BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor Review | Dustin

[TWI by Dustin Abbott]

Great review, Dustin. I have the Dell 2412 and it is a great screen but have thought about gong 4k.

I moved from a pair of 2412M's to a SW320. I'm enjoying every moment of it (except for the sting of the credit card bill).

Why were you working with two monitors? What benefit did it afford you?

Two words: screen real-estate. Having two monitors allows you to put, say, the tools menus on one screen and the image on the other screen.

I designed a hardware board for a Raspberry Pi last fall, and there is is quite useful to have the schematics on one screen and the PCB layout on the other screen.

The drawback with a dual- (or even multi-) screen setup is the bezel is in the way when you'd like to put a window across two screens.

I too love working with two screens. Being able to put things in two places without covering over anything with another window is pretty fabulous.

 

[Jack Douglas]

I wouldn't have it any other way as well. They don't have to reside in a single plane and the secondary one can be a cheaper model that's fine for most activities.

My little 20' BenQ has performed flawlessly for about 12 years and is sharper than my 24" newer Samsung - that's why I have started to consider a pro BenQ model. Hope they continue to manufacture dependable products.

Jack

 

[kaihp]

I wouldn't have it any other way as well. They don't have to reside in a single plane and the secondary one can be a cheaper model that's fine for most activities.

I played around with using the sw320 as the main screen and a 2412M as the secondary screen. The problem was that the ppi is so different (and I need to run at 125% scaling on the sw320 to see the icons) that it became too cumbersome to be really useful for me. The same window would be 1.5x as tall on the 2412M screen than on the sw320 :-\

 

[Jack Douglas]

Very valid/good point you're making!

Jack

 

[Frodo]

I bought a BenQ SW2700. The first had visible unhomogeneity in colour and brightness. It was replaced.
The second was better, but did not meet BenQ's standards, even though BenQ denied that. However, the retailer was excellent and gave me credit on an NEC PA 242W, which has near perfect homogeneity.
I have a second Samsung screen that has the various menu options and sliders for Lightroom, while the main picture displays on the NEC. However, if I want to do soft proofing, this displays on the Samsung and I need to slide the screen over onto the NEC.
Otherwise, I am happy with this setup.

 

[stevelee]

I wouldn't have it any other way as well. They don't have to reside in a single plane and the secondary one can be a cheaper model that's fine for most activities.

My little 20' BenQ has performed flawlessly for about 12 years and is sharper than my 24" newer Samsung - that's why I have started to consider a pro BenQ model. Hope they continue to manufacture dependable products.

Jack

I used dual monitors for almost 20 years. From 2006 through most of 2014 I had my old LaCie CRT hooked up along with a 23" LCD. I used the latter for my main screen, and kept palettes and such on the CRT where color shifts and such didn't matter. Nor did difference in resolutions. I arranged them in software so that when I moved the mouse pointer between them, there was minimal vertical shift.

In late 2014 I got a 5K iMac, and figured I'd get an adaptor to add the 23" screen to it. But I have left the old Mac Pro hooked up to it, and still crank it up for an occasional project, mostly audio. Using both computers at the same time is a little confusing in that I will type something on the wrong keyboard or move the wrong mouse, but otherwise is easier than migrating everything to one computer just for doing something every few months. I've got used to having a blank screen to my right the rest of the time. Once I got my desk layouts to suit me in PS, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator, I find the 27" monitor is almost always plenty of screen real estate for what I do, and I can always preview video full screen at 5K. And even with the CRT and 23" LCD, it wasn't that handy to move the mouse pointer from one extreme edge to the other. That's likely a lot of why I like sticking with one fair-sized monitor. But back in Olden Times, dual monitors were really useful and handy.