BenQ V2400W

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/monitors/0,39030121,49298107,00.htm

Reviewed 10 July 2008

Reviewed by Eric Franklin

The 24-inch BenQ V2400W boasts a sleek design and good connections. Available for around £320, does it compete with other flat-panel powerhouses?

Design
When we took the V2400W out of its box, the first thing that caught our eye was its light grey foot stand. The stand is curved along the top as if it was a small hill. The actual foot stand is 337mm wide and 135mm deep. The neck of the stand is angled forward about 50 degrees and is offset to the right side of the screen by a few inches. By not centring the neck, the video connections are unencumbered and easy to access.

The display's chassis is a smooth glossy black, both around the display on the front and on the back. While piano black is far from an original design choice, the grey foot stand and the OSD button panel that runs below the left side of the display create a pleasing-looking contrast. The bezel is a narrow 18mm and the screen itself is impressively only 25mm thick at its widest point, making the BenQ V2400W the thinnest 24-inch display we've tested.

The screen tilts back about 20 degrees, but it does not rotate left or right, nor does it pivot. There is no screen height adjustment; the bottom of the screen sits about 102mm off your desk. We're used to our 24-inch displays having more utility, so this lack of movement is somewhat oppressive. As for stability, the display stays upright when it gets knocked from the left or right, but it does wobble when bumped from the front or back.

BenQ forgoes the glossy screen in favour of a matte one, which we think is the better choice because glossy screens can be prone to annoying glare and reflections, while also serving as a magnet for fingerprints.

There is an 'always on' blue LED to the right of the OSD panel. Also all of the OSD button's fonts light up with a similar blue LED glow when touched. We wish that there was an option to keep the button lights on at all times, however, because they are difficult to tell apart in a dark room. The buttons are also flat and do not protrude from the display, so it's difficult to tell where one ends and another begins, which, again, can be troublesome in a dark room.

Navigating the OSD menus is simple and has a fairly easy learning curve. Brightness, contrast and colour temperature controls are represented. The brightness and contrast are also hot-keyed to the arrow buttons, so you have immediate access to those functions without having to navigate the menu. There are four preset picture modes -- Standard, Movie, Dynamics and Photo. Each preset changes the colour temperature slightly to be more appropriate for the task at hand.

Overall, we feel the buttons are too sensitive, though, as even just running your hand over them can sometimes yield unintentional results. For example, once we quickly ran our fingers over the buttons and ended up changing the preset mode from Standard to sRGB -- just like that.

Features
To retain the streamlined look of the V2400W, BenQ stuck to the essentials for video connections. You get DVI, VGA and HDMI only. These three connections should cover most people's needs, but those looking for more connections should check out the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP, which also includes composite, component and DisplayPort connection.

The 24-inch screen of the BenQ features the standard -- for a screen this size -- 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution. The left side of the screen houses a headphone jack that's well hidden when viewing the display from the front. Being that it's recessed towards the rear, you may actually have to rotate the entire display in order to insert your headphones. This seems to be a sacrifice of ease of use over style.

Performance
The BenQ V2400W held its own on our DisplayMate- based tests against other 24-inch performance powerhouses such as the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP, which scored a 90 in our overall performance tests. The BenQ posted a composite score of 89 on our suite DisplayMate benchmarks.

The BenQ has the edge in maximum brightness and as for contrast ratio, the BenQ came out on top with a 996:1 score. This indicates that although the maximum brightness for the BenQ is low, it can achieve a very dark and deep black.

When watching the DVD of Kill Bill Vol. 1, we saw great colours and sharpness -- the Bride's yellow jumpsuit was vivid yet accurately rendered. We did notice some slight ghosting.

Blu-ray discs looked awesome as always, especially given the BenQ's ability to display deep blacks. The nighttime car chase scene in Swordfish looked great and the blacks looked dark without losing much detail at all. World of Warcraft was vivid and devoid of any streaking or ghosting as usual.

Conclusion
You may need to prop the monitor on a phone book to get it at the right height on your desk, but if such an arrangement doesn't bother you, you'll find a lot to like about this sleek and cheap monitor.

Edited by Matthew Elliott
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday