Introduction:
In the past few years BenQ brand has really surprised other manufacturers and their users by providing some of their finest 3G gaming monitors. No matter whether it is from BenQ’s RL series monitors such as RL2455HM or RL2450H OR XL series monitors such as XL2420T. The variant we are reviewing today is yet another 3G Gaming Monitor from XL series named as “BenQ XL2720T.” It is a 27-inch wide viewing 3G gaming monitor with maximum resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. The monitor is said to be one of the best FPS gaming monitor as it is preferred by E-Sports Entertainment Association to offer most demanding game plays in several First Person Shooter games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Battlefield. BenQ XL2420T is effective in FPS gaming because of the equipped ultra-low 0.002-frame input lag that synchronizes action without latency from mouse motion. The monitor also comes with built-in FPS Mode feature, about which we will talk later in this review.
In terms of looks, BenQ XL2420T is very attractive with black and red accent color scheme. Surrounded with matte finish panel you can also rotate the monitor up to 90 degrees, adjust its height or incline it according to your viewing preference. With 82ppi density the monitor is very bright but if you are using it in good light environment then you will feel little glare or reflection. This is to be normal with such monitors, right? But talking about its contrast, sharpness, or gamma the monitor scores very well result. All connection ports are placed in the similar way and similar place as we have seen in many other BenQ monitors, right behind at the bottom. We will find out more detail about its keys and ports below in the review. As of now let’s check what all accessories we get with BenQ XL2420T.
Accessories:
As the monitor itself is very big, obviously its packaging will be much bigger than that. The Monitor comes packed in a big box safely surrounded by safety measures. Inside the box apart from the monitor we get a Manual, a Driver CD, and a Stand in attractive black and red color mixture with adjustable panels and Cable Management Hole.
There is also a power cord, D-Sub and DVI-D dual link cable along with a USB cable. Apart from this BenQ has provided a plastic cover which I guess is a kind of screen protector which can be hovered over the fully assembled monitor to protect it from any damages or dust. And the last thing which confused me in the first look was a Mouse like device having a Scroll with 4 buttons and symbol of Back, 1, 2, and 3. After digging out more I found that it is called an S-Switch and is used for navigating through the monitor menu.
Navigation and Keys:
BenQ XL2420T has all its keys placed on the bottom right of the monitor. There are total 6 soft touch kinds of buttons with LED lights including 5 Menu keys and one Power key at the bottom. I think these keys have some kind of sensor because they glow up when you take your fingers near them without actually touching them. These entire keys act like On-screen-display (OSD) Control keys allowing you to make the required changes and settings of the monitor with ease and comfort.
As far as settings are concerned, the monitor comes with several important settings that allow you to even change the aspect ratio and screen size between a few preset. There is also a Senseye, AMA features and Black eQualizer system that allows you to brighten the dark area of the display. It is very useful for gaming, we will talk about this later. Under its Display Mode settings, you can also switch between 9 preset monitor screen sizes including 17″ (4:3), 19″ (4:3), 19″W (16:10), 21.5″W (16:9), 22″W (16:10), 23″W (16:9), 23.6″(16:9), 24″W (16:9), 27″W (16:9).Using this you will love playing games or watching movies according to your viewing preference.
Apart from these XL2420T comes with very good connectivity options. On the left side of the body we get 2 USB 2.0 ports with Headphone Jack. And at the rear bottom we get S-Switch socket, DisplayPort , D-Sub socket, DVI-D socket, 2 HDMI socket, USB port (upstream; connecting to the PC), and USB port (downstream; connecting to USB devices). There is also a separate port provided to attach the S-Switch controller. Let’s find out what is S-Switch.
S-Switch for Swift Control and Navigation:
The S-Switch is also a distinct remote controller that comes with BenQ XL2720T. The Switch has a Scroller with 4 customizable buttons out of which 1st is the Back key to come out of the Menus and rest three keys are by default assigned to 3 Gaming displays which includes resolution, contrasts, sharpness, brightness, gamma, and color. You can customize these 3 keys according to your need from the Menu Settings. For example, we need different kind of brightness, contrast or sharpness for different work such as for gaming, work or entertainment purpose. You can create displays according to your need or use the readymade ones and assign them to these S-Switch keys so that you can change the display with just one click while playing games or watching movies. Using the new S-Switch, switching between displays is now as easy as 1, 2 and 3. Over all the S-Switch looks very attractive with Black and Red color and also for its features.
