BenQ EL2870U Gaming Monitor 28" 4K UHD 1ms | TN | AMD FreeSync | Eye-Care Tech | Anti-Glare | Brightness Intelligence Plus | Tilt Screen | Built-In Speakers | DisplayPort | HDMI

UPDATE 1-3-19:As mentioned below I had my monitor replaced by BenQ due to an HDR defect. They have some of the best customer service I have experienced in a long time. They helped me out very quickly and with no hassle at all. I've been using their new replacement monitor since my original review date and haven't had any issues. I cant confirm that the firmware was indeed updated and that this was the issue as the monitor does not list the firmware version anywhere for me to compare. The monitor does however work as desired and their 3 year warranty and amazing customer service has warranted me to change my review from 3 to 5 stars.ORIGINAL REVIEW:Read the reviews for this specific monitor, A significant number of people are having repetitive HDR issues.I ordered the product because it had a great review rating, I didn’t even bother to look into them much but wish I would have now. overall my final view of this product is going to based on how BenQ deals with the situation and if the monitor i receive fixes my issues.Had this monitor for 3 months before the issues started. During this time the monitor was pretty great, rich colors and great for gaming, very responsive. The colors were a little off especially with blacks which aren’t very deep. Other than that, the HDR and 4k were very nice, it was nothing much more or less than you’d expect for a $400 gaming monitor until I ran into this issue.The issue came when I turned my monitor on one day and all of a sudden, all the colors that were in HDR mode were washed out and flat. After reading carefully on Amazon and in forums I noticed that a lot of people have this issue with this specific monitor. You don’t see it reflected as much in the reviews because all the BenQ product reviews are twitstered together. This means that the star rating and reviews you see for this product are not all actually for this product, its for all the twistered products together. I contacted Amazon about it and unfortunately as of late at least, their chat customer service is getting increasingly more difficult to deal with and far less helpful than they used to be, every person you talk to gives you different answers and reasons as to why they decided they cant help you. So I contacted BenQ instead and their customer service was pretty Amazing. They had a new monitor being shipped to me within minutes of me contacting them and the monitor has a 3 year warranty. Their service is very good, I was very surprised at how fast they were and how easy they were to work with. Andy L. in their service department was really great and his service changed my mind completely about wanting to keep this product or buy future BenQ products.Ill update this post with any new information after I receive my monitor. BenQ told me that the HDR issue is most often caused by firmware which makes me feel a little better.

For the price, this monitor is a pleasant surprise. Few other monitors in this bracket can boast the same colour accuracy (there are many Youtube reviews where accurate colour measurements are provided in detail) or entry-level HDR10. At this price, one cannot expect high-level HDR, but the brightness remains a surprise delight, (300 nits as opposed to 100 for regular monitors) to make it a worthy contender in the gaming, as well as design environments. The HDR and 10-bit colour depth require some initial setting up work, partly because it is relatively new tech. With some software, for example, you will need to experiment with the monitor UI settings to find a sweet spot. In terms of games, The Division 2 and Sekiro both automatically picks up the HDR capability and applies it in-game, with remarkable results at 4K clarity. In one review the specs were related as being on a par with a Retina display and you can see why.It is important to ensure the latest HDMI (2.0) 18 Gbps high speed and DisplayPort (1.4) cabling is used, some of which are included depending on region. Even though it is a FreeSync monitor, an Nvidia card will happily run on it, albeit without the sync benefit.On the down side: the stated viewing angles are accurate, but to get the best colour representation it is best to face the monitor directly. Shifting around shows up some unwanted colour shifts, which you would likely not find in an IPS panel, but at a substantially higher price. Other than that, a fantastic buy.The 4ms response time balances well with the 60 Hz refresh rate, making this monitor ideal for work and play, especially if your budget does not stretch to professional designer products yet.

The monitor is very nice, I wish it had more USB-C ports (there is 1 port for video input, and one 15W charger). The speakers were an expected disappointment, with hardly any bass. The worst is that the included USB-C video cable is very cheap and stiff, and requires an immediate replacement. Instructions on pass-through daisy chaining of other monitors is not adequate, but I haven't found a monitor which is clear on this to begin with. The USB-C video cable will charge a laptop with adequate current, so the promise of a two cable desktop (only one power cord for both monitor and laptop, and one video cord) is achieved, very nice.The remote control is a very nice feature, which relieves the user of using the buttons on the bottom of the unit to make adjustments for the most part (though those buttons including the joystick central button are good).The top left remote button permits selection of any one of the 4 video sources very easy (USB-C, or HDMI 1, 2, or 3), but won't recognize a pc that is in sleep mode, so you have to tap on the mouse or keyboard to accept the switch in video feed. Once you figure this out, it isn't so bad.The audio modes lack definition, but there is a User defined mode where you can try to increase the bass (only 5 channels).The USB-C configuration is defaulted to USB 2.0, you have to select USB 3.2, strange choice.All in all, this monitor with active video source switching really cleans up a desktop if you have a work and a personal PC. One less monitor, one less keyboard, one less mouse.