Gadgetory

- Here on the desk is an ultra-wide monitor from BenQ. This is the EX3501R. It offers a 100 hertz refresh rate. It's also got 1440p ultra-wide resolution, 21 by 9. And it has an AU Optronics 8-bit VA panel. When it comes down to it, there's usually two groups looking for monitors. There's those who need good viewing angles and color accuracy, whether you're video or photo editing, and those who are gamers where you need high refresh rates, good response times, and also low input lag. This monitor definitely comes into that category of a gaming monitor. And so what we're looking at straightaway is the response times. And what I measured here was a thousand FPS on the different OverDrive settings, where there's three different settings. There's off, high, and premium. And they call it AMA in this particular OSD. And what I noticed between high and premium was there was virtually no difference. When it came to CS:GO and measuring the response times, it was about seven to eight milliseconds consistently, which is around that level of okay, it's not the best I've seen. I have seen five to six milliseconds on different panels that have come through here. But it's certainly far from the worst, where if we look at the Viotech, for example, that was rocking around 14, 15 milliseconds plus. So this definitely has a decent response time with that VA panel, at these response times it will do a good job of transitioning from one frame to the next, without showing more than two frames on one image at a time. (upbeat electronic music) As for input lag, when it came to CS:GO, the total input time from a mouse click to the image changing on a screen, was 21 milliseconds on average, which is phenomenally good. So the actual input lag inherent to the monitor itself, is very low, definitely under that of 10 milliseconds. Which classifies it as a really good monitor for low input lag. Moving on with the BenQ monitor, it supports FreeSync with a range from 48 hertz to 100 hertz. Which is very generous if you've got an AMD graphics card. The viewing angles on this handle both horizontally and vertically are exceptional. The uniformity was decent, not the best I've seen, but far from the worst, with a 12 percent difference from the bottom right square compared to the center, which had a CCD level of 339. The model has a rating of 300 CCD, and so it definitely comes above that. And out of the factory I do believe it's just a little bit too bright, if you're like me and you want that sweet spot of around 160 CCD to 180, then the setting of 38 brightness will be best for you. At these settings it uses up 36 watts, at max settings out of the box it uses up 60 watts. Also, the monitor is advertised as flicker free, all through the brightness range we noticed no flickering in the studio here. And also when it came to cross-hatching, we pulled up an orange background and there was no visible cross-hatching whatsoever. The panel itself has a semi-gloss coating, which I do think looks really nice, especially to help bring out the colors a little bit better. But it's still blocking out lights quite well, it is my favorite type of coating if you have moderate levels of sunlight coming in, but you still use the computer at nighttime. Moving through with backlight bleed, it was very well controlled all through the monitor. I noticed no visible backlight bleed when it came to normal operation, and even when pulling up a black background, it was very hard to notice at 100 brightness. Now, what about color accuracy with this monitor, say you wanna use it for gaming, but also your main video editing monitor. Well there is some really good news, and that's when I put my calibrator on this thing, it was pretty damn close to being color accurate out of the box. The low keys were a little bit off, as well as the deep magenta levels, but besides that, everything was pretty accurate and pretty close. So indeed, you could use this monitor for pretty accurate video editing when it comes to color grading. Now, moving on to the buttons on the OSD itself, it's got seven buttons located underneath the monitor. If I had to critique something about this monitor, it would be these buttons, I would like to see a D-pad, which I believe in function is a lot easier to use. However, you do get three custom key buttons, which out of the box are set to Contrast, Brightness, and Picture Modes. In the OSD itself, it's very easy to navigate, you can change things like Picture and Picture Modes, as well as some HDR settings. As well as backlight intelligence levels, and there's also the option to change the blue light levels if you wish to lower them for nighttime usage. You can even set that to a custom key, and change that around so you can quickly change that on the fly if you wish to. There's also the option to change between DisplayPort 1.1 and 1.4. As for display inputs and outputs, you get two HDMI in, as well as a Display and USB Type-C in. All supporting 1440p ultra-wide 21 by 9, 100 hertz. However I will say that the included HDMI cable with this monitor was giving some very odd flickering, that was slightly noticeable at the 100 hertz, 1440p setting. So if you are getting this monitor, definitely use the included DisplayPort or USB Type-C cables. Now, moving onto the the build quality itself with this monitor, this is where I think BenQ have done a really good job. It looks clean, it's got a very thin bezel, coming in at only a few millimeters. It's also got a mirror finish on the stand itself, and at the back there's a hole for routing cables, for cable management. So it will go well in any modern 2018 home. It's also height and tilt adjustable, however it doesn't have swivel on both the horizontal and vertical planes. Though overall, very solid build quality, there's no croaks or anything like that coming out of this monitor. The only monitor I've come into now with a bad build quality, would have been the Viotech. All the other monitors that I've come through here have solid build quality, the BenQ being no exception. Last of all now, we're gonna talk about the HDR implementation of this monitor itself. When I pulled up the HDR demo on youtube it did look very good, so they have implemented, at least at a hardware level, something that works quite well. When it came to games and windows itself, it was still washed out, I do prefer to leave this off when it comes to gaming, and just get a real nice picture profile out of the monitor itself. My favorite picture profile for gaming, was ironically the MacBook, or MBook setting, which I think stands for MacBook maybe. But that did give better contrast, better colors, the standard was definitely my second best pick. And especially since it does give out very photo accurate colors, those are the two that I would pick, if you were to get this monitor. So now, our conclusion time with this monitor, and it currently comes in at 770 US dollars on Amazon, or, if you're in Australia, 1,100 AUD. Does come with a three year warranty, has a very good build quality, and does have everything that a gamer would want. That being low input lag, good response times, and also great colors and good viewing angles. When it comes to photo accuracy as well, this is another benefit of this monitor. Comes in with very photo accurate colors out of the box, so if you wanted to only have one monitor on your desk to do it all, this definitely ranks up there amongst the best. In terms of critiques itself with this monitor, there's not a whole lot they can improve on. The OSD, I'd like to see them change that to a D-pad function, but again, once you're set up and running, you're probably never gonna touch these buttons again. And also, when it came to the response times, I have tested other monitors based on similar VA panels, and they have come in with five to six milliseconds. So, I would like to see them perhaps update the premium setting on OverDrive, and try and drop down the response times just that little bit, that would really go a long way in my opinion, especially if you're a hardcore FPS gamer. But ultimately, the EX3501R from BenQ, is a very good implementation of an ultra-wide monitor. I can definitely recommend it if you're in the market to one. Also, a big thanks to BenQ for sending this in for review. If you guys enjoyed today's video, then be sure to hit that like button. Let me know in the comment section below, what monitor are you currently rocking? And also, have you ever tried an ultra-wide monitor before? Some games don't natively support 21 by 9 fully, but a lot more games as we go on, are supporting this resolution, and it does look gorgeous when you sit down and play in front of it. It is a sweet spot for a single monitor, for sitting down and enjoying your games. Anyway, all that aside, I will catch you in another Tech video very soon. Peace out for now, bye! (dubstep music)