When comparing BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 vs Dell P2418HT, the Slant community recommends Dell P2418HT for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” Dell P2418HT is ranked 18th while BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Dell P2418HT is:
The Dell P2418HT has two programmable bezel keys that can be programmed to access the most commonly used functions.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Has programmable keys
The Dell P2418HT has two programmable bezel keys that can be programmed to access the most commonly used functions.
Pro Works well with Windows
Those who work with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 will not need to install any additional software or drivers to run the Dell P2418HT.
Pro USB hub
The monitor’s USB hub consists of two downstream and one upstream USB 3.0 ports which can be used to charge peripheral USB devices or connect them to your computer.
Additionally, the Dell P2418HT supports fast charging.
Pro Flicker-free
The Dell P2418HT doesn’t put additional stress on your eyes because its backlight doesn’t flicker. Monitor’s flickering can cause severe eye fatigue after extensive use.
Pro Excellent touchscreen monitor
The Dell P2418HT is among the best touchscreen desktop monitors in its price range because its picture quality, touchscreen capabilities, connectivity, ease of use, and range of ergonomic adjustments are superior to what the majority of competitors on the market offer.
Pro Good overall picture quality
Not only does the Dell P2418HT offer substantially better picture quality than its competition, its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy are on par with what the best desktop monitors offer.
The monitor’s premium-quality panel allows it to display beautiful images, with reasonably thick and intense blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and realistic mid-tones. Dark scenes look excellent thanks to the monitor’s native contrast ratio of 1138:1 that makes blacks appear rich and deep. Colors pop and look vivid as the panel approaches peak brightness level of 250 nits. The intermediate tones look lifelike thanks to the P2418HT’s near ideal gamma value of 2.23.
Moreover, the monitor’s color inaccuracies are insignificant since its average color error dE of 2.19 is imperceptible.
Pro Well-designed articulated stand
The monitor’s articulated stand allows you to switch between desktop and touchscreen modes quickly. Its heavy base and rigid arm ensure that the monitor doesn’t feel loose.
Furthermore, the stand supports a generous range of ergonomic adjustments that will let you get the best possible viewing angles.
Pro Responsive touchscreen
The P2418HT’s touchscreen panel feels excellent to use thanks to the monitor’s high accuracy and excellent responsiveness. Swiping, pinch-to-zoom, multi-finger, and two-handed operations are also present due to the 10-point touch support.
The panel’s touchscreen resolution of 4096x4096 ensures high accuracy as it gives the monitor more than 16 million touch-spots which are distributed across the 23.8-inch display of the Dell P2418HT evenly.
The touchscreen feels highly responsive because of its low input lag of 35 milliseconds, which is an excellent value for a touchscreen since even the fastest smartphones/tablets are usually noticeably slower.
Pro Good overall picture quality
Not only does the Dell P2418HT offer substantially better picture quality than its competition, its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy are on par with what the best desktop monitors offer.
The monitor’s premium-quality panel allows it to display beautiful images, with reasonably thick and intense blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and realistic mid-tones. Dark scenes look excellent thanks to the monitor’s native contrast ratio of 1138:1 that makes blacks appear rich and deep. Colors pop and look vivid as the panel approaches peak brightness level of 250 nits. The intermediate tones look lifelike thanks to the P2418HT’s near ideal gamma value of 2.23.
Moreover, the monitor’s color inaccuracies are insignificant since its average color error dE of 2.19 is imperceptible.
Cons
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.
Con Unsuitable for gaming
Button presses may feel delayed and disconnected while playing fast-paced FPS games because of its high input lag of 70 milliseconds.
Con Picks up fingerprints
The monitor’s plastic front layer seems to attract noticeably more fingerprints than other monitors that use glass coating.
Con Can’t fight glare
The monitor will not look good in a bright room because its 250 nits of brightness are not enough to fight glare and reflections.
Con Needs calibration
To unleash the full potential of the Dell P2418HT, you’ll need to calibrate it. The calibration procedure will take you around 5-10 minutes since all the key settings are available on the Internet.
