Since the Covid-19 outbreak in early 2020, most people have been cooped up at home and have been doing office project works, attending virtual meetings and even children too are attending online classes.
However, to carry out the work or e-learning, a good PC display is very important to lessen the strain on the eyes. There are a lot of monitor screens in the market, but it is very hard to find good quality products worth the asking price.
Taiwanese consumer electronics firm BenQ has one PC monitor GW2785TC (27-inch) with Eye Care series in the market. It costs Rs 23,990 (on Amazon) in India. I spent a little over two weeks reviewing it and here are my thoughts on the new display.
Design
Setting up the display panel was very simple. It comes with three parts, one base, a stand, and the main monitor. The former two are very sturdy. It took me less than five minutes to fully set up, mount the display, and plug the Type-C cord to my Mac mini M1 and power (110W consumption under normal condition) cord to the electricity supply plug and start using it. Both the wires come with the retail box. If you want to disassemble the components, there is a physical button on the display and you just have to press it to detach from the stand.
The pivot angle between the stand and the display is 90-degree, and users can tilt up (-20-degree and down (-5-degree) and swivel to right and left sides up to 45-degree.
As you can see, BenQ GW2785TC features a simplistic design with widescreen and slim bezels around the edges. And, the BenQ branding at the base, doesn’t eat up any display real estate or harm the aesthetics of the monitor.
I have always preferred 21.5/22-inch screens at work and at home to write articles. For me, this model came off really big and it took some time for me to adjust to a 27-inch display. I have to say, it grew over me and had a great time during the entire review period (more on user experience later).
Display
BenQ GW2785TC features LED-backlit IPS full HD(1920×1080p) display and offers a brightness of 250 nits, 5ms response time, 16:9 aspect ratio, and 75Hz refresh rate, which is more than enough for day-to-day home usage and even for work, particularly those into software coding. It should be noted that the display comes with several dedicated modes—Care mode, Coding, Color Weakness, Custom 1, Custom 2, ECO, ePaper, Game, Low Blue Light, Movie, Standard, and User. You can select modes in the menu using the physical buttons in the bottom left corner.
With custom 1 and custom 2 options, users can personalise colour brightness, contrast, and other light effects that match their preferred viewing tastes. Also, it comes with TÜV Rheinland certified EyeSafe, Flicker-free, and Low Blue Light.
Also, the display comes with two 2W speakers, a headphone jack, noise cancellation mic, along with one HDMI (v1.4) port, two DisplayPort (v1.2)— one for input and output and one USB Type-C port (PowerDelivery 60W). The display port can be used to connect to multiple displays via and also with a laptop so that the users can have two or more screens to improve the work efficiency.
It offers a 178-degree wide-angle view and with value-added view modes, e-paper, brightness intelligence, flicker-free tech, and anti-glare feature, I had a good time working as well as enjoyed reading news and watching movies in my free time.
While the display keeps the harmful blue light under control, the other colours come off bright and vibrant to make viewing enjoyable.
One instance I like to share is that the crisp display quality helped me select better product photos. While using the work PC, I had previously shortlisted a bunch of images that were supposed to go within the smart wearable review article, but when reviewing them on the BenQ GW2785TC monitor, I noticed there were several dust particles on the display of the watch and I had to retake cover photos all over again.
I’d like to add that I usually spend more than ten hours in front of the PC and have to say, never felt any stress to the eyes during the entire review period.
I was told, there is a dedicated coding mode. Though I don’t write or do software testing as such, I tried inspecting the HTML source codes of the website on the browser to test the coding mode on the display. It works fine and colour of the codes was vibrant and distinctive.
If you are a software professional and use two displays or more, BenQ GW2785TC supports daisy chain tech and comes with two display ports- one input and another output.
Besides read and e-paper mode, there is a dedicated care mode, which happens to cater to people with sensitive eyes. By the way, I too have an eye condition Keratoconus and have been advised to reduce screen time, but have to work to pay the bills right. So, with the care mode on, the display is tuned to low brightness and colour saturation to safeguard the delicate precious eyes.
Another notable aspect of the BenQ GW2785TC is the colour weakness mode. The display is said to come with separate red and green filters, which will help people with colour deficiency distinguish colours more easily.
Final thoughts
BenQ’s GW2785TC series is a really good value-for-money PC screen. The display quality and features are just top-notch and as I said before, there was a noticeable improvement in the quality of work. The colours and details of the objects on the screen look natural and detailed without any pixelation. Most importantly, despite the long hours spent in front of the screen, I never felt any discomfort in my eyes.
Overall, BenQ GW2685TC is a well-rounded monitor, tailor-made for individuals who work from home and even for children to study online for several hours straight without any worry of straining the eyes. Only thing is that they just have to buy the additional web camera for video chat.
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