BenQ EW2430 review

Most of the picture modes resulted in extreme settings – the Eco mode was too dark, while the Movie and Photo options blasted colours out of proportion. The Game mode is meant to turn off image processing to improve response times, but we found it also over-egged the colours and turned on Sharpness, which highlights edges but adds a grain to the image that we found unattractive.

Sadly, the EW2430’s picture quality didn’t live up to our expectations. Viewing angles weren’t that much better than a normal TN panel, and in sRGB mode, the picture was dull and had a slight yellow cast. Switching to Normal picture mode and setting colours to User mode – with all colours set to 100/100 – made colours more vibrant, but blacks weren’t as deep as we’d hoped so contrast suffered. The backlight wasn’t as even as we’d like either, with horizontal bands visible in our white-screen test. Its 8ms response time is a bit sluggish, and we occasionally noticed some ghosting when playing games.

Image quality is no doubt better than a standard TN panel, but for the slight extra you’re paying we’d expect a more noticeable improvement. Granted, the 4-port USB hub and the dual HDMI inputs add extra value, so if image quality isn’t your priority then this added utility might sway your decision. However, the Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS has a single HDMI port, great image quality and costs about £30 less.