BenQ E2220HD review: BenQ E2220HD

Way back in the fog of 2001, a brand called BenQ came into existence, spun off from Acer. Acer was to be the business brand, BenQ the lifestyle. Things didn't quite work out this way, and in 2006 Acer removed its interest in BenQ entirely, leaving the company to fend for itself.

In the monitor space, BenQ has typically delivered mid-range to high-end consumer products. Things haven't changed with its latest entry, the E2220HD. Despite the prevalence of twos in the model name, this isn't a 22-inch monitor; rather it's a 21.5-inch. While losing half an inch might be damaging to some people's reputations, in the case of monitors it's not too bad, as the shrinking in panel size coalesces with an increase in resolution to the full HD 1920x1080. In short, it's not the size that matters, and BenQ sure knows how to use it.

Also sloshing around in the positive bucket is BenQ's styling. The crisp, clean lines; piano black and silver accents creating an attractive monitor that anyone would be proud to have on their desks. The funky standout feature of the E2220HD though is a hook that clips into the back of your monitor, containing what looks like a smiley bear.

This cute little mascot does more than make you feel like you've dropped into a Japanese cartoon; it holds your headphones, too. By and large it's quite effective, and keeps things neat provided you can be bothered to hang your headphones in the first place.

Specs at a glance

Size	21.5 inches
Resolution	1920x1080
Aspect ratio	16:9
Pixel pitch	0.248
Panel technology	TN
Viewing angles (10:1 contrast)	H: 170° V: 160°
Response time	5ms
Max vertical refresh	76Hz
Connections	2x HDMI, DVI, VGA, 3.5mm line in/out, headphone jack, 4x USB
Accessories	DVI, VGA, USB upstream, 3.5mm audio and power cables

Stand and ergonomics

The E2220HD's stand is ovoid, and offers tilt functionality only. The stand isn't quite heavy enough though, as when tilting the panel back, you'll need to hold down the stand with your other hand at the same time lest the whole thing lift up with it. A single liftable loop on the neck provides cable management. By itself it's too small to fit a DVI cable through, although you can unclip the loop from the neck to fit through any cables you might need. It's not the most elegant solution, but it works.

Connections

Speakers

BenQ has fit two 1.5W speakers to the bottom of the E2220HD, but you're better off using your own speakers or headphones, as they're tinny, weak and unconvincing at best.

Buttons and on-screen display (OSD)

BenQ persists in using annoying side-mounted buttons. Despite having labels (which are difficult to find in the dark), placing the buttons on the side and their order feels clunky and unintuitive, resulting in many mistaken button presses and slow configuration.

The buttons also act as shortcuts, with the Enter button acting as an input switcher, the Up button allowing quick access to volume controls, and the down button cycling through the image presets.

Thankfully, the OSD is modern and well designed, and offers gamma and sharpness settings above the usual fanfare. Scaling abilities include Overscan, Full and Aspect, but you won't find a 1:1 option here.

BenQ has also embraced the way of the preset, bundling Standard, Eco, sRGB, Photo, Game and Movie profiles. As usual we suggest going with the standard/custom profile and calibrating yourself, as these built-in presets are sub-standard as nearly always seems to be the case.

While Dynamic Contrast Ratio is thankfully turned off by default, BenQ has also thrown in something called SenseEye, which dynamically adjusts contrast and sharpness. Despite the gushing PR, we'd suggest you leave it at its default state: off, where it can't mess with your images.

Performance

Lagom.nl LCD tests
After calibrating to a target brightness of 140cd/m² with an X-Rite i1Display 2, Eye-One Match 3 and tweaking with HCFR, the E2220HD was run through the Lagom.nl LCD tests.

Image tests
Contrast	Sharpness	Gamma	Black level	White saturation	Gradient
Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass

Inversion pixel walk tests
Test 1	Test 2a	Test 2b	Test 3	Test 4a	Test 4b	Test 5	Test 6a	Test 6b	Test 7a	Test 7b
Pass	Slight flicker	Pass	Rolling upward motion	Flicker	Slight flicker	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass

The E2220HD waltzes through the initial tests with some excellent greyscale gradients. It fails four of the pixel walk tests, but this isn't anything worse than normal.

