BenQ EW2430V review: BenQ EW2430V

BenQ's having a shot at Dell's high-end Ultrasharp range. Not in terms of panel quality, but rather inputs. It's been quite some time since we've seen this amount of analog inputs on a monitor, and with good reason: their purpose is diminishing. Still if you need somewhere to plug in a component device, BenQ has an option ready built for you.

8.5

BenQ EW2430V

The Good

Great black levels. Impressive contrast ratio. Good 1080i movie performance. Impressive pixel walk inversion results.

The Bad

Buttons on the back of the monitor make navigating OSD a pain. Light bleed and slight discolouration could annoy. Draws more power than it should in power-saving mode and when off.

The Bottom Line

BenQ's EW2430V is a decent performer with good movie-watching capabilities, excellent black levels and a lengthy warranty. If you're after a good all-rounder, it should suit your needs perfectly.

It's also interesting to see another VA panel from BenQ. IPS has been making inroads into even the budget market, while TN still exists in the ultra-cheap segment — VA tends to not be so common. It's major benefit over IPS is impressive black levels, but otherwise IPS usually provides a better experience. Let's see how the EW2430V fares.

It certainly looks stylish.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Stand and ergonomics

BenQ's stand is finished in attractive brushed aluminium, and is a large rectangular base that you can tuck your keyboard into when finished. It only offers tilt adjustments — we'd have liked to have seen more flexibility here.

BenQ's stand allows for a keyboard to be stored, but only offers tilt adjustability.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Connections

Power, headphone, 3.5mm line out, 3.5mm line in, RCA audio in, 2x HDMI, DVI, component, VGA and USB upstream. There are four USB ports made available on the left-hand side.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Buttons and on-screen display (OSD)

BenQ, please, please, please, please start putting your buttons on the fascia. Putting them behind the monitor, then making sure the labels on the front don't line up makes them almost unusable.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

BenQ persists in its annoying behaviour of not putting buttons on the front. This time they're on the back of the monitor, with labels on the front to help you find them. They don't quite line up, though, and make the OSD a pain to navigate. This is one monitor that's no fun to set up.

Thanks to its context-sensitive nature, LG's OSD is easy to use.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Lots of options are offered in the EW2430V's OSD, including 1:1 pixel mapping. The usual bevy of image presets are here, but for some reason take a very long time to switch between them. As usual, we recommend you leave it set to "Standard" and ignore all the other settings, which tend not to give you natural colours./p>

Picture-by-picture and picture-in-picture functions are included, allowing a user to show what's on either HDMI connection, VGA or component ports when running the DVI channel. Other features of note include "super resolution", which is meant to improve picture clarity. If you were to believe BenQ's demonstration images, it also possesses abilities akin to "enhance" in movies.

Yeah ... we're pretty sure it's not that good.
(Credit: BenQ)

The reality is much more disappointing. Deliberately dropping the resolution of an image, we took a photo with Super Resolution off, then on.

Super Resolution isn't what it claims.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

All the function does is increase the contrast and brightness, and maybe sharpness. The resulting image rather than adding detail, actually loses it. This is one feature we recommend you leave off.

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 EW2430V was run through the Lagom.nl LCD tests.

Of note here are the gradients — some of the smoothest we've seen. BenQ gets green ticks all the way through.

Most monitors fail from one up to four of the pixel walk tests; BenQ only shows a little weakness on two, and even then it's barely perceptible. The EW2430V is the most impressive monitor we've seen when it comes to the inversion pixel walk tests.

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 was taken using StoppUhr. With a lag time of under 2ms, the BenQ will be well suited for sensitive gamers.

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 one is considered perceivable, as long as it's less than three, the shift shouldn't be too obvious. HCFR was used to determine &DeltaE for the monitor, in tandem with an X-Rite i1Display 2.

The little white dots, our greyscale reference points, should be on the curved line.
(Screenshot by CBS Interactive)

A phenomenally low black level gives the EW2430V an impressive contrast ratio, although the screen isn't as bright as some competitors. Still, things could use further calibration. BenQ's screen only gives us RGB controls, which means we can really only tweak our greyscale — we'd need CMY controls to pull the primaries and secondaries back into line. Still, doing so is worth it — it should balance out our colour gradation more accurately.

All our dots lined up on a curve. Shade transitions should be a lot more natural now.
(Screenshot by CBS Interactive)

With things much improved, the BenQ still holds on to its very impressive contrast ratio thanks to its crazily low black levels.

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

BenQ has managed excellent noise reduction, and manages to smooth jaggies as well. It doesn't do as well for the film resolution loss test or the stadium test, but it certainly does better than the majority of monitors out there when it comes to filtering video content. Our Mission: Impossible III test footage doesn't do so well, with juddering obvious during the panning scenes.

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

VA-based screens tend to lose contrast at extreme angles rather than create obvious colour shifts.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Light bleed
Displaying a completely black screen, there was obvious light bleed down the left-hand side and top of the monitor.

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

Speakers
Although they do reasonably well on the clarity front, BenQ's speakers found at the bottom of the monitor tend to be mid heavy, lack bass and decent tone. You'll do much better to use external speakers or headphones.

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	31W
Power-saving mode	7W
Off	7W

The EW2430V is a bit of a power vampire, something unusual for BenQ. It draws 7W while in power-saving mode and when off. If you're power conscious, you might want to switch it off at the wall when not in use.