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A good screen size and resolution combination in our view (3840 x 2160 and 32”), plus HDMI 2.0 and an ergonomically flexible and solidly built stand On the right-hand side of the monitor are two HDMI 2.0 ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, mini DisplayPort, SD card slot, two USB 3.0 ports and a 3.5mm audio port. With HDMI 2.0 you can now use HDMI to display 4K visual at 60Hz, which means you can also plug a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X into the monitor and use it as a display for those. Excellent factory calibration, strong sRGB coverage and good flexibility in the OSD, with a range of useful ‘Gamma’ modes delivering what’s promised The solid aluminum upright supports a full range of movements including 45° swivel, 5” height, and 25° tilt. You also get an impressive portrait mode. We can imagine the ease of editing orchestral scores or working on poster-sized graphics when the panel is rotated. As above, but another reduction in blue light output. The blue colour channel has been weakened massively – this is an effective mode for users with sensitive eyes or anybody wishing to minimise blue light exposure before bed.
That means the BenQ capable of reproducing color nearly perfectly. Any score below 1.0 is considered to be perfect, so with 1.23, the BenQ comes awfully close. Let’s see if we can shave it down with calibration. Post-calibration Quality One of the first things I did was drop Window’s scaling down to 100%, instead of the default 150%. At 150%, icons and text, while sharp, are huge. You lose a significant chunk of usable resolution compared to 100%, where things are smaller but still perfectly readable. Finally, we assessed the contrast performance of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This film contains many scenes where strong contrast is called upon, with bright lightsabers and explosions lighting up much darker surroundings. The monitor again put in a decent performance. It didn’t capture the atmosphere in the way that a model with significantly stronger contrast might (such as a VA model), but it didn’t appear washed out in a reasonably well-lit room either. The various modes bring some enhancements, although ones such as CAD/CAM mode will only be of use to a small market of professionals. If you’re buying this as a business monitor for your work you'll be pretty impressed with its performance, especially considering its price. The Asus ROG PG27UQ and the Acer Predator XB272-HDR are slated to arrive in Q2 2017, that starts tomorrow (and no, not an April Fool's joke) . That puts it some time in the next 90 days though I expect we will see them released right around the big outer shows in May.There has been a lot of interest in ‘4K’ UHD screens (3840 x 2160), with users keen to make use of the pixels for both work and play. As we explore in this article, there is a lot to like about the resolution. But there are also some issues, particularly when it comes to relying on scaling on the desktop, something that is more pertinent with smaller screens. The BenQ PD3200U spreads its pixels out across a 32” screen area, potentially reducing the reliance on scaling whilst still providing an excellent pixel density. We certainly had a lot of positives things to say about the predecessor to this model, the BL3201PT/PH, so it will be interesting to see how this one performs in similar test scenarios. Yes. If you’re a professional looking for a display designed for creative use, you can’t do much better than the BenQ PD3200U — not without spending an extra couple hundred dollars. At this price, the BenQ is a steal. If you need a new workhorse monitor and you’re ready to step up to 4K, give this screen a serious look. That means the monitor will outlast your current desktop hardware, and will see you through at least a couple years of hard use. Overall, this is a standard array of ports for a professional monitor, but the layout is convenient and thoughtful. Controls
The BenQ PD3200U is part of BenQ’s Designer Monitor range, which means it has been individually factory-calibrated before being shipped. It also comes with a range of modes for professionals, such as CAD/CAM mode, which ups the contrast for lines and shapes in technical illustrations when using CAD programs. Colour reproduction was very pleasing on Battlefield 1 (BF1). The environments appeared rich, natural and suitably varied with an excellent palette of varied greens and browns. Colour consistency was also strong, allowing colours to appear quite consistent in their saturation levels and aiding subtle shade variety. There was also a nice dose of vibrancy where it was warranted, for example lively-looking yellow and oranges flames and some quite lush-looking vegetation. Dirt Rally also showcased the colour reproduction capabilities of the monitor nicely, with a healthy variety of earthy browns and a vivid but natural-looking palette of greens. Different environments appeared distinct due to the particular shades showcased there – and we’re not just talking desert vs. forest here, either. Meanwhile more vibrant shades such as electric pinks, bright blues and neon greens stood out quite nicely on the car liveries. In that respect things didn’t have the same ‘pop’ or arresting vibrancy we’ve seen on some models, but only those with a more generous colour gamut (causes oversaturation) or glossy screen surface. My monitor arrived with 0 dead pixels and excellent apparent uniformity. While this is only a sample of 1, it’s a positive reflection on BenQ’s QA processes. Calibration doesn’t always radically change a monitor’s performance, but in some cases, it will give you a little extra mileage and help gloss over some of your monitor’s flaws. Think of calibration like honing your kitchen knives. It’s not going to make them better, but it will make them sharper. With the BenQ, that’s exactly what we see after calibration.Prices have come down, but it’s still an expensive segment of the market — especially in the professional monitor market. That’s where the BenQ PD3200U really shines. Standing up against monitors that are three to four hundred dollars more isn’t an easy task, but the PD3200U sure makes it look that way. The average static contrast on the BenQ PD3200U with only brightness adjusted was 972:1, which is quite good and in line with expectation based on the specifications. Under our ‘Test Settings’ we recorded 959:1, which is quite pleasing. The contrast dropped somewhat following the application of the ‘Low Blue Light settings’, to 637:1 – 719:1 depending on the setting used. This is more pronounced than the drop we measured on the BL3201PT/PH (981:1 minimum) but quite acceptable given that these modes serve their purpose well regardless of the contrast dropping a bit. The maximum luminance recorded on the table was 299 cd/m², whilst the minimum white luminance was 54 cd/m². This gives a luminance adjustment range of 245 cd/m² with plenty of usable values to choose from for a range of lighting conditions and preferences. I’ve appreciated high resolution monitors since I got my first Retina MacBook. There’s just something to the crispness of the image that you have to see to appreciate. Previous 4K panels were all too small, however, requiring scaling or a magnifying glass to be usable. At 32 inches, however, this panel hits a sweet spot of size and density, without needing to do things like curve the display. Monitors like the BenQ PD3200U give us hope for a 4K future. It performs brilliantly, and the large screen size really gives you an insight into how a large 4K monitor can improve your productivity. The panel type is IPS, with a native contrast of 1000:1. This ensures viewing angles are very good, which is essential for a screen of this size, as when sitting in front of it at a desk it really does take up almost all of your peripheral vision.
