When comparing BenQ PD3200U vs BenQ SW2700PT, the Slant community recommends BenQ SW2700PT for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” BenQ SW2700PT is ranked 21st while BenQ PD3200U is ranked 46th. The most important reason people chose BenQ SW2700PT is:
Full Adobe RGB coverage, a dedicated black and white mode, exceptional color accuracy, excellent connectivity, hardware calibration capabilities, great adjustability, and superb picture quality are only some of the features that make the BenQ SW2700PT an ultimate tool for photo editing in this price range.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Excellent general purpose monitor
The BenQ PD3200U has excellent picture quality, exceptional color accuracy, great adjustability, and good connectivity, which combined with the monitor's generous amount of display real estate, makes the PD3200U one of the most versatile panels on the market.
Pro Has speakers
The BenQ PD3200U features a pair of inbuilt 10 W speakers.
Pro Excellent connectivity
Connectivity-wise, the BenQ PD3200U, is among the best monitors on the market, as its USB 3.0 hub offers four upstream USB ports that can be used for connecting or charging peripherals. The two downstream ports are used for connecting the hub to a computer.
The PD3200U's stand-out feature is the builtin KVM switch, which allows sharing a mouse, a keyboard, and the monitor itself between two computers that are connected to the monitor through the downstream USB ports.
Additionally, this monitor has an SD/MMC card reader, and it features fairly fast transfer rates since it works over the USB 3.0 interface.
Pro Suitable for media artists
The BenQ PD3200U makes an excellent tool for color-critical applications like video editing and web design as it can display the full sRGB and Rec. 709 color spaces accurately.
Pro Has a puck switch
The puck has four buttons that grant you fast access to display's settings and multiple preset modes.
Pro Excellent range of ergonomic adjustments
Setting up the perfect workspace is no hassle since the BenQ PD3200U supports tilt angle, swivel angle, and even height adjustments.
Furthermore, you can use the monitor in either landscape or a portrait mode.
Pro Large on-screen real estate
This 32-inch 4K monitor is an excellent for multitaskers because it has enough on-screen workspace to allow you to work with multiple windows stacked side by side. The monitor feels best when used in a two by one vertical alignment.
Pro Excellent picture quality
The monitor's native contrast ratio, peak brightness, color accuracy, and gamma are superior to what the majority of competitors in this price range offer. Furthermore, the BenQ PD3200U is among a handful of monitors that offer a true 10-bit panel in the sub $1000 price range.
The BenQ PD3200U reproduces eye-catching images with colors that are vivid and accurate, dark scenes that are truly deep and rich, and intermediate tones that look realistic and beautiful. Colors pop and look vibrant thanks to the monitor's peak brightness of 317 nits. Dark scenes look beautiful because the monitor's AHVA panel has a native contrast ratio of 1040:1, which allows it to reproduce blacks realistically. The mid-tones look life-like as the monitor's gamma value is only 1% off from being ideal.
Additionally, the colors look realistic as the monitor's color inaccuracies can be spotted only by specifically-designed equipment.
Pro Excellent for photographers
Full Adobe RGB coverage, a dedicated black and white mode, exceptional color accuracy, excellent connectivity, hardware calibration capabilities, great adjustability, and superb picture quality are only some of the features that make the BenQ SW2700PT an ultimate tool for photo editing in this price range.
Pro Fantastic value for money
You’ll be hard-pressed to find the BenQ SW2700PT a matching competitor in its price range because some of it's features unusual for a monitor that costs less than $1000. For example, 99% Adobe RGB coverage, hardware calibration capabilities, the 1 > dE, factory calibration, and the shading hood, aren't the things you'd expect from a monitor in this price range.
Pro Highly adjustable base
It’s dead simple to get the perfect viewing angles with this monitor, as the BenQ SW2700PT supports all the key ergonomic adjustments, including height, swivel, tilt, and pivot regulations.
