I'm used to twin 21" HD monitors which were very nice, but mismatched. With a new PC build and a graphics card capable of showing 4k on two monitors without effort, these seemed a reasonable price.
Assembly
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The stand comes in 2 parts which need to be fixed together (tool-less) but strangely enough you need a screwdriver to properly fix this stand to the monitor (it will slot in but would come out if you lift the monitor up).
Once built there's quite a bit of tilt backwards, and less so forwards. Enough for most desk setups. They aren't height adjustable though.
The bezel isn't the smallest I've seen but doesn't look too bad with monitors side by side.
Connections
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The display port, HDMI and power sockets are all on the back, pointing down. You'll need to turn the monitor over to clearly see them. There's no cable guide on the stand unfortunately.
Controls
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The power button is underneath on the far right, and is subtly lit. You won't know if it's on or not if your eye height is above the mid-line of the screen. There is a small power logo in front of it.
5 smaller buttons are next to this, and they are labelled on the front with just a dot. This is because you can configure them to be shortcuts for various functions. Initially pressing any one shows 4 options (Blue light, Picture Mode, Input Source and Menu). A small menu appears above them so it's easy to see what they do.
There's a button on the front to select HDR mode and the adaptive brightness setting, where it darkens the screen if the room is dark.
To be honest, with 2 monitors I'd rather set a profile up for my display card and change that rather than duplicate the operation on monitor controls. It's an easy interface to use though.
Speakers
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There are stereo speakers on each monitor. They are quite small and point downwards on the back. They aren't great quality, but are enough for general feedback. They are too tinny for music, think cheap phone quality level.
Picture
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Not having other 4K monitors to compare them with, and having such a bewildering array of modes, it's not easy to give a definitive verdict on the quality. All I can say is that the backlight appears to be uniform, the colours punchy and the resolution very crisp. At 60Hz there's no flicker, even in your peripheral vision. They look just as nice as my 49" Samsung 4KUHD TV.
As with many monitors, the greater the viewing angle from 90 degrees the more the colour will change. It's not that pronounced in my opinion.
I use these mainly for programming and photo editing. Text looks great and although smaller on a 4K resolution, still very readable. (If you have trouble with programs rescaling incorrectly, look at creating a manifest file in windows to sort out the offending application). Photo's look gorgeous, and it's easy to calibrate the screen to give a realistic output of what your printer would provide. These monitors can be very bright, and most people have them brighter than they should be anyhow. A little bit of time and you'll get used to how you've adjusted them and you can get wonderful results.
Conclusion
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For possibly the cheapest 4K monitors on the market, they are certainly very good quality. You'd be hard pushed to really complain about anything on them, except maybe for gaming which I've not tried.
| Brand | BenQ |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 65.9 x 5.1 x 47.7 cm; 5.7 Kilograms |
| Item model number | EL2870U |
| Manufacturer | BenQ |
| Series | EL2870U |
| Color | Black |
| Standing screen display size | 27.9 Inches |
| Screen Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
| Resolution | 3840 x 2160 Pixels |
| Processor Count | 4 |
| Graphics Card Interface | Integrated |
| Number of HDMI Ports | 2 |
| Voltage | 240 |
| Wattage | 55 watts |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 5.7 kg |