Low input lag and well-optimised pixel overdrive allowed the monitor to put in a convincing 60Hz performance Good contrast performance overall, with static contrast as expected and a slight reduction in ‘AHVA glow’ compared to what you might expect from such a screen will limit the appeal to some users and there were slight traces of trailing and overshoot here and there As above but more effective in reducing blue light. The image appears noticeably warmer, especially when you first change to this mode and your eyes haven’t adapted. On some monitors faint interlace patterns can be seen during certain transitions, particularly noticeable where light shades (muzzle flashes, explosions etc.) briefly pop up on the screen. These are sometimes referred to as ‘inversions artifacts’. Alternatively, static interlace patterns can be seen with some shades appearing as faint horizontal bands of a slightly lighter and slightly darker version of the intended shade. We did not observe any such artifacts on this monitor.But what about performance for non-professional applications? We hooked it up to a gaming rig with a mighty Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, which does a pretty decent job of pushing games at 4K resolution, and they really did look superb. Hardware, particularly gaming hardware, hasn’t quite caught up to the demands 4K places on modern desktop computers, but it’s gaining steam fast, which means 4K content is going to become more and more common and much more accessible. We also made some observations when viewing our Blu-ray movie test titles. Here, there were no noticeable weaknesses attributable to either slower than optimal pixel responses or overly aggressive pixel overdrive. The pace of action here is limited by the 24fps or so at which the content runs – which limits fluidity and also reduces the pixel responsiveness requirements. We also observed some higher frame rate movie content (60fps), which as you’d expect highlighted exactly the same sort of behaviour that our game testing did. There were again no obvious weaknesses, just a whiff of faint powdery trailing or overshoot here and there. Certainly nothing we found distracting and nothing that should bother even sensitive users. If it does, they’d likely be unhappy with any 60Hz sample and hold monitor. However, this isn’t just a monitor for media consumption. It’s a monitor for media creation. In that regard, it holds its own against more expensive competitors, but it’s not the most impressive professional monitor we’ve seen.
The following images show pursuit photographs taken using the UFO Motion Test for ghosting, with the test running at its default speed of 960 pixels per second. This is a good practical speed for taking such photographs and one which represents both elements of perceived blur nicely. The monitor was set to its various ‘AMA’ (Advanced Motion Acceleration) pixel overdrive settings, with all rows of the test shown to demonstrate a range of different pixel transitions. The final column shows a reference screen, specifically a Dell S2417DG, showing how this test should look where eye (camera) movement is the only significant contributor to perceived blur. Note that this test runs at a frame rate matching the monitor’s refresh rate (i.e 60fps), with the UFO moving from left to right across the screen. The BenQ PD3200U features a number of ‘Picture Mode’ presets; ‘Rec. 709’, ‘sRGB’, ‘CAD/CAM’, ‘Animation’, ‘Standard’, ‘Low Blue Light’, ‘Darkroom’ and ‘User’. There are also a number of setting that can be adjusted manually, including ‘Gamma’ which can be set to various values between ‘1.8’ and ‘2.6’. Unlike on the BL3201PT/PH and many other BenQ models, these values have been given specified gamma values rather than being numbered sequentially. We won’t go through all of the preset modes and setting individually, as that would be quite tedious. If you’d like a better idea of what some of the modes like ‘Animation’ and ‘CAD/CAM’ do then refer to the calibration section of our BenQ BL3200PT review where these are looked at in a bit of detail.
A large 4K screen for your desk
The UHD resolution on a 32” screen also brings with it a very pleasing pixel density of 139.87 PPI (Pixels Per Inch). This brings with it excellent clarity and detail when viewing images or indeed when playing games. As with images, getting the best out of this requires that the game itself offers suitably high-resolution content. You always benefit from extra clarity, a reduced need for anti-aliasing and that sort of thing anyway – but truly admiring game content at this resolution requires suitably high-resolution textures and particle effects as well. This is something we explore in more detail in the aforementioned article and indeed in our BL3201PT/PH review. Although they are in no way representative of what you see first-hand when using the monitor, we’ve included a few photos of the monitor running a range of game titles. Particularly with the details cranked up (which brought out GTX 1070 to its knees, unfortunately), these titles looked quite stunning in many respects and certainly benefited from the high resolution and pixel density on offer here. A sensitive camera and a small tool called SMTT 2.0 was used to measure input lag for the PD3200U. The monitor was compared to various screens of known latency, taking over 30 repeat readings to maximise accuracy. Using this method, we calculated 7.05ms (under 1/2 a frame) of input lag. This value is influenced both by the signal delay (element you ‘feel’) and pixel responsiveness (element you ‘see’). It indicates a low signal delay, which will come as welcome news to users sensitive to this sort of thing.
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