BenQ V2220H

Full Review

The LED-backlit BenQ V2220H PC monitor is definitely the slimmest we have seen at our Test Center. It takes a stab at being stylish and green too with its energy efficiency, as you will see in the specifications tab of this review. Read on to see how image quality was very good and where it failed. 

Design and Features:
Its display area measures 21.5 inches diagonally as is the standard. This is a wide-screen monitor with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a Full-HD resolution of 1920x1080, also known as a 1080p display. It has a glossy black bezel and a matte screen. The magic starts from the time you see it at a side-angle – it is very thin indeed, with a claimed thickness of 15mm (by contrast, the chassis of most other monitors measure 25mm or more). The angled-circular small stand with rubber pads and chrome rings emphasises the slimness.

The magic starts the moment you see it at a side-angle – it is the slimmest we've seen. The angled-circular small stand with rubber pads and chrome rings emphasises the slimness.

The monitor’s chassis curves slightly outwards at the back. It is easy to connect cables at the back, since all the ports are jutting straight (as against most monitors whose ports face downwards). The model we received, Benq V2220H has VGA, DVI and HDMI input ports, and a headphone output jack. There is a variant, the V2220 which is very similar except that it does not offer the HDMI port and headphone jack. Perhaps an indicator of how much re-engineering the design required, is that the power input accepts a power cable with a rounded jack, and the (small) power brick is external as part of the cable, somewhat like laptop power cables. The package included the power cable of course, besides one cable each for VGA and DVI connectivity.

The monitor’s bezel could have been thinner, but it still looks good. When switched on, the power button at the bottom-right thankfully has only a barely noticeable green-colored LED ring around it. The On-Screen Display (OSD) control buttons were at the bottom right, beneath the bezel, with small icons to indicate the function of each button. These were not the annoying touch buttons, but were physical ones, placed out of the way, perhaps a bit too much so. Having to press the buttons from the bottom made the entire monitor wobble, especially since the monitor even with its stand is so light. Navigating through the menu was easy, and everything one would normally expect is present, including brightness/contrast, color adjustment, color temperature setting, color presets, dynamic contrast levels from zero to five.

Benq claims that this monitor’s maximum power consumption is 25W, and that the Eco mode can save atleast a third of the power, but this may not mean much if the rest of your PC is a power monster – the average desktop PC working at 50% load draws 100 Watts. Still, this power saving can help you gear up for a future where the cost per unit of power consumed is expected to be increased by state electricity boards.

Performance:
The Benq V2220H monitor with a TN-panel (twisted nematic) and LED backlight also claims an almost ridiculous 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which would be the highest ever (you read it right, that is a ratio of 10 million is to one). However, disabling DCR shows up its true contrast ratio, claimed to be 1000:1 and measured by our Chroma meter to be even lower.

In subjective tests, the colors were vibrant and felt “true”, screen was sharp and the color consistency was more even across the screen compared to normal CCFL-backlit monitors. Importantly for movie watchers, the depth of the black was very good (most monitors stop at just dark grey). The horizontal viewing angle was very good considering it is a TN-panel monitor, the colors were close to their original even when seen at an angle of 175 degrees which is almost side-on! Viewing angles horizontally were expectedly not that good, so you cannot lie down on the floor and watch a movie, but its vertical angles were still better than most lower-priced monitors that use a TN-panel. We saw no backlight bleeding, which means the LED-backlighting is making its presence felt and giving a screen with more accurate colors across the screen.

While it all looked good to our eyes in the subjective tests (movies, browsing, image reproduction), the monitor did not manage to do well in the objective tests. We first calibrate the monitor using Spyder Elite 3 and its hardware-based solution, ensuring that what we see is the best that the monitor can provide. We then run a battery of tests including those from DisplayMate and Lavalys Everest, measuring them with a Chroma meter. It did not score too well, for more details see the “Performance” tab of this review. Even after making allowances for it being a TN-panel, the color accuracy, brightness, and contrast were simply nowhere near the expected numbers.

Bottom Line

Benq’s V2220H 22-inch LED-backlit monitor is thin, stylish, and even eco-friendly. Buy this if you want to pamper your desktop PC with the slimmest monitor in India, albeit at a premium price. The image quality is good to the naked eye, however its performance was very unflattering.