I was in a similar situation 2.5 years ago and went BenQ, and with no regrets. At the time, the Studio Display was getting reviews that were quite critical too. I'm no photography pro though, more scientific imaging, graphic design and illustration.
I commented when you spoke of your Apple upgrades last time, from a perspective of disappointment in Apple after a long period of consistent support for them. I do see the benefit of Apple for creative workflows, especially in combination with Adobe software. My criticisms are mostly centered on their moving away from broadly applicable general computing to niche applications, and fraught repairability. Anyway, good post!
I agree with many of your sentiments... I have quite a few machines laying around to to different jobs but... I do love my Mac Studio that sits under my monitor for many things.
Very useful, as are the prior comments. Let me ask a Luddite question. I came back from summer vacation to find that my NEC PA272 had died. Since I don't currently have a laptop (always used my company laptop until I retired), that left me dead in the water. Needed a display for my Windows computer pronto, so I didn't have the time to do a thorough search for a quality photo monitor. So I bought the best-reviewed mid-range monitor I could quickly find, the Dell U2723Q, essentially an sRGB product. It's good for what it is. But here's my low-brow question (being many years beyond agonizing over color management and state-of-the-art monitors -- my successive NEC monitors served me well, so I didn't mess with success):
If I'm primarily interested in printing photographs, and most images edited on my inferior sRGB monitor show significant out-of-gamut areas when soft-proofed for any of the destinatiion papers I use, what is the benefit of having an Adobe RGB capable monitor? The better monitor allows me to produce a better monitor display, of course, but does it help me produce a better print? Obviously I'm missing or have forgotten some key element of the process.
(Even if I haven't, I'll probably run out and buy the BenQ 27" or an Eizo, on the basis of this blog post and comments. Just because better monitors are clearly out there. . . .)
You are on the right track absolutely!!! I will write a future post detailing this but as long as your monitor is reasonably calibrated (showing the color space it is capable of accurately) seeing MORE colors that your paper/printer CANNOT reproduce isn't very helpful. People RARELY notice or see colors in the print that the paper/printer can do that their monitor cannot. They DO notice when the print cannot display colors that their monitor can show... This is what soft proofing is for. One of the things we focus on in our intro do fine art printing is what to do about THAT!!!
Now the ability to see more deeply into what the printer can reproduce is not a bad thing but honestly full Adobe RGB is far more relevant to commercial process (and spot) printing processes and the ability to preview those and carry them through the process to reproduce colors accurately for specific brand colors etc (also where "relative" rendering options become applicable vs perceptive) - can't really do the whole workshop here but there's a ton of detailed info in the free fine art print ebook we produced.
I had top-of-the-line NEC monitors for a couple of decades. But when I needed a new monitor and NEC was no longer an option, I chose the EIZO ColorEdge CS2740. While its technology was slightly behind BenQ's, it is a wonderful monitor, and I’ve been enjoying it every day for a few years now.
I had to upgrade my NEC Spectraview monitor a few years ago. Because NEC no longer made monitors with a color gamut of 99% Adobe RGB, I had to look around at brands I had not previously considered. I ended up with an Eizo CS2740 with Eizo's rebranded and recalibrated Datacolor calibration puck and Eizo's own calibration software. I rejected the BenQ at that time because the evaluations on the B&H website ranged from 1 to 5 stars. People with problems mostly experienced issues with build quality. Those problems appear to have been addressed based on the currently posted reviews.
If I had to make the choice again, I think I would still choose the Eizo monitor with a calibration puck for three reasons. For an extra $500 Eizo offers the calibration puck and software, a limited 6-month warranty against bright sub-pixels, and a 5-year manufacturer's warranty. Based on the B&H website, BenQ has no warranty against bright sub-pixels and only a 3-year manufacturer's warranty. Although I may have misunderstood BenQ's description, the G3 puck does not appear to be intended for calibration. Calibration software is not listed either. I owned two successive NEC Spectraview monitors over a stretch of 12 or so years and found that periodic calibration became important as the monitors aged. If you purchase your own independent screen calibration software and hardware with the intent of calibrating the BenQ monitor, the price difference between the two systems drops to $300.
The "puck" for BenQ is NOT a calibration device. We have X-Rite (Now called something else.. I forget Colorbrite or something) hardware for that but we use the hardware specific BenQ software for 10bit hardware calibration. The "recalibrating" is largely a non-issue for LED backlit displays, that was far more relevant for CFD displays. We need/use a device that does reflective as well as transmitted light media calibration so not really a point of value for us. Many of the non-SW BenQ and both Apple displays DO NOT have hardware calibration and are intended to be used with the factory calibration although both do allow "fine tuning" and customization with external calibration devices.
Just got a new MacBook Pro and I think I’m going to give the 27” Asus ProArt 5K a whirl. For me, the price tag of the apple display is really a disincentive— although it will be my first non-apple purchase since I delved into photography (and got my first computer) in 2011. So, there is some trepidation.
I have had two NEC Spectraview monitors over the years but it looks like they are part of Sharp now and no longer make photo editing monitors. Fortunately, mine is still in good shape and the Spectraview software is quite easy to use for calibration. I don't bother with Apple computers as I've always built my own Windows workstations which are cheaper in the end as I don't pay the brand premium.