Input lag
Measured against a Samsung SyncMaster 975p CRT, and using a Canon 40D set to a shutter speed of 1/320, an average of over 60 photographs were taken using Virtual Stopwatch Pro. The average result over DVI came in as 2.67ms, meaning almost no input lag. Bizarrely, a great number of frames came in with the BenQ faster than the Samsung, something that shouldn't be possible. Usually this is an artefact of two numbers merging together to appear like a larger number, but there were many clear shots where the BenQ was around 10-20ms faster. We're unsure what causes this, but one thing is certain — the E2220HD is fast.

Colour accuracy
ΔE is the measurement of how far a measured colour deviates from its expected value, allowing us to determine the colour accuracy of a monitor. While a ΔE value of 1 is considered perceivable, as long as it's less than 3, the shift shouldn't be too obvious. HCFR was used to determine ΔE for the monitor, and dynamic contrast ratio was turned off.

Measured levels
Contrast ratio	659:1
Black level (cd/m²)	0.40
White level (cd/m²)	263.55
Gamma	1.89

Greyscale ΔE
0%	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%
57.7	7.0	7.0	9.2	9.5	9.7	9.9	9.7	9.6	9.7	9.8

Colour ΔE
Red	Green	Blue	Yellow	Cyan	Magenta
13.9	9.7	10.7	1.4	13.7	19.5

The greys are out by a consistent amount, excluding the black. The gamma is out pretty horribly though, and the black level isn't too crash hot either. With the use of Eye-One Match 3 and HCFR, let's see if we can bring the greyscale down to a more acceptable level.

Measured levels
Contrast ratio	496:1
Black level (cd/m²)	0.29
White level (cd/m², target 140cd/m²)	143.70
Gamma (target 2.2)	2.11

Greyscale ΔE
0%	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%
63.1	17.6	5.2	2.0	1.4	0.7	0.3	1.3	0.8	0.3	0.3

Colour ΔE
Red	Green	Blue	Yellow	Cyan	Magenta
14.3	12.1	5.9	3.3	12.7	13.8

The greys may be better, but the colours aren't amazingly accurate. Still for a screen of this price and using TN technology, it's perfectly acceptable.

HDMI performance
While a monitor might have an HDMI port that's no guarantee it'll display images as expected. We hooked up a PlayStation 3 and checked for 24p capability, as well as judder and ran the HQV Blu-ray test to see how well it coped with an interlaced source and noise.

24p capable	Understands YUV	Mission Impossible III Scene 11 judder test	Mission Impossible III Scene 14 judder test
No	Yes	Pass	Pass

HQV noise reduction score	HQV video resolution loss score	HQV jaggies score	HQV film resolution loss score	HQV film resolution loss – stadium score	Total score (out of 100)
15	0	0	0	0	15

The E2220HD's 1080i content was a little blurry, and increasing the sharpness to maximum didn't seem to help too much. Based off the HQV tests, we wouldn't use this for 1080i content either. It did, however, pass both judder tests in Mission Impossible III, and had excellent noise reduction, which means as long as you're not fussed about 24p playback, it could be a good screen for watching Blu-ray movies on.

Viewing angles
Viewing angles were taken with a Canon 40D in spot metering mode, with only shutter time adjusted to obtain a good exposure.

Backlight uniformity
Backlight uniformity was measured by placing HCFR into free measure mode, displaying a completely white image and recording the brightness along a 5x3 grid on the screen. This should be considered a guide only, as backlight uniformity is likely to change from unit to unit.

Light bleed
The E2220HD exhibited minimal light bleed from the top of the screen, excellent for a monitor of this price.

It's important to note that the effects of light bleed will likely change from monitor to monitor, regardless of make.

Power consumption
We measured power consumption using a Jaycar mains digital power meter. It's important to note here that due to limitations of the meter, measurements are limited to values of 1W and greater, and are reported in 1W increments.

All measurements, screen brightness and contrast were set to 100 per cent, and a test image displayed.

Juice box
Maximum power draw	34W
Power-saving mode	7W
Off	7W

The E2220HD represents middle-of-the-road power consumption. There are monitors with worse, and monitors with better power consumption.

Warranty

BenQ supports the E2220HD with a three-year, on-site pick-up warranty. BenQ's pixel policy covers a 14-day DOA period where the monitor can be returned if any bright or dark subpixels are noticed. After this, the monitor must accrue either three bright subpixels, five dark subpixels or any combination of five disfunctional subpixels.

Conclusion

BenQ offers an excellent screen that gamers are sure to love. Its colour accuracy isn't up there with the likes of the , but if you're not a designer, this monitor is worth the dollars saved.