When comparing Samsung U28E590D vs BenQ ZOWIE XL2720, the Slant community recommends Samsung U28E590D for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” Samsung U28E590D is ranked 22nd while BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Samsung U28E590D is:
The Samsung uses a 10-bit color display panel, resulting fantastic picture quality. It can reproduce more than a billion colors, compared to the 16 million colors of 8-bit panels. The color saturation and accuracy easily compete with more expensive screens, although they are not precise enough for photo-centric work. Contrast levels are average, but the monitor is brighter than other monitors in its price group.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great picture quality
The Samsung uses a 10-bit color display panel, resulting fantastic picture quality. It can reproduce more than a billion colors, compared to the 16 million colors of 8-bit panels. The color saturation and accuracy easily compete with more expensive screens, although they are not precise enough for photo-centric work. Contrast levels are average, but the monitor is brighter than other monitors in its price group.
Pro Suitable for watching in bright setting
The brightness measures up to 300 nits after calibration and the matte screen reduces glare, making it easy to view the screen in bright conditions
Pro Good contrast ratio
It delivers a standard contrast ratio of 1:1000, although when properly calibrated, the contrast ratio goes down slightly.
Pro Excellent response time for gamers
This screen offers an excellent response time of only 1 ms, compared to the 5 ms (or more) of other monitors in this price range. Input lag measures at 15 ms, which is second only to dedicated gaming monitors with 10 ms response times.
Pro Multiple inputs (and the option to watch them simultaneously)
This screen's connectivity consists of two HDMI 2.0 ports and one DisplayPort 1.2., which is enough for most users. Samsung offers picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture modes. Meaning that you can view two inputs side by side or one can be scaled down to a small window that you can place on one of the corners.
Pro Good colors
The screen’s 10-bit panel covers 97% of the sRGB color spectrum which is a respectable result for a budget monitor. For professional use, you will have to look for something more accurate. Color saturation and accuracy is excellent and can compete with higher priced models.
Pro Compact, stable and aesthetically pleasing stand
The stand takes little place and has a metallic finish and is quite stable, even if at first this doesn’t seem to be the case
Pro Comfortable on eyes even after prolonged use
This monitor offers a flicker-free backlight, which reduces strain on your eyes. It also includes a setting that reduces the amount of blue light in the screen, making the picture look softer and facilitates nighttime use.
Pro Elegant and minimal look
This monitor is finished in a black plastic with metallic look borders and looks elegant and minimal.
Pro Has a remote
You can move between different display modes with a click of a button because using the configurable fast-access switch attached to the base of the monitor.
Pro Reduces the eye strain
The ZOWIE XL2720 causes noticeably less eye strain than the majority of competitors in its price range because the monitor is flicker-free and has a mode that reduces the intensity of blue light.
Backlight flickering and high-intensity blue light emitted by LEDs are among the main factors related to eye fatigue that is caused by extensive use of computer monitors.
Pro Decent ergonomics
You can adjust the monitor’s tilt angle, swivel angle, and height so you won't have much trouble configuring it according to your setup.
Pro Responsive OSD buttons
The five capacitive OSD buttons are built very well and react quickly each time you press them.
Pro Highly responsive
The monitor's input lag stays at the fantastically low value of 3.2 ms making the ZOWIE XL2720 one of the most responsive gaming monitors in its price range.
A monitor’s input lag represents the delay between your GPU generating a frame and the frame starting to appear on your monitor.
Pro Intuitive OSD
The OSD is organized in a user-friendly way so all of the settings in the menu are only a couple of clicks away. Additionally, you can customize the OSD menu.
Pro Displays motion well
The monitor's excellent motion handling capabilities allow the BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 to display fast-paced content free from motion blur and ghosting because of its panel's high native refresh rate and fast pixel response time.
Motion blur and ghosting effects are eliminated by the panel's quick pixels that need only one millisecond to change their color because of the monitor's full pixel response time of 1 ms. Such fast color change prevents fast-moving objects from leaving artificial trails.
The monitor’s 144 Hz panel refreshes every seven milliseconds making motion appear smooth and fluid.
Pro Good picture quality
Regarding its picture quality, the ZOWIE XL2720 is on par with the majority of gaming monitors in this price range as it offers sufficient contrast ratio, peak brightness, color accuracy, and gamma response.
While the monitor's dark scene performance is mediocre, it can still display vivid and accurate colors and eye-catching intermediate tones. It can recreate average-looking dark scenes with blacks that are neither overly flat, nor profound as the monitor's native contrast ratio is limited to 915:1. The colors pop and appear relatively accurate since the ZOWIE XL2720 combines relatively high peak brightness of 315 nits with almost unnoticeable color accuracy error dE of 2.2. Mid-tones look good and saturated thanks to the monitor's gamma response of 2.06 which is only 6.3% away from the ideal value.
Pro Built-in USB hub
You can connect up to three peripheral USB devices to your computer using the monitor's inbuilt USB 2.0 hub. This would come in handy for those who use a laptop and have a lot of stationary USB devices.
Pro Great for gaming
The BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 is one of the best gaming monitors in its price range because it offers low input lag, flawlessly-handled motion, and high native refresh rate combined with decent overall picture quality.
Cons
Con Extremely limited Freesync range (54-64hz)
The Freesync feature is almost useless as the range is actually 54-64hz instead of at least 40-60hz.
And no, even using CRU won't help, as any modification to the freesync range will result into the monitor turning complete white (stuck) eventually after awhile.
Con Poor viewing angles
It uses a TN panel which generally has terrible viewing angles. Color shifting occurs at 40 degrees. And even though Samsung’s proprietary “MagicAngle” helps to improve it, there are plenty of other monitors offering better viewing angles.
Con Limited flexibility
The monitor does not offer much flexibility options as it only can be slightly tilted, but you cannot change the height or swivel it at any direction. There is a Vesa mount in the back so you can attach it to a more flexible stand or wall mount.
Con No USB ports
There are no USB ports found on this screen, so there is no possibility to watch media from external storage directly or use the screen as an USB hub.
Con Accessible navigation joystick
Navigation is done with a joystick in the left bottom side of the screen and is easily accessible.
Con Cheap plastic on the back
The plastic on the back of the screen feels a bit cheap.
Con Very limited screen position control
The monitor can only be tilted by 20 degrees, and no swivel or height changing is available, so is very limited regarding screen position control.
Con Lacks adaptive sync
The BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 is not compatible with either Nvidia's G-Sync or AMD's FreeSync.
Con Lacks speakers
The ZOWIE XL2720 does not have inbuilt speakers.
Con Expensive
Priced just a bit below the $380 mark, this is a pretty costly 27-inch FHD monitor.
