When comparing BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 vs Dell Ultrasharp U2415, the Slant community recommends Dell Ultrasharp U2415 for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” Dell Ultrasharp U2415 is ranked 4th while BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Dell Ultrasharp U2415 is:
The Dell U2415 is an excellent solution for those who use display daisy chaining since it has a dedicated DisplayPort Out.
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 Supports daisy chaining
The Dell U2415 is an excellent solution for those who use display daisy chaining since it has a dedicated DisplayPort Out.
Pro Has a USB hub
The monitor’s integrated USB hub consists of four downstream USB 3.0 ports that you can use to charge peripheral USB devices or connect them to your computer. The single upstream port offers high data transfer rate typical of USB 3.0.
Pro Looks good
While other gaming monitors tend to look overly aggressive, the Dell U2415 looks somewhat professional because of its clean and simple design that allows the monitor to blend in almost any working environment.
Pro No signs of image retention
The Dell U2415 was tested to be free of image burn-in problems that are common among monitors in this price range.
Pro Can be used in portrait mode
The Dell U2415 does an excellent job even when used in portrait mode because of its superb vertical viewing angles that are superior to what the overwhelming majority of competitors in this price range offer. When used in portrait mode, the monitor’s colors and shadows start to shift only when the viewing angle becomes greater than 25 degrees.
Pro Adjustable
Setting the monitor according to your workspace needs is simple because the stand supports all the key ergonomic adjustments, including height, tilt, pivot, and swivel.
Additionally, you can mount the Dell U2415 on a VESA 100x100 compliant monitor stand.
Pro Factory calibrated
Out of the box, the Dell U2415 displays 99% of the sRGB colors, which is an extremely rare feature for a monitor in this price range.
Pro Flicker-free
The Dell U2415 doesn’t put additional strain on your eyes since its backlight doesn’t flicker. Monitor flickering can cause severe eye fatigue over extensive use.
Pro Good for occasional gaming
The Dell U2415 is an excellent companion for those enjoying a casual round of CS: GO or LOL in between working hours because the monitor offers reasonably high responsiveness and well-handled motion.
It's works good even while playing fast FPS games as the monitor’s input lag of 9.1 ms is barely noticeable by most players.
Furthermore, the Dell U2415 makes motion appear free from artificial motion blur thanks to its full pixel response time of 6 milliseconds which allows each pixel of the Dell U2415 to change their color within only six milliseconds.
Pro Good for bright rooms
The Dell U2415 does a great job in bright rooms, where its 275 nits of peak brightness and light matte screen finish diffuse reflections and fights glare efficiently.
Pro Suitable for professional photo editing
The Dell U2415 is an excellent tool for the photography professionals who work in the sRGB color space. Not only does it support the entire palette of sRGB colors, it also can display those colors with high accuracy since it’s average color error dE is measured at only 0.45. Even the highest-class media professionals will not be capable of perceiving such minor color error.
Pro Decent picture quality
The Dell U2415 is among the best monitors in the sub-$200 range since its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma and color accuracy are on par with what the best monitors in this price range offer.
It displays beautiful images with rich and well-balanced blacks, accurate colors, and realistic intermediate tones that gives the picture some extra intensity. Dark scenes look deep as the monitor’s high-quality IPS panel offers a native contrast ratio of 1064:1, which combined with the monitor's overall color uniformity gives its blacks a good push towards high-intensity levels. Colors pop and look beautiful thanks to the monitor’s high peak brightness of 275 nits, which combined with the panel’s low average color inaccuracy allows the Dell U2415 to display crisp and life-like colors. The monitor’s mid-tones look realistic as its gamma response is only 1% away from its perfect value.
Moreover, the monitor’s average color inaccuracy dE of 0.45 ensures that only professional photosensors can spot its color inconsistencies as those are very minor.
Pro Good for mixed-use
The Dell U2415 offers exceptional color accuracy, high adjustability, decent responsiveness, and high resolution which, combined with its good overall picture quality makes it one of the best monitors in this price range.
Pro Higher resolution than FHD
The Dell U2415 has 11% more pixels than a regular FHD monitor which will come in handy when working with large, high-resolution photos.
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 Requires calibration
To get the most out of the monitor’s performance, you need to calibrate it. The procedure will take you 5-10 minutes as the monitor’s optimized ICC profile is available on the Internet.
Con Lacks speakers
Not a huge dealbreaker, but it's something to consider.
Con Not suitable for Adobe RGB content
This monitor is not the right tool for those who work with Adobe RGB as it supports only 70% of the Adobe RGB colors.
Con Doesn’t look good in a dark room
In a dark room, you can notice some minor backlight bleeding that occurs towards the lower part of the screen. Backlight bleeding appears when the panel can’t absorb the 100% of the monitor’s backlight and limits the monitor’s use in a dark environment.
However, this is a widespread issue for the IPS panels in this price range.