Reviews

BenQ SW321C PhotoVue Review

A growing number of photographers understand the value of a dedicated picture display for photo editing and printing preparation, but the high cost of professional monitors has deterred many. BenQ has emerged as the category’s affordable champion, and the PhotoVue series SW321C is the company’s latest 32-inch 4K UHD offering. The pixel density of 137 balances greater clarity with great viewing properties, making this an increasingly common combo of monitor size and quality.

BenQ improves the performance of their photo monitors with each successive generation, and the SW321C includes a number of major advances. There’s a fresh micro-fine anti-reflection coat called ‘Advanced Reflectionless Technology’ (ART) and a revision of the ‘Uniformity Technology’ to solve color and brightness variations that were previously a concern. ‘Paper Color Sync,’ a piece of software geared specifically for photographers, allows the construction of customized colors processes starting on the setup printer, paper type, and color features.

Price

In January of this year, BenQ launched the 32-inch SW321C graphic monitor, and the screen began shipping soon after. In most places, it’s already available in stores for $2,000 / £1,599 / AU$3,199. The Hotkey Puck G2, a modular shading hood, and a set of connectors (USB-C, USB 3.1, HDMI, and Display Port/Mini Display Port) are all included in this pricing.

$1999.99
At Amazon
$1999.99
At BHPhoto

Design

The SW321C has the same dark grey color as the rest of BenQ’s current SW series monitors, as well as an ultra-thin bezel and an easy-to-assemble stand. The base plate is surprisingly small for a 32-inch monitor, so it doesn’t take up too much area on the workstation, but the screen does require some movement. You’ll need some viewing space as well, but not as much as you would without this screen’s excellent anti-reflection coating.

If you’ve been using a smaller monitor, it doesn’t take much time to get used to a 32-inch panel. In terms of clear reproduction of fine details and intelligibility of tiny text, the 4K UHD resolution is undoubtedly the ‘real deal.’

The unit comes with a seven-piece modular hood, a big set of connecting connections (including USB-C and HDMI), a two-page calibration report, and the newest G2 version of BenQ’s Hotkey Puck, which takes only a few minutes to put together. The sturdy stand has a 15-cm height adjustment range, as well as tilting and swiveling capabilities, as well as a full 90-degree pivot for portrait orientation. Generally speaking, the structure is really good.

BenQ’s Hotkey Puck is a circular-shaped wired controller that bypasses the monitor’s numerous mode buttons, enabling for better navigating of on-screen settings as well as – possibly more conveniently– faster changing across designated color modes.

Dual HDMI 2.0 connectors, USB Type C and Type B, and Display Port are all found in the main connection bay on the underside of the display. This approach keeps wire lines neater – there’s even an opening in the lowest half of either the pedestal to hold things in balance – although connectivity isn’t as simple. Its additional group of plugs inset on the side of the display – 2 USB 3.1 and an SD card slot – are far easier to access and are far more built to be used frequently.

Features

BenQ made its name with low-cost high-performance video and gaming monitors, but it switched to picture monitors a few years ago and is still garnering a solid following. A few product design accolades, including the most recent from TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) for Outstanding Expert Photo Monitor for the SW321C, have aided the SW321C’s success. This is quite a tremendous accomplishment, given how intensely this area was therefore contested in recent years.

However, they have worked hard to pack its latest generation with features tailored to photographers, such as ‘Paper Color Sync,’ a valuable piece of software that simulates the basic color of inkjet media for more precise screen-to-printer matching. It was a print-making component that has previously been difficult to successfully handle.

The SW321C also comes branch calibrated with BenQ’s AQCOLOR – a color screen technology intended to improve color fidelity – and a 16-bit 3D LUT (look-up table) to handle input data and ensure screen consistency and accuracy.

The reduction of rays and brightness on the screen is an essential feature of a specialized photo monitor. The SW321C has a flexible shade, but it’s more notable for its ‘Advanced Reflectionless Technology’ (ART), a particular micro-fine matte surface coating that deflects reflected ambient light significantly more efficiently than before.

CalMAN assistance for LightSpace visual calibration and Pantone accreditation for design professionals are available on the SW321C. It accepts HDR10 and HLG video sources and can show native 24/25fps video without distortion or ‘pull down’ owing to a quicker CPU (also keeping uncompressed 10-bit 4:4:4, 4:2:2, or 4:2:0 color). It can, of course, support pure 4K UHD as well.

Positive
  • USB-C Port
  • Brightness and Color Equality
  • Light and Stable
  • Color and Display Calibration
Negative
  • Main Port bay is hard to reach
  • Wired Control

Perfomance

The display of the SW321C seems to be an IPS panel with LED illumination, just like the other monitors in the PhotoVue line. With a display area of 708.48mm x 398.52mm and a 4K UHD quality of 3840 x 2160 pixels, it boasts a pixel density of 137ppi. It contains a palette of 1.07 billion colors, leading to greater blurring, color shifts, and tone distinctions. In-Plane Switching allows for a rapid reaction time of 5.0ms and a broad viewing angle of 178 degrees, which is important for video makers.

As previously stated, the SW321C reproduces 99 percent of the Adobe RGB format and 95 percent of the DCI-P3 color space, which is a motion picture color system. It’s displacing RGB – or, more precisely, it’s multimedia version, Rec.709 – as the color standard for transmissive screens, such as smartphones and mobile devices.

Every SW321C display is personally calibrated and includes a written manufacturing report, although the hardware calibration – using an independent colorimeter – may be done afterward using BenQ’s Palette Master Element software (which is supplied on a CD-ROM). Device calibrating on a picture monitor has the advantage of bypassing the computer’s video card and color control in favor of the significantly higher chromatic accuracy of 16-bit processing in this case (giving 65,536 levels per color). As a result, hardware calibration is often preferred over software calibration (which also necessitates the use of a color calibrator), although both will still keep the monitor within specs over time.

A USB-C port is included in the display’s connectivity bay, which gives the ease of a wired device to the machine while completing hardware calibration, among other things (and has 60 watts power available).

Color accuracy, contrast responsiveness, light point homogeneity, contrast, brightness uniformity, color standardization, and color calibration were all outstanding according to DisplayCal. Most significantly, the brightness and color equality are among the greatest we’ve seen on a BenQ picture monitor, and they’re comparable to what we’d expect from a far more costly unit.

Simon

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