Ultra-Flexible Height Adjustment Stand:
Another best thing that I liked in BenQ XL2720T is its adjustable stand. Easy to assemble, the stand fits in a minute and allows you to rotate the monitor upto 90 degrees. You can also adjust the height of the monitor upto 14CM and this can be done with just a single finger. According to your needs you can make the monitor screen sit on your table or move it up to some height as well. Furthermore the Stand’s design allows you to even incline the monitor from horizontal to vertical because of its quick-release VESA mount design. The cable management hole provided in the stand keeps all our wiring and cables hidden behind the monitor so that your table remains clean.
Performance:
The XL2720T is a 27-inch widescreen Full HD LED screen offering 16:9 aspect ratio. The monitor uses LED backlighting for great color and low power consumption with 12 million: 1 contrast ratio for the best and most optimal output in picture quality. XL2720T seems to be very good with large wide display for gaming, multimedia or for working purpose. While testing the monitor we found that it is capable of providing 120Hz display and hence, as mentioned by the manufacturer also, you can play your games at full 120 Frames Per Second (FPS). Only the condition is your system should have a high end Graphic Card and the game you are trying to play should be 120 FPS compatible. If you are not getting the 120 FPS on your system, there is no reason to complain about the monitor. You will better notice the FPS improvement while playing games like COD Modern Warfare 2 which has frantic action. Furthermore, the response time mentioned by BenQ was 5ms but we didn’t get such faster response time. In our case it remains from 7ms to 9ms which is still good. At the top right of the BenQ XL2720T monitor you will find the sticker saying “Nvidia 3D Vision Ready”. Yes, it is a 3D monitor but not supplied with the KIT. If you want to enjoy 3D on this system you will need to buy one separately. I don’t know why BenQ didn’t supply the KIT with this monitor however the KIT comes by default with their XL2420TX model Monitor.
Apart from gaming, the monitor obviously stands good for multimedia purpose. If you have a Full HD 1080p video and play it in Movie Mode, you will love to watch it on a wide and bright display from a distance of atleast 8 to 10 feet. Now talking about working, I felt very comfortable on this monitor. I can open upto 4 consecutive Windows and they all fit well around the screen. At a time you can also open two web browsers side by side and comfortably read each letters on the page. We get lots of space on the monitor that makes your work much easier and comfortable. Personally I feel uncomfortable with brighter screens, hence I kept brightness and contrast to Zero but still I was not able to get darker screen as I used to get on my other Samsung LED monitors.
If you are one of those who prefer smaller screen or if you have some low-space problem to keep such huge monitor, then there is a best alternative for this XL2720T monitor, its 24-inch BenQ XL2420T.
List of important Features:
1. HDMI:
As stated above BenQ XL2720T comes with two HDMI ports compatible with almost all kind of media peripheral including Blu-ray players, PCs and cameras and offers you full HD connectivity. The HDMI ports also support Gaming consoles such as PlayStation 3 and XBOX allowing you to enjoy your games on large 27 inch sharp LED and 3D display into 16:9 aspect ratio.
2. Black eQualizer:
This is yet another very useful feature specially for Gamers. Many times while playing we get into dark scenes or a day scene with a dark area where we face difficulty watching the enemies and at that time combat becomes difficult. But now with the Black eQualizer color engine technology in BenQ XL2720T, you can brighten those dark scenes into bit brighter so that the enemy becomes clearly visible. In earlier monitors we needed to do this by over-exposing white levels which most of the time didn’t work perfectly as we want. Thanks to Black eQualizer, it made it easier and much effective.
3. FPS Mode:
With XL2720T, BenQ has provided two preset FPS Modes which has been developed with the help of hardcore gamers. Both the FPS modes have different settings including optimal brightness, contrast, sharpness, and color tint which puts you in fundamental insights of gaming. Where 1st FPS mode is suitable to play games like Counter-Strike 1.6, the 2nd FPS is for games like CS Source. The assigned setting allows you to spot or track your opponents easily and in every situation. This makes the Monitor very useful for gaming pros.
