it leaves the factory and a printed report is included in the supplied documentation. Subsequently, hardware calibration – via an external colorimeter – is performed via BenQ’s proprietary Palette Master Element software (supplied on a CD-ROM). Hardware calibration is generally considered superior to software-based calibration (which also requires a colorimeter), but the latter will still ensure you keep the monitor within specifications over time. Update: It seems like all the issues are related to the MacOS version of Palette Master Element. After trying out the same display on my Windows PC, I was able to successfully calibrate the screen in Panel Native gamut without any issues! The white point was also being saved properly on the PC, but not on the MacOS version. If you are a Mac user, my recommendation would be to find a PC to do the initial hardware calibration. After that, connect to your Mac and perform software calibration using DisplayCAL for the best accuracy. Unfortunately, until BenQ fixes the MacOS version of the software, this is the only workaround I can think of. Where to Buy

BenQ SW271 review | Digital Camera World

As you can see, I got a “Passed” summary, showing good calibration results with Delta staying mostly low (this was far from being the case when using “Native”, “sRGB” or “DCI-P3” profiles). I knew this verification result wasn’t thorough by any means, so the next step was to fire up DisplayCAL and see what the colors really look like after the hardware LUT calibration. DisplayCAL VerificationThe results from the factory calibration look pretty good, showing passing numbers for all the tests. Let’s take a look at the sRGB color profile: This resolution provides more than enough space for working with several programs on at the same time, and you can view a full 8-megapixel photo at 100% on the screen. If you regularly deal with large images or need to view a lot of an image, in detail, then the high-resolution will be particularly useful. For 4K (UHD) video, the monitor's resolution is ideal, letting you view the full detail in the video. Keep in mind that this is what you normally get with most budget options on the market. Unless you are ready to move up to NEC and Eizo monitors that offer good overall uniformity and uniformity compensation features, most other monitors are going to struggle in this department. Verifying Factory Calibration I have looked at the Dell UP2720Q which was well reviewed by Nasim but there is a 6 week wait time from Dell to get it. Overall, it looks like the uniformity results for the SW271 looks pretty decent, especially when compared to the BenQ SW320 that demonstrated fairly poor uniformity, particularly in the corners. Still, I did not expect to see a sharp drop in uniformity right outside the center zone – as you can see, the right side of the center area looks quite a bit different.

BenQ SW271 review | Digital Camera World BenQ SW271 review | Digital Camera World

Nb. Delta-E (ΔE) is the measurement of the difference between the expected or requested colour, and the actual colour measured by the calibration device. The lower this number, the better.In other words: the BenQ SW271C is easy to recommend… but it’s hard to recommend at this price. Are There Alternatives? As you can see, the right bottom side is just a tad more pink compared to the left side, which is a common issue with many BenQ monitors. Although it is not as bad as on the SW320 I reviewed previously, it is still definitely there. Overall brightness uniformity is also a problem and you can see a bright hotspot in the middle, which is quite common to see on most monitors of this level. It's possible to save the results of performance as an HTML document so that you have a record of how the monitor is performing, which could be particularly important for colour critical work or to show that your computer and monitor is set up correctly. Using the i1 Display Pro and i1 Profiler Software, 6493K was the Colour temperature achieved in the centre of the monitor, but this deviated as we measured different points on the screen. Luminance was the requested 120 cd/m2, is 120 cd/m2 in the centre of the frame.