Display Quality: Asus, Dell and BenQ Monitors Tested

Now let’s see how this BenQ's LED display and a pair of Dell models—one LED, the other CCFL—perform.

BenQ EW2420

Fresh from the cardboard, BenQ’s LED display shows settings of 100 brightness, only 50 contrast, and “normal” mode colors of R88/G92/B88. This had us running a bit warm at 7000K and a center luminance of 244.4 cd/m2 (0.1 cd/m2 minimum). We observed some separation in the color channel graph, with the red coming on a bit stronger than the others, but keep in mind that this is relative. It’s OK for the lines to diverge a bit so long as you get the desired results at the end.

Our calibrated results found the BenQ running with a 65 contrast, R86/G80/B78 color values, and an impressively low brightness of 40. This found us spot on at 6500K and a luminance of 120.5 cd/m2. Keep in mind that just by running through this calibration, we’re getting an image better tuned to what the eye wants and needs and we’re consuming at least 35% less power in the process.

Luminance stays fairly even across this LCD screen. Even the brightest corner (lower-right) is within reach of the 120 cd/m2 optimum. The 96.8 cd/m2 isn’t great, but it’s also not that bad, and the disparity wasn’t striking enough to be noticed with the naked eye in any of our tests.

BenQ does OK on our gamut test. It excels in the yellows and blues, but it falls off enough in the reds to end up with an overall volume of 879 349, landing it in the lower end of our group.

After the gamut results, the Delta-E numbers (1.86 average, 8.29 maximum) may come as no surprise. The monitor does well in grayscale representation, but that teal score (or whatever that color is—any color pros out there?) is through the roof. You may not notice this while watching a movie, but it could come back to bite you in editing work.

Dell ST2310F

With factory setup values of 100 brightness, 75 contrast, and “standard” color, Dell’s CCFL-based ST2310F puts out an excessively impressive 254.8 cd/m2 luminance, but dips to a 0.2 cd/m2 minimum and lands spot on at 6500K. The color channels also look respectably straight and evenly overlapping. That’s a strong start.

With calibration, we were able to hit a nearly perfect 120.2 cd/m2 luminance with a brightness of only 41. This was done while leaving the color setting on standard as we still maintained a 6500K temperature. The brightness drop also let us reach all the way down to a 0.1 cd/m2 minimum luminance.

If the ST2310f has a shortcoming, it’s a gamut of only 863 931. The display is weak through the blues, but regains some ground through the reds. Does the lower gamut translate into a poor image for the eye? Not as far as we could see.

Dell makes amends on its color accuracy. Problematic blues again show up on the Delta-E graph, spiking two dark blue bars deep into the 3+ range. But the other results are low enough to bring the overall dE average down to only 1.37.

We did have one other complaint that popped up during calibration. Dell opts for a cleaner physical design by having the buttons for the on-screen controls recessed under the bottom of the front bezel. Looking at the monitor straight-on, you don’t see any control buttons. Instead, you have to fumble for the menu buttons to active their labels on-screen, and then you’re still left sort of tapping around trying to find the right spot to press. A clean design is good, but not when it gets in the way of operation.

 Dell ST2320L

Our LED-based Dell pops out of the box with the exact same settings as its CCFL partner. We see the same 6500K brightness, but with LED that brightness gives us a pounding 290.1 cd/m2 luminance and a 0.3 cd/2 minimum. Clearly, this is way too high, although we should add that, to the untrained eye, it looks strikingly good when you first turn it on. Too good, apparently.

With calibration, we actually raised the contrast all the way to 92. Just to show you the difference, a brightness setting of 100 here still yields a luminance of 264.2 cd/m2. To hit our 120 cd/m2 target, we had to dial the brightness clear down to 19. That’s almost unbelievable. At this level, we ended up with a final calibrated luminance of 121.4 cd/m2, a minimum of 0.1 cd/m2, and a 6800K color temperature. Note that this yielded a bit more separation in the color channels than we expected, with green noticeably leading red and blue.

Even with a 19 brightness setting, the ST2320L still ran a bit strong across most regions, only dropping under our luminance target in the top-left corner.

Sure enough, that stronger green channel comes back around in the volumetric gamut graph. The ST2320L exceeds in the greens and yellows, but, as mentioned earlier, that isn’t necessarily bad if the other colors compensate. In this case, the red and blue channels counterbalance well enough. The monitor ends up with a total gamut volume of 909 126.

Finally, we once again see a big pop in the teal and blue Delta-E bars. Still, despite topping out at 4.87, the display’s overall average remains an unshabby 1.46.

Now, we couldn’t stand the BenQ at 45 brightness. Even though it was calibrated, the screen looked hopelessly bland and muddy alongside both of our Dell screens. The whites looked gray, the vibrance had all the vitality of overcooked pasta, and the detail loss in shadows was massive. On a direct head-to-head against Dell’s LED, BenQ got its brains bashed in.

At 75 brightness and 75 contrast, the BenQ still feels like a CCFL display, meaning that the blacks aren’t as deep. With a CCFL, normally sacrificing deep blacks means getting more detail, but not so here. The EW2420 even loses some detail in bright whites, and we noticed less pop in yellows compared to the Dells. The only place where we felt BenQ had an advantage was in showing less banding and blockiness through mid-tones, especially grays.

The Dell ST2310F (CCFL) similarly shows much muddier blacks compared to its LED counterpart, but now we get into the expected trade-off. For example, in one test photo showing a night sky within a black border, the line between sky and border was obvious with the ST2310F. With the ST2320L, there were places where we couldn’t distinguish the two dark shades. In watching videos, we found that the CCFL showed more color banding, particularly in blue and violet regions, but the LED was more prone to drawing attention to blockiness in DVD artifacting. The increased contrast makes the darker artifacts more noticeable.

With that said, both monitors exhibit very natural color. You really see this in photographs. In a direct comparison, the ST2320L shows a bit more of a reddish cast, but it’s not bad, and the screen doesn’t lose the same amount of shadow detail as our other LED options.