BenQ EW2730 27" LED Backlit VA Panel LCD Monitor Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
2,292 words · ~11 min read
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today I have something to unbox that I
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and as far as I know pretty much everyone else knows almost nothing about
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this is a product that is so brand new that this is the first one in Canada and
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I don't mean the first retail one in Canada I mean the first one this is the
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first one in the country so our our BenQ
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contact was able to give us the hookup to bring this to you pretty early this
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monitor actually isn't even going to be available at retail for probably around
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the end of August so at least another month okay and uh let's let's get
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started here so this is a VA panel it is
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Led back lit so between those two qualities right there off the Hop we
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should be looking at a monitor that exhibits exceptional color
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reproduction it is a 27 in 1080 P
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monitor so it's a very very good size so
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what I found about 24 in I I personally use a 30in monitor at home and what I
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found about 24 in is it's a touch small
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especially for people who have trouble reading text when you have a very high
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pixel density so 27 in was something
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that I found was a very good balance for people like my parents who don't see
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quite as well as they used to so you've got that same 1080p resolution which is
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100% ready for all HD content but you've
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got a little bit more size to it so it looks a little more uh more more blown
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up okay so let's start with the base
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ooh very nice check this out so we've
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got a brushed Metal finish but I can tell from here there's either oh okay
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yeah we have a uh a plastic cover on it
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so let's see what it's going to look like when we remove that because it's
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got some bubbling under it there we go oo that's more like it okay
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so that looks like a brushed uh stainless steel it's got a very very
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slick look to it see how fingerprint proof it is hey not bad actually that's
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not bad at all very nice one of the problems I have with brushed aluminum
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which this really doesn't look like is that uh from time to time you can get
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brushed aluminum finishes that as soon as you touch them once indelible
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fingerprint is on there forever because the acid in your fingers um will will
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etch it um so hopefully we don't have that problem with this one but it looks so
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far like the oils are not staying on it so if you have certain Coatings or if
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you have brushed steel for example it's much more resilient than just a bare
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brushed aluminum finish all right so let's get some of the packaging removed
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here as well like I said guys I'm Flying Blind here I know almost nothing about
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this thing other than that it's a VA panel it's 27 in it's LED back lit and
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it's actually pretty slick looking okay so let's get get let me get it assembled
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on the stand and I'll be back in a minute so guys I've assembled it now
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this is a premium product so Aesthetics matter okay period they matter so let's
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have a look at the overall Aesthetics of this particular monitor let's start with
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the base which we looked at already once now what it appears is that the base is
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a brushed Metal finish as is the stand but what is actually the case is that if
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I Tilt The Stand more and more and more you're going to see there you go uh here
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look at it look at it straight on it's actually just a chrome sort of uh very
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Ultra shiny finish so what happens is when you're sitting in front of the
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Monitor and you look at it from the front it appears to completely match the
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finish of the base which is kind of a neat little effect however when you look
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at it from the back you can clearly see
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the super shiny finish that is H is this
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little rectangular stand right here so I actually like that it's a nice touch
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it's something a little bit different um but it's not something that's bad which
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you see so often on monitors these days all right the panel itself has a black
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frame that is edged by just I'm going to take this off and then we'll we'll look
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at it separately in a minute but it's kind of detracting from the overall look
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of the monitor right now so it's got a black bezel not a super thin bezel but
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this is a large screen likely not intended to be used in a multiscreen
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environment most people don't have room for two or three 27 inch monitors on
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their desk so I would consider that just fine you've got a bit of a silver edge
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around it and then on the bottom you see a thicker silver Edge now what this does
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is it houses the power button all the onscreen display controls are touch
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sensitive here on the side and then the other thing that the uh bottom part
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houses is speakers so you can see we've got stereo speakers I love the stealth
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implementation of the speakers because I really hate seeing them on the front of
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the monitor I prefer something that I'm going to be looking at to be something
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that I look at not something that I can see it makes sense sound so having them
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down here even though it's going to hurt audio quality a little bit I still very
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much prefer and let's face it if you're using the speakers built into your
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monitor How concerned are you with audio quality buy some real speakers if you
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want good audio quality so I I actually really like to see that let's move
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around and let's have a look at the back of the monitor once more so you can see
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we've got a very glossy finish on the back in terms of finger print proofness
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yeah it's about I'd say it's about middle of the road you can see the
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fingerprint but you can also wipe it off quite easily even without a cloth so
