BenQ XL2420T Review

There’s an increasing trend that we’ve been noticing over the past year or so - 3D is coming to everything from phones to televisions to even 3D monitors. BenQ, as a brand has made itself stand strong in the monitor market, not only in India, but also the world over. After focusing on mainstream displays across the price range, BenQ is now focusing on high-quality professional displays and also on displays designed for gamers. The big, recent product that’s making the rounds is BenQ’s XL2420T LED backlit 3D monitor. 

The XL2420T

Design and Build Quality

The BenQ XL2420T comes in a black design with a dash of red on the stand. The whole unit has a matte finish to it, so fingerprints and reflections aren’t a problem really. Even though it's an LED monitor, it’s not really as thin as your run of the mill monitor, owing to the extended stand. The monitor can be swivelled into portrait mode, which is a plus, as only a handful of products at present have this feature. Rotation, however, is possible only counter clockwise. Also, it’s worth mentioning that you’ll have to put a fair amount of pressure to adjust the height and orientation, according to your need. The XL2420T comes with a remote for controlling the various input modes, along with a scroll wheel and three dedicated buttons to manouvre between them. Let’s have a quick tour. 

The remote

Along the sides, there are two USB slots and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Connectivity options at the back include a USB port, an HDMI, DVI, D-SUB, and display port. The monitor also connects to the PC using a separate USB port. There’s a hinge and a vertical lever as well, to adjust the height of the monitor, according to the user’s preference. The base in itself is pretty uniquely designed, though it does have a large footprint for a 24-inch monitor. The build quality is pretty impressive, but as compared to the rest of the monitor the display toggle remote seemed to be built of cheaper materials. Overall though, the design and build quality of this 3D gaming monitor is really good. No flimsy materials, no creaky plastics, it’s quite sturdy and firm. 

From the back

Features

BenQ have fitted in a 24-inch LED TN panel and it features a 16:9 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. It is NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 ready for your 3D gaming needs. The XL2420T comes with a vertical refresh rate of 120 Hz and a response time of 2ms. The 120HZ refresh rate is pretty useful for 3D gaming as both frames on the screen are rendered in 3D. Slightly smoother while viewing videos, playing games. Power consumption in the ‘switched on’ mode is rated at 24W with less than 0.5W utilization in the power saving mode. This is one of the few gaming monitors to have smart scaling and FPS/ RTS mode as well. 

A large footprint

The XL2420T features one of the most intuitive onscreen display controls we’ve seen in a monitor. The modes include Picture Mode, Display Mode, Smart Scaling and an advanced menu. The Picture mode lets you choose from a variety of presets, while the Display Mode lets you change the aspect ratio. There’s Smart scaling included as well that allows you to select your desired aspect ratio and then stretch it to the larger screen. Advanced settings allow you to customize the colour temperature, brightness, contrast, gamma and hue - giving you a good amount of control on how you want to calibrate your display. Three Gamer modes are present as well and can be mapped to be activated via the remote.

The interface design is colourful and straightforward and the lights along the side guide you with moving through the OSD. The Display mode gives different aspect ratios, which come handy. Using the interface via the touch sensitive buttons wasn’t really as responsive as we’d have expected it to be.