I was in a similar situation 2.5 years ago and went BenQ, and with no regrets. At the time, the Studio Display was getting reviews that were quite critical too. I'm no photography pro though, more scientific imaging, graphic design and illustration.
I commented when you spoke of your Apple upgrades last time, from a perspective of disappointment in Apple after a long period of consistent support for them. I do see the benefit of Apple for creative workflows, especially in combination with Adobe software. My criticisms are mostly centered on their moving away from broadly applicable general computing to niche applications, and fraught repairability. Anyway, good post!
I agree with many of your sentiments... I have quite a few machines laying around to to different jobs but... I do love my Mac Studio that sits under my monitor for many things.
Very useful, as are the prior comments. Let me ask a Luddite question. I came back from summer vacation to find that my NEC PA272 had died. Since I don't currently have a laptop (always used my company laptop until I retired), that left me dead in the water. Needed a display for my Windows computer pronto, so I didn't have the time to do a thorough search for a quality photo monitor. So I bought the best-reviewed mid-range monitor I could quickly find, the Dell U2723Q, essentially an sRGB product. It's good for what it is. But here's my low-brow question (being many years beyond agonizing over color management and state-of-the-art monitors -- my successive NEC monitors served me well, so I didn't mess with success):
If I'm primarily interested in printing photographs, and most images edited on my inferior sRGB monitor show significant out-of-gamut areas when soft-proofed for any of the destinatiion papers I use, what is the benefit of having an Adobe RGB capable monitor? The better monitor allows me to produce a better monitor display, of course, but does it help me produce a better print? Obviously I'm missing or have forgotten some key element of the process.
(Even if I haven't, I'll probably run out and buy the BenQ 27" or an Eizo, on the basis of this blog post and comments. Just because better monitors are clearly out there. . . .)
You are on the right track absolutely!!! I will write a future post detailing this but as long as your monitor is reasonably calibrated (showing the color space it is capable of accurately) seeing MORE colors that your paper/printer CANNOT reproduce isn't very helpful. People RARELY notice or see colors in the print that the paper/printer can do that their monitor cannot. They DO notice when the print cannot display colors that their monitor can show... This is what soft proofing is for. One of the things we focus on in our intro do fine art printing is what to do about THAT!!!
Now the ability to see more deeply into what the printer can reproduce is not a bad thing but honestly full Adobe RGB is far more relevant to commercial process (and spot) printing processes and the ability to preview those and carry them through the process to reproduce colors accurately for specific brand colors etc (also where "relative" rendering options become applicable vs perceptive) - can't really do the whole workshop here but there's a ton of detailed info in the free fine art print ebook we produced.
I had top-of-the-line NEC monitors for a couple of decades. But when I needed a new monitor and NEC was no longer an option, I chose the EIZO ColorEdge CS2740. While its technology was slightly behind BenQ's, it is a wonderful monitor, and I’ve been enjoying it every day for a few years now.
It's nice to have more than one competitor. Remember with EIZO didn't have to compete on price...
I had to upgrade my NEC Spectraview monitor a few years ago. Because NEC no longer made monitors with a color gamut of 99% Adobe RGB, I had to look around at brands I had not previously considered. I ended up with an Eizo CS2740 with Eizo's rebranded and recalibrated Datacolor calibration puck and Eizo's own calibration software. I rejected the BenQ at that time because the evaluations on the B&H website ranged from 1 to 5 stars. People with problems mostly experienced issues with build quality. Those problems appear to have been addressed based on the currently posted reviews.
If I had to make the choice again, I think I would still choose the Eizo monitor with a calibration puck for three reasons. For an extra $500 Eizo offers the calibration puck and software, a limited 6-month warranty against bright sub-pixels, and a 5-year manufacturer's warranty. Based on the B&H website, BenQ has no warranty against bright sub-pixels and only a 3-year manufacturer's warranty. Although I may have misunderstood BenQ's description, the G3 puck does not appear to be intended for calibration. Calibration software is not listed either. I owned two successive NEC Spectraview monitors over a stretch of 12 or so years and found that periodic calibration became important as the monitors aged. If you purchase your own independent screen calibration software and hardware with the intent of calibrating the BenQ monitor, the price difference between the two systems drops to $300.
The "puck" for BenQ is NOT a calibration device. We have X-Rite (Now called something else.. I forget Colorbrite or something) hardware for that but we use the hardware specific BenQ software for 10bit hardware calibration. The "recalibrating" is largely a non-issue for LED backlit displays, that was far more relevant for CFD displays. We need/use a device that does reflective as well as transmitted light media calibration so not really a point of value for us. Many of the non-SW BenQ and both Apple displays DO NOT have hardware calibration and are intended to be used with the factory calibration although both do allow "fine tuning" and customization with external calibration devices.
No winter in southcentral Alaska.
Just got a new MacBook Pro and I think I’m going to give the 27” Asus ProArt 5K a whirl. For me, the price tag of the apple display is really a disincentive— although it will be my first non-apple purchase since I delved into photography (and got my first computer) in 2011. So, there is some trepidation.
I have had two NEC Spectraview monitors over the years but it looks like they are part of Sharp now and no longer make photo editing monitors. Fortunately, mine is still in good shape and the Spectraview software is quite easy to use for calibration. I don't bother with Apple computers as I've always built my own Windows workstations which are cheaper in the end as I don't pay the brand premium.