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that's not bad at all and I said those were touch sensitive on the side there
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actually looks like the buttons are on the back so that's fine having them on
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the back is okay because you do have that tactile response so if you were
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trying to feel around the back for touch sensitive buttons that obviously wouldn't work very well at all would it
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okay let's have a look at the inputs and outputs and all that good stuff we've
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got our AC power in so that's a universal input 100 to 240 volts we've
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got our headphone jack a line in so this
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is pretty good to see and a line out so I'm not sure exactly how that works with
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the headphone and the line out but it's possible they have an audio switch if
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anyone wants to do that research for me and leave a comment under the video if
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you guys could all thumbs up so we all know exactly how these work that would
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be great over here we can see something fairly obvious we have two HDMI inputs
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so that means you can have your computer hooked up well you could have your computer hooked up by HDMI then you got
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your PS3 and your Xbox hooked up or rather by DVI and then you can hook up a
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couple other devices by HDMI so you have three digital inputs as well as your
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more traditional VGA input which I still do find cause to use every once in a
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while and finally there's your USB input because that is going to be powering the
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four port Hub on the side of the
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monitor now let's have a look at the accessories so first thing here is we
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have a little remote so it looks like we can use this hey okay wow I was I was I
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was even you know I was kind of giving it a hard time I was like oh it has a
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touch panel for the onc screen display oh no it doesn't well actually has a
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remote so that's a pretty cool feature too so you can mute you can change the
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input you can use the S siai feature you can looks like this changes the
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scaling honestly I'm guessing right now you can adjust the volume brightness
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contrast and you can navigate the onscreen menu entirely with the included
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remote that includes a battery all right next we have a USB
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cable so they've included that you don't need to buy one next we have an audio cable so that'll
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plug into the back of your computer or the back of your sound card VGA cable
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this is a questionable inclusion I think if you're buying a nice true 8 bit 27 in
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1080P monitor you're probably going to be using DVI or HDMI but at least you
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have something functional in the meantime while you pick up another cable
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and finally we have a standard computer power cable so let's see what else they
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have to say for themselves on this little document that we got rid of so
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all ultra high 3000 to1 native contrast ratio so that is not a dynamic contrast
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ratio that is a true contrast ratio it's
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actually I mean it doesn't sound that impressive when you compare it to the
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100,000 to1 contrast ratios that are advertised by on some panels but that's
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a dynamic ratio so a lot of the time you're going to be compromising on the
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overall image quality by using that Dynamic uh intelligent contrast ratio
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versus just having uh a panel that is able to display wh or whites and black
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or blacks without any uh voodoo magic
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okay we've got a true 8pit color 8 bit color panel so that would be my
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expectation for anything that's in this kind of a price range that claims to
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deliver excellent color reproduction awesome to see we have two HDMI inputs
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USB Time 4 we've covered this dual 3 watt built-in speakers yeah 3 watt like
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I said if you want great audio quality maybe get something else but these will
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be functional if you just want a nice clean aesthetic like you can see the
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demo they have here where the monitor is just sitting entirely by itself and has
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some kind of okay there's a mouse and there's a keyboard I don't know where
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it's getting a uh I don't know where it's getting a video input from but I I
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think they're making their point anyway and last but not least it does have a
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remote control so you can control all of your inputs and whatnot remotely just
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don't let your little brother or sister get their hands on this because you'll be sitting at your computer and they'll
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be behind you changing the input on you every 30 seconds you'll be like a what's
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going on what's wrong with my monitor you're going to send an R to Ben and
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they're going to be like well where's your remote and then trouble so in
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summary 27 in true 8bit VA panel
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available sometime at the end of August I should say August 2011 cuz who knows
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how long from now you'll be watching this video it has what would appear to
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me to be somewhere in between a matte and a glossy finish and I've actually
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seen this before and I'm a big fan I don't generally prefer glossy screens
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because they're very very reflective if you have a light behind you it can be
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distracting and disruptive to your workflow or to the image quality of a
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game or whatever the case may be but this is a good balance because you do
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have some reflection but it's not a mirrorlike surface so you get some of
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that extra vibrancy from the colors from having a slightly more glossy finish but
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you don't have quite the same degree of distraction that you would from a full
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glossy finish um 1080p two HDMI inputs
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and I think that's pretty pretty much it thank you for checking out my unboxing
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and first look at the ew 2730 from BenQ
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don't forget to subscribe to Linus techtips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos one last thing I
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forgot sorry guys is that it does include the mounting holes for a standard Visa Mount so you can just pull
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this bottom stand right off and you can mount it using an ARM or uh whatever the
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case may be using the standard Visa mounting holes