Computer monitors come in many shapes and sizes targeting different audiences and always aim to create new market niches. Some are large and high-res enough to replace your big-screen TV, others stand out with awkward aspect ratios, and a few rely on affordability and little else to catch the eye.
Then there are those dedicated to artists, photographers and other professionals, like the just-announced BenQ SW2401PT. This 24 incher is hyped as “the world’s first professional photography monitor.” Claiming that title is a bit of a stretch, but this new display does have a feature set that’ll impress videophiles.
The compact SW2401PT boasts easy hardware calibration, support for an incredible 99% of the AdobeRGB gamut, Palette Master performance optimization software and “seamless compatibility with today’s DSLR cameras.” The panel uses IPS technology and sports a resolution of 2560 x 1440.
If all of BenQ’s emphatic claims hold up, color reproduction should be “impeccable,” and the overall image quality true to life. To pull this off the Taiwan-based monitor, projector and digital camera specialist has outfitted the SW2401PT with a state-of-the-art 14-bit 3D Look Up Table that should keep color difference to a minimum. The OSD controls, meanwhile, allow remote customization of various settings in photo editing, entertainment and web surfing modes, and black-and-white pics can be viewed and edited with no quality concern in, you guessed it, the monitor’s Black-and-White mode.
And we think it’s a looker. This new BenQ stuns with simplicity, elegance and virtually invisible bezels. Only slim black strip along the bottom edge (which is where the obligatory BenQ logo is located) is readily apparent.
This means that multi-monitor configurations work extremely well, and you can buy two of these at the price of one higher-profile, higher-res rival. $499 is what the BenQ SW2401PT retails for, starting now – supposedly. We haven’t seen the monitor pop up on Amazon just yet, though it is listed on BenQ’s website. We expect it to arrive at most online stores over the holiday break.
