BenQ Zowie XL2546K 240Hz TN Gaming Monitor Review!

DISPLAY QUALITY

It has a 1080p Resolution on its 24.5 inch panel, which is a really great combination for a dedicated gaming monitor because Full HD resolution doesn’t look that bad at this size even for reading text, and 27 inch monitors can actually be just too big for competitive gaming as you need to have everything in your field of vision.

Even the powerful GPUs will also struggle to deliver 240 FPS at 1440p or higher resolution, so this monitor really has an ideal combination of refresh rate, size, and resolution for competitive gaming.

Now this is a TN panel so the viewing angles are quite terrible, the contrast also appears to be lower than the typical 1:1000,

the colors are also not that great, and the black and grey uniformity is also nothing to write home about. But you’re buying this monitor for the response time, and that is really good, because even during very fast paced action with a lot of movement on the screen, you are going to see a very sharp image, which is quite important at 240Hz.

The overdrive setting is called AMA here, and with it off, the blur is visible on screen, but the high and premium settings are pretty good and have very minimal overshoot.

DYNAMIC ACCURACY+

But I think the most special feature of this monitor is BenQ’s Dynamic Accuracy or DyAc+, which is a backlight strobing technique that turns it off and on very quickly while the frame of the screen is changing, and this reduces the motion blur because you don’t see the remnants of the previous frame, at least in theory. Now this technique isn’t new, and we have seen it on other monitors, but what makes this BenQ model special is that it has been implemented really well in comparison to other monitors that have this tech.

So with other backlight strobing techniques, you may see a lot of doubling of the image on the monitor due to strobe crosstalk, but the DyAc+ feature achieves the blur reduction with VERY minimal doubling of images.

If you look carefully, it will be visible, but it is VERY well controlled, and in some cases it’s almost not noticeable. There’s some image retention at the back of the alien, but the front of the alien is absolutely clear, and I haven’t seen something that is this good with other monitors.

Backlight strobing also reduces the brightness on these monitors, but the DyAc+ Premium feature on this particular monitor has a very small effect on the maximum brightness, unlike the dramatic difference that you see in some other monitors. 

And that is mostly what you’re buying this monitor for. At 240Hz, with Dynamic Accuracy and AMA on, you will get a lot of information sent to your brain, and you will see very minimal blur or other artifacts during very quick movements, and it may not be a big difference compared to something like Asus’s 280Hz monitor which is cheaper and offers way better colors, but this difference could give you that slight edge that makes you win in a heated battle of your online games, letting your friends know that you have a bigger penis.

Also make sure that you subscribe to the channel with bell icon so you don’t miss more discussion on penises in our upcoming video on Cyberpunk 2077.

We have a peak brightness of 320 nits on this panel, which isn’t that high compared to even the HDR400 monitors these days. But it kind of makes up for that with its brightness level when DyAc Premium is on.

There’s also a utility from Blur Busters that lets you tune the phase of the strobe, and even though in our tests we got the best result at stock settings, it is good to have this option for advanced users.

One notable missing feature compared to the ELMB Sync monitor I reviewed recently is that the backlight strobing doesn’t work along with adaptive sync,

so even though we do have Freesync on this monitor, and this is also G Sync compatible, it’s not going to work along with the blur reduction, so if you can’t get a consistent 240fps, then it can be a problem because you may get frame tearing, but this monitor is focused for esports, where you should be able to get 240 fps at 1080p, and in non competitive titles, you don’t really need to keep DyAc on.

So the gaming experience with this monitor is pretty much top level, we found that playing games like Rainbow Six Siege was really amazing, and everything was very smooth and very clear, and the monitor really shines during the quick movements in game, and the input lag on this monitor is also very low, so everything feels very responsive. You may be able to play very well even with an inferior 144Hz monitor, but if you have got the skill to take advantage of its higher refresh rate and the clearer image, then you will really get an advantage over your opponents with inferior monitors. 

CONCLUSION

So overall, the Benq Zowie XL2546K is made for the very specific purpose of high level competitive gaming, and in that area, it performs extremely well. This can actually be an overkill for casual gamers, but if you are serious about competitive gaming, then this monitor is really great.

In addition to its 240Hz refresh rate, which will help you a lot, it also has an amazing implementation of backlight strobing which will reduce the blur without compromising on the brightness, or introducing heavy doubling of images, its design is really good, the controls are great, the input lag is very low, and it really can be the best monitor for gaming barring the halo products like Asus’ 360Hz monitor which are much more expensive.

For general media consumption, it’s of course not great, but it’s also not terrible after you do some adjustments, so if you want a top tier gaming monitor for esports, this monitor will deliver extremely well.

For the price of Rs. 38000 or 500 US Dollars, the Zowie XL2546K isn’t cheap, but if you want the maximum advantage over your opponents, this monitor will give that to you.

I couldn’t get the 25 inch version of the Asus 280Hz monitor I reviewed recently, but you can check out my review of their 27 inch variant, and I think that the VG259QM could really be a great alternative to this monitor if you have plans to do anything in addition to competitive gaming. It may not have the best backlight strobing implementation, but it is also extremely good for gaming, and it offers response times that can compete with the TN panels, if not beat them.

⭐ Buy BenQ Zowie XL2546K (US): https://amzn.to/3a2Mqrc

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