5000:1 Static Contrast Ratio in 2012

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BenQ GW2750HM 27-inch A-MVA 1920x1080 Monitor w/ HDMI, 4 ms

The BenQ GW2750HM 27-Inch VA LED Monitor features ultra-high 5000:1 native contrast ratio-5 times better than older technologies. With 20 Million:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and true 8-bit panel performance, you get deeper blacks and minimized light leakage for crystal clear, sharp images, and fanatastic colors. The BenQ GW2750HM supports Full HD 1080p with 16:9 aspect ratio-allowing the subtlest details to stand out. Experience the truest colors of the world with the BenQ Senseye Human Vision Technology. With the help of BenQ's proprietary calibration techniques, Senseye 3 delivers the best viewing quality in each of its six pre-set modes-Standard, Movie, Game, Photo, sRGB, and Eco-with the Eco Mode especially designed to save power and money. The GW2750HM complies with the requirements of the ENERGY STAR Program for Computer Monitors, Version 5.1. Now you can enjoy saving energy and money.

This monitor from 2012 (8 years ago) looks like a better office/productivity screen than most of the stuff selling today. Do you know any 2019/2020 models with 5000:1 static contrast?

Back in 2012, it seemed like BenQ was devoted almost exclusively to VA:

Said BenQ Australia’s general manager, Chee F. Chung, “Twisted Nematic (TN) LED and In-Plane Switching (IPS) panels only come with a 1000:1 native contrast ratio, where VA LED panels boast an ultra-high native contrast ratio of 5000:1, bringing astonishing colour depth and definition from the brightest whites to the deepest blacks with the greatest subtlety and clarity.

I got that from this: BenQ say: ‘its VA LED all the way!’ Feature 5,000:1 Ultra-High Native Contrast Ratio, 8-Bit Color Performance, True Blacks, and Wide-Angle Viewing: https://www.benq.com/en-au/news/products/1340632800-39-110.html

So what happened? Why is BenQ now satisfied producing 1000:1 contrast IPS units?
 
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Did somebody actually measure it at 5000:1? There are lots of VA panels available at 3-4K:1 ratios. Not too many higher than that, but at least one. https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tests/picture-quality/contrast-ratio

But I don't understand why anyone would care about contrast ratio for an office/productivity monitor. IPS is favored because it has the best uniformity, viewing angles, and color reproduction, though some VA and TN panels can come close, but they both have viewing angle issues(contrast and color shift) that IPS doesn't.

Contrast is higher prioritized for film/tv/gaming, which is why TVs have much higher contrast ratios than most PC monitors.
 
I had the 24" version of this display. It actually measured 6300:1, or something like that. It smeared greatly in any kind of action. Image quality was very good. Don't know about what's now in that range.
 
I had the 24" version of this display. It actually measured 6300:1, or something like that. It smeared greatly in any kind of action. Image quality was very good. Don't know about what's now in that range.

That's over 6X as high native contrast as a typical 1000:1 IPS screen. Surely it was superior for office productivity and browsing. