BENQ SW321C PHOTOVUE 32-INCH 4K UHD PHOTO MONITOR
BENQ SW321C PHOTOVUE A number of new technologies take BenQ’s latest 4K photo monitor up a step or two in terms of both performance and useability, yet it still has hard-to-ignore affordability.
BenQ continues on its winning ways with pro-level photo monitors and its new 32-inch 4K UHD display is currently the TIPA-awarded Best Professional Photo Monitor. New brightness uniformity technology and a paper colour matching function make the SW321C worth a closer look… and sheer affordability makes it hard to ignore if you’re ready to move up in display size and/or resolution.
BENQ BUILT ITS REPUTATION on affordable high-performance monitors for video and gaming, but it turned its hand to photo monitors a few years ago and is now gaining a strong following in this sector. A few product design awards have helped, including the latest from TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) for Best Professional Photo Monitor for the SW321C. Given how hotly this category has been contested in the last couple of years, this is quite an achievement.
But BenQ has been working hard to load its latest with goodies specifically aimed at the photographer, such as Paper Colour Sync, a nifty bit of software that replicates the base tint of inkjet media to give a more accurate matching of screen to printer. This was a print-making factor that was previously pretty tricky to manage effectively.
Furthermore, the SW321C arrives with factory calibration via BenQ’s AQCOLOR – a colour display technology designed to optimise colour fidelity – with a 16-bit 3D LUT (look-up table) to manage input data accordingly and maintain screen uniformity and consistency. The value of hardware calibration on a photo monitor is that it bypasses the computer’s video card and colour management with, in this instance, the much greater colour precision of 16-bit processing (giving 65,536 levels per colour).
Another bit of BenQ-developed technology is at work here and it’s called, logically, ‘Uniformity Technology’, although it’s the next-gen version used on this model. It works by fine-tuning both the colour and brightness of hundreds of sub-regions or areas across the panel to minimise any variations that would otherwise show up as colour shifts. Likewise, there are no noticeable variations in brightness either.
Non-Reflected Glory
Another important aspect of a dedicated photo monitor is the minimisation of reflections and glare on the screen. The SW321C comes with a modular hood, but more important is its Advanced Reflectionless Technology (ART) – a special micro-fine matte surface coating designed to defuse reflected ambient light with far better efficiency than before.
As a result clarity, colour and contrast are all more accurately displayed, which BenQ sees as being particularly necessary for Paper Colour Sync to work effectively… given we’re talking such small and subtle variations in colour and contrast here. In practice, we found ART to work so well we didn’t need to unpack the test monitor’s hood (although BenQ recommends that you do when using Paper Colour Sync and we certainly would with longer-term usage). Incidentally, a special screen cleaning roller also comes in the box, presumably better suited to the new surface coating.
In a bit more detail, Paper Colour Sync – which runs from free software downloaded to your computer – enables the input of the printer model, paper type (brand, surface finish, etc) and the colour space, which are then configured into a colour setting… so
it’s essentially a soft proofing function. Since BenQ is creating these profiles itself (it has to, in order to take into account the monitor’s characteristics as well), the list of supported printers and papers is by no means exhaustive, but future software upgrades will add newly-released printers and media. The new Paper Colour Sync setting is one of 14 available on the SW321C, which includes all the main still and video colour spaces, B&W, HDR, one custom setting and provisions for loading up to three calibration settings.
Another very useful feature is GamutDuo that works in the monitor’s picture-by-picture (PBP) display and provides mirrored images in two different colour spaces (i.e. via two different inputs). Each image is also fully adjustable independently, and this is a facility that would ordinarily need two monitors side-by-side.
The SW321C has CalMAN support for LightSpace video calibration and Pantone certification for graphic designers. It supports HDR10 and also HLG video inputs and – thanks to a faster processor – will display native 24/25fps video without distortion or ‘pull down’ (also supporting uncompressed 10-bit 4:4:4, 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 colour). Of course, it can handle native 4K UHD too.
Colour Fast
As with the other PhotoVue series monitors, SW321C’s display is an IPS type panel with LED backlighting. It has a display area of 708.48mm x 398.52mm which, with the 4K UHD resolution of 3840x2160 pixels, gives 137ppi. It has 10-bit colour processing that delivers a palette of 1.07 billion, resulting in smoother shading, colour transitions and tonal gradations. In-Plane Switching enables a fast response time of 5.0ms – a key spec for video makers – and a wide viewing angle of 178 degrees.
