BenQ announces SW271C 4K HDR monitor, promises superb color and workflow for photo and video
posted Monday, March 1, 2021 at 10:30 AM EDT
BenQ has announced a new 27-inch 4K (3,840 x 2,160) IPS monitor aimed at photographers and videographers. The BenQ SW271C is the successor to the SW271, and the new display further improves color accuracy while modernizing inputs and improving overall workflow for photo and video users alike.
The SW271C features BenQ's proprietary AQCOLOR color accuracy technology and offers hardware calibration. To inspire further confidence, the display is Pantone validated, Calman Ready, and Calman Verified. It also supports video calibration by LightSpace. The level of consistency with each display will also be a boon for users with multi-monitor setups. Each monitor ships from the factory with a unique calibration report.
The SW271C has a 16 bit 3D LUT with Delta E less than or equal to 2, covers 99% of Adobe RGB, and 90% of DCI-P3 color spaces. Its predecessor had 14 bit 3D LUT rather than 16 bit, by the way. The display itself has 10-bit color depth, allowing it to display more than one billion colors.
To ensure screen-wide, consistent color display, the monitor includes Uniformity Technology. This mode works by evaluating the brightness across the display and then decreasing the brightness of dark areas to ensure consistency. This means that while it should work very well for many applications, such as photo editing and SDR video processing, the feature should be disabled when editing HDR10 and HLG video, as HDR video requires maximum brightness.
For video users, the SW271C is better equipped to meet their needs than the previous model. The SW271C includes HDR10 and HLG support. Further, it can display 24P, 25P and 30P video content at its true framerate. Select SDI to HDMI devices are compatible with the new display and allow users to view non-compressed content.
The SW271C comes with a new Hotkey Puck G2. This device is used to access shortcuts, adjust settings and select viewing modes. A viewing mode of particular interest to photographers is the BenQ Paper Color Sync. This built-in software allows you to preview prints on-screen with what BenQ promises are 'nearly identical properties to hardcopies.' If you've ever struggled to get the image on your monitor to look like a print, wasting time and paper, this special mode should help. BenQ has many popular printers and types of paper in its lab to help develop the mode, so it's a very hands-on, analytical approach.
The BenQ SW271C is available for order now at a suggested retail price of $1,600 USD. The monitor ships with a shading hood and the Hotkey Puck G2. In terms of inputs, the monitor has USB-C with power delivery, two HDMI 2.0 ports, a DisplayPort (1.4), USB Type B (upstream), and a pair of USB 3.1 (downstream) ports. The SW271C also includes an SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC card reader. For additional details and to order the new display, visit BenQ.
If you'd like to learn more about the new 4K monitor, I will be writing a hands-on review of the BenQ SW271C monitor. The review will be published later this month.