Pro Supports hardware calibration
Hardware calibration is an essential feature of a professional-grade monitor because it allows you to manipulate the monitor’s hardware, instead of simply tweaking the input of your graphics card - something the software calibration does.
Pro Has a USB hub
You can use the monitor’s integrated USB hub to charge and interconnect peripheral USB devices and access SD cards. It consists of two downstream USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, and a single upstream USB 3.0 port that connects the hub to the computer.
The hub is located on the side of the monitor, which is an excellent and easy-to-reach position.
Pro Minimized eye fatigue
The BenQ SW2700PT does its best not to exhaust your eyes as not only its backlight is flicker-free, it also has an option to filter out the harmful high-intensity blue light.
Pro Good for photo editing and printing
The BenQ SW2700PT is an excellent tool for professional photographers and photo-editors because it can display the full range of sRGB and Adobe RGB colors within the exceptional accuracy.
With this monitor, you can edit and post-process any photo that is converted to either sRGB or Adobe RGB - the two color spaces that are most widely used in the professional photography.
Additionally, the BenQ SW2700PT lets you see precisely how each photo of yours will look like after it's printed because the Adobe RGB does cover the CMYK, which is the color space that is used by the overwhelming majority of printing houses.
Pro Comes with the needed cables
It’s likely that you will not need to buy any extra cables as the BenQ SW2700PT comes with all the key cables, including an IEC power cord, DisplayPort, DVI, and USB 3.0.
Pro Black and white mode
This monitor is an excellent tool for those who like their photos in black and white because the BenQ SW2700PT has a dedicated black and white mode.
Pro Factory-calibrated
Each BenQ SW2700PT comes with an official, factory-issued calibration certificate.
Pro Has a shading hood
The monitor’s shading hood is an excellent solution for minimizing or even eliminating glare and reflections caused by doors, mirrors, and windows, near the monitor.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that even without the hood, the BenQ SW2700PT does an excellent job of absorbing and diffusing reflections and glare because of its high peak brightness and matte screen finish.
Pro Fantastic image quality
Regarding its picture quality, the BenQ SW2700PT barely has any competitor in its price range as the monitor features the ultimate combination of native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma response, color accuracy, and pixel density.
It displays a beautiful, life-like image that has deep and rich blacks, vivid and realistic colors, natural intermediate tones and shades, and exceptional sharpness. The BenQ SW2700PT reproduces highly intense dark scenes even though its native contrast ratio is measured at the humble 1121:1. The key element here, however, is the monitor’s ability to reproduce extremely dark blacks that are only 0.01 nits bright - so dim, in fact, that only a professional grade luminance meter can measure it. Colors pop and look vibrant thanks to the monitor’s high peak brightness, which measures around 350 nits. Its color accuracy is indisputable as the SW2700PT’s average color error dE is measured at 0.61 - so small, that the human eye can’t perceive it. The mid-tones and shades are represented flawlessly, as the monitor’s gamma is only 0.09% away from its ideal value.
Additionally, the picture has that extra bit of sharpness and saturation because of the monitor’s high, 2560x1440 pixel resolution.
Pro Controls are handy
You can navigate through the monitor’s OSD menu and quickly swap between its color profiles using the BenQ’s remote control called ‘the puck’. It consists of five large navigation buttons and four programmable buttons that can be used to hot-swap three predefined color profiles.
Cons
Con Lacks hardware calibration
Hardware color calibration is an essential feature of a professional grade monitor. Without it, you can only perform software calibration which is not as efficient because it affects the computer’s video card output instead of the monitor itself.
Con Lacks USB-C
At this price point, many users expect to have at least one USB-C port in 2018.
Con Needs to be re-calibrated once in a while
Just like any professional-grade monitor that is used for color-critical applications, the BenQ SW2700PT needs some occasional recalibration, as, just like virtually any other monitor, it suffers from hardware ware over the time. To keep it in the best possible shape, consider re-calibrating it each 1-2 months.
Con No speakers
Even a simple pair of speakers are sometimes useful.