BenQ PD2725 Evaluation

This is a companion piece to our recent BenQ PD2705UA Evaluation. In that article we covered a lot of the general information about the BenQ DesignView range - monitors for content creators.  What they are, who might want to look at them, and the various ways they can be used for content creation tasks.  

You should thus probably read that article before starting this one, as we won't repeat all that information here.

Whilst this monitor does not feature the fancy mounting arm, it shares a lot in common with that model.  In this article we're going to focus primarily on the differences - what you do you get for the extra dollars (about $400) that this one costs?

The BenQ PD2725U is a particularly attractive looking monitor, with some excellent specifications and great performance.  

Let's look at the key specifications first:

• Very attractive unit in 'space grey' tones that look lovely next to e.g. a Mac Studio machine
  
• 4k (UHD) panel (3840x2160 resolution)
• Matte panel - no nasty reflections to throw off your deep shadow colours
• Uniform, high quality panel - consistent & quite accurate display of colour across the panel (dE < 3)
• (Quite) Wide Gamut - 93% of P3 (not as wide as the AdobeRGB panels found in the SW series, though)
  
• Professional, sleek frame-less design
• Colour modes for various contexts - Animation, CAD/CAM, Darkroom, DICOM, HDR, Low Blue Light, M-Book, Rec.709, sRGB, User
• Does not offer support for direct hardware calibration, traditional calibration must be used
• Anti-flicker and low blue light eye-care features
• Picture-in-picture/Picture-by-picture support
• Ports: Thunderbolt (inc. Daisy Chain support), HDMI (2 * v2.0) DisplayPort (1 * v1.4), 1 * 'all-in-one' USB C (inc Power Delivery 65W, DisplayPort Alt Mode, Data)
• USB Hub for connecting mouse, keyboard, other peripherals
  
• Acts as a KVM Switch
• Hotkey Puck for fast and easy control of colour modes and/or KVM functionality.
• BenQ's Full List of Specifications

All in all, it's clear this model is overall quite similar to the PD2705UA we looked at in detail earlier.

In our previous article, we established the BenQ DesignVue range is a very good fit for the 'Content Creator' market - those that need support for very good colour, but don't quite need the super high accuracy of the BenQ SW series.  This includes things like YouTube content, marketing, web work, pre-visualisation, 3D content creation - the list is really endless.

In price terms, this model is very similar to the BenQ SW270C model, and about $400 more than the standard gamut PD2705U.

If you were to choose the BenQ SW270C (now discontinued - see the wonderful new SW272Q instead) you'd get a yet wider gamut, higher accuracy, and support for direct hardware calibration.  But that model is not as physically attractive, and is only a 2.5K panel, not a 4K panel.

If you choose the cheaper PD2705U, then the key loss is the wider gamut - this is no issue for e.g. web work, but most other content work now is done in the wider gamut domain, that that will only increase further as older, standard gamut equipment is replaced with modern, wide gamut panels (e.g. Apple's entire range is essentially wide gamut at this point - right down to the phones...).

It is, of course, the same choice as always - quality vs. features.  And for many, the quality of the PD2725U is already more than adequate for their needs, and the extra features outweigh the extra accuracy of the SW series.  Accuracy you only really need if you're doing very critical colour work on a regular basis.  Of course, if you are doing that sort of work, then the extra dollars for the SW series models are definitely worth it.  But for many people - the PD series strikes just the right balance of high quality, and high features.

I've spent the last month or so using the PD2725U intensively, alongside a variety of other monitors.

What to say about it?  It's a great general purpose monitor, with really very good colour.  Especially once calibrated.  

(The factory calibrated pre-sets are excellent, but if you want to move beyond those presets, you'll still need to add a calibrator - and, indeed, over time the monitor will drift, so a calibrator remains essential to keep the monitor accurate over time, as with all monitors).

I think the BenQ PD2725U is the pick of the bunch in the BenQ DesignVue series for most Content Creators.  Just about every modern content creation task (as we discussed in our last article on this range) - will be admirably handled by the PD2725U.

For me personally, it's a nearly perfect second monitor next to my trusty Eizo CG monitor for really colour critical work.  But that's honestly rather under-selling it.  I'm quite confident I could quite happily do, for example, all my family photo processing work on it.  Or use it to prepare our marketing materials here.  Or for my web development work.  Realistically, probably 95% of what I spend my days on would in fact be very ably supported by the BenQ PD2725U.

I would of course not use it for the really colour critical stuff - art reproduction work, or fine art print file preparation work, say.  For that, there is the BenQ SW or Eizo ColorEdge monitors - those are unmatched for colour critical work, and definitely worth the extra if that sort of work is important to you.