4. Game Mode Loader:
This is where the S-Switch becomes very useful. You can assign the game modes on those 3 keys to switch easily from one to another. You can download gaming presets for games like Battlefield 3, Call of Duty 3, Diablo 3, and Dota2 which are used by gaming legends and play it on your system as well as switch them anytime in just one click using the S-switch. The monitor comes with 3 Game Mode by default, unfortunately there is no option to create any more but you can assign any of the downloaded Game loader to any of these. If you want you can download the Game Mode Loaders from here http://gaming.benq.com/downloads/
5. 3D Vision:
BenQ XL2720T comes with built-in NVIDIA 3D Vision 2-ready and NVIDIA 3D LightBoost technology to offer the Full HD 3G experience while gaming or while watching movies. The LightBoost also enhances the viewing experience by increasing the original screen brightness upto twice to offer best viewing experience with total realism and intensive graphic display.
6. Viewing Preference:
XL2720T comes with preset 9 Monitor screen sizes which users can set according to their viewing preference. This can be done by going into Display Mode settings or directly by using the Smart Scaling features. As mentioned above, the sizes includes 17″ (4:3), 19″ (4:3), 19″W (16:10), 21.5″W (16:9), 22″W (16:10), 23″W (16:9), 23.6″W (16:9), 24″W (16:9) to 27″W(16:9).
7. 120Hz Refresh Rate and 1ms GTG Response Time:
Gamers can experience lag free gaming with BenQ XL2720T because of its 120Hz refresh rate and 1ms GTG Response Time. Because of this every in-game details or fast-moving action gets rendered smoothly without a single freeze, lag or any other annoying stuff. You can experience the best gaming on such monitor if you have high end gaming configuration.
Assembling:
Though the provided Stand seems very complicated for assembling, but it can be done in less than 2 minutes if you go through properly. If you want you can go through the steps provided in this Manual.
Specifications:
Display
- Back Light Unit : LED
- LCD Size : 27″W 120HZ
- Aspect Ratio : 16:9
- Resolution (max.) : 1920×1080
- Pixel Pitch (mm) : 0.311
- Brightness (typ.) : 300 cd/㎡
- Contrast (typ.) : 1000:1
- DCR (typ.) (Dynamic Contrast Ratio) : 12M:1
- Panel Type : TN
- Viewing Angle (L/R;U/D) (CR>=10) : 170 / 160
- Response Time (Tr+Tf) typ. : 5ms, 1ms (GtG)
- Display Colors : 16.7 million
- Color Gamut : 72%
Audio/Video Inputs/Outputs
- Input Connector : D-sub/DVI-DL/HDMI/DP
- USB Hub : Donwstream x 3, Upstream x 1
Special Feature
- Senseye : Senseye 3
- AMA : Yes
- Color Temperature : Reddish / Normal / Bluish / user mode
- OSD Language : 17 Languages
- VESA Wall Mounting : 100X100 mm
- Swivel (left/right) : 45/45
- Tilt (down/up) : -5/20
- High Adjustment (mm) : 140 mm
- K-Locker : Yes
Dimensions & Weights
- CTN Dimensions (HxWxD mm) : 486 X 711 X 245
- Dimensions (HxWxD mm) : 548 X 642 X 273
- Dimensions with Wall Mount (HxWxD mm) : 485 X 642 X 269
- Net Weight (kg) : 7.5
- Gross Weight (kg) : 10.2
Power
- Power Supply (90~264 AC) : Built-in
- Power Consumption (Base on Energy star) : 27W
- Power Consumption (Power saving mode) : 0.5W
Conclusion:
If you are looking for a HD Gaming 3D Monitor for video games, then BenQ XL2720T could be your best option at a price of Rs. $482 or Rs. 27,000/- to Rs. 35,000/- in India. This is one of the best Gaming monitors I have used so far which offers 120 FPS and 120Hz refresh rate and 1ms GTG Response Time. Specially, for First Person Shooter games like Counter Strike Global Offensive or Call of Duty. Apart from gaming the monitor is also very effective for Entertainment purpose with support of almost all media peripheral and gaming consoles. Apart from this the preset features above 2 FPS Modes, 9 different screen sizes, Black eQualizer technology, etc; making it much better and useful with the S-Switch for switching Game loader modes in just one click along with many more settings. However if you are not a serious or hardcore gamer then the monitor may sound bit costly for you as it won’t come with a 3D kit. For that, you will need to spend extra dollars to enjoy 3D gaming or 3D Entertainment.
Pros:
- Wide HD 3D 27-inch display
- Better Refresh rate and Response Time
- Black eQualizer technology
- S-SWitch
Cons:
- Bit costly.
- 3D kit Not included
