The Word ‘Gaming’ nowadays seems to be added to all products to make them more appealing towards buyers. These products, however, most of the times turn out to be flashy, RGB filled flops. However, BenQ with their Zowie brand of Monitors looks to do something different. BenQ claims this monitor is purely for gaming and competitive gaming at that.
Most professional e-Sports players do not use super large displays, curved screens, or even high resolutions. They are more concerned about performance and functionality. However monitor manufacturers these days are running after flashy marketing gimmicks such as QLED, OLED HDR, 4k, and RGB, rather than delivering the actual goods.
BenQ, however, looks to be doing stuff differently. Rather than hype up products you desperately want with buzzwords and impressive-sounding numbers, they’ve stuck to building the products that play it straight. The XL2546 is a 24.5-inch TN panel had an HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, 240 Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and 320 cd/㎡ brightness. On top of that, there are gaming-focused features like Zowie’s Dynamic Accuracy technology, Black eQualizer technology, an LCD frame that was designed to reduce light reflection from the screen, and even shields on the side of the monitor to eliminate distractions.
All that is good on paper but is it worth the ₹48,499.00 asking price? Well let’s find out
Specifications
Gallery
Our Impressions
Reviewing the BenQ Zowie XL2546 was an experience by itself. Starting from the assembly(which was fun) to actually experience the gameplay, we had a ton of fun.
Starting with assembly, the monitor comes with a lot of parts apart from the main display so if you haven’t assembled anything before, prepare for a fun and sometimes scary experience! But if you follow the instructions like one should you should be done with it in about 20 minutes.
With that aside, let’s get down to business. Since we didn’t have a calibration device (like the i1Basic Pro 2 this review will be more like our personal experience with this monitor.
The BenQ Zowie XL2546 comes with TN panel rated to run at 240 Hz when using a display cable and a capable graphics card. The monitor also comes with the DyAC technology which basically gives motion clarity that is nearly perfect, with scrolling text being entirely legible. This is based off an old CRT scanning method that removes the previous frame to ensure a clean slate for the current one, while this was easy in the times of ye olde, these days you need to match the refresh rate with frame rate. Also, do note that with DyAC turned off, the professional gamers (AKA the targeted audience) will face a frame latency of one extra frame which might be a bit of a bother for most.
With single player games, however, this will not be a problem since the penalty will not be visible.
The BenQ Zowie XL2546 is a bit of a contradiction in itself, it’s the next logical step in display technology and from Zowie but on the other hand this a niche product which only a handful of gamers can take advantage of (at least in India).
If the flame latency bothers you, we would suggest getting the “normal” XL2540 which is a great display in itself.
Apart from that, we had no bones to pick with the display, it performed pretty nice and exceeds all of our expectations.
A bronze for the BenQ Zowie XL2546
