It's rare to hear about a dedicated gaming
monitor, which is why the opportunity to actually review one is the chance of a
lifetime (for now anyway). This fantastic monstrosity weighs in at 24-inches and
is packed with the best possible display options. Is it worth it?
BenQ
XL2420T
1. Deployment
Out of the box, you can see that this was
meant to be a premium grade device. The monitor, stand and base are separate
pieces; which means there is quite a bit of assembly required. Once it’s all
put together, it's quite a pretty thing. The monitor unit itself is nothing to
talk about, being all black and boxy; but the stand and base give it extra
character. The additional control widget that comes along with everything was a
bit of a mystery at first though.
2. Angling
To say that this BenQ can be adjusted to
fit whatever viewing angle you prefer is an understatement. There are so many
hinges, sliders and rotations on this thing that it's able to suit anyone;
including those with non-euclidean geometries. This is a good thing for gamers
since being able to get the best look is often a matter of life and death for
serious gamers. It's also great for watching movies since little things like
light reflections can affect picture quality.
There
are so many hinges, sliders and rotations on this thing that it's able to suit
anyone
3. Waiting
Speaking of watching movies, the XL2420T
has excellent picture quality and screen refresh rate and can keep up with even
the most intensive of games. After messing around with it for a while, one
begins to wonder what all the fuss is with Smart TVs. More importantly, this is
one of the few PC monitors that's capable of 3D images. Fortunately, there are
very few things that require the capability to display 3D images.
This
is one of the few PC monitors that's capable of 3D images.
4. Connecting
Connecting the XL2420T to anything is both
easy and an adventure at the same time. For one, there is a plethora of
connections for you to choose from; ranging from a pair of HDMI ports to DVI-DL
to D-sub. There are also the less glamorous USB 2.0 ports and an old fashioned
VGA connector. You will always have some way of hooking up this monitor, no
matter what system you have. On the other hand, the XL2420T requires you to
manually select which port you're using at that particular time. There's no
default setting either so if you don't select a connection type, the monitor
won’t know what's going on and tell you that there's no connection (on another
note: reading the manual first would have prevented this problem).