In terms of reproducible colours, the SW321C delivers 99% of the Adobe RGB colour space (so, obviously, 100% of sRGB) and 95% of DCI-P3 which is a cinematographic colour space. It’s taking over from sRGB – or, rather, its video equivalent, Rec.709 – as the standard for colour reproduction on transmissive displays, including tablets and smartphones.
The SW321C is delivered to you individually calibrated and comes with a printed factory report, but the hardware calibration – via an external colorimeter – can be subsequently performed via BenQ’s proprietary Palette Master Element software (which is supplied on a CD-ROM). Hardware calibration is generally considered superior to software-based calibration (which also requires a colorimeter), but the latter will still ensure that the monitor is kept within specifications over time. The monitor’s connection bay includes a USB-C port which, among other things, provides the convenience of a onecable connection to the computer when performing hardware calibration (and has 60 watts power available)
To test this monitor’s performance we ran software-based calibration using the SpyderX Elite colorimeter from Datacolor (which is also supported for hardware calibration in the current version of the PME software). DisplayCal’s scores for colour gamut,
tone response, white point uniformity, contrast, luminance uniformity, colour uniformity and colour accuracy were excellent. Most notably, the uniformity of both brightness and colour are the best we’ve seen yet on a BenQ photo monitor and on a par with what we’d expect from a more expensive model.
On View
On the physical side, the SW321C is styled like all BenQ’s current SW series monitors with a dark grey finish, an ultra-thin bezel, and easy-to-assemble stand. For a 32-inch display, the base plate is actually quite small so it doesn’t take up much space on the desktop, but obviously the panel needs some room to move. You need viewing space too, but not as much as would have been the case without this screen’s very effective anti-reflection coating. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take long to get very comfortable with a 32-inch display if you’ve been using something smaller. And the 4K UHD resolution is arguably the ‘sweet spot’ in terms of crisp reproductions of fine detailing or small text.
After unboxing, assembly takes only a matter of minutes and the unit is supplied with a seven-piece modular hood, a generous set of connection cables (including USB-C and HDMI), a two-page calibration report and the latest G2 version of BenQ’s Hotkey Puck. The beefy stand offers a height adjustment range of 15cm and allows for both tilting and swivelling plus a full 90-degree pivot for a portrait orientation. Overall stability is excellent. BenQ’s Hotkey Puck is a wired remote controller – circular-shaped, obviously – which bypasses the various mode buttons on the monitor’s bezel, allowing for easier navigation of on-screen menus as well as (probably more conveniently) quicker switching between assigned colour modes. It has its own recess at the base of the stand’s support arm, but can be positioned anywhere and works like a mouse except with a main rotarytype controller and a set of three userassignable function keys.
Main connection bay is located along the underside of the monitor and includes dual HDMI 2.0 ports, USB Type C and Type B, and Display Port. This arrangement makes for tidier cable runs – there’s even an aperture in the lower section of the stand to keep everything together – but access isn’t quite so easy. In practice, these are connections that aren’t going to be changed all that often. Easier to get to is the secondary set of ports inset on the side of the monitor – two USB 3.1 and an SD card reader – which you are much more likely to be regularly accessing.
The Verdict
There’s still some good arguments for using HD-res monitors for photo editing, but 4K combined with expanded colour space reproduction represents a big step up in terms of more accurate rendering with finer tolerances and, in turn, access to more precise editing control.
BenQ builds on this with the SW321C’s significantly improved consistency of both colour and brightness – and across a big display area too – plus the very effective ART anti-glare coating. It also offers excellent repeatability and reliability via hardware calibration, the convenience of USB-C connectivity and the potential for even more from the nascent Paper Colour Sync function.
BenQ has already indicated its intention to be a serious player in the photo monitor business, and the SW321C is the most convincing evidence of this so far. From the physical build quality to the display performance, it qualifies as a pro-level reference monitor on every level, except one – it’s still affordably priced.
“The uniformity of both brightness and colour are the best we’ve seen yet on a BenQ photo monitor and on a par with what we’d expect from a much more expensive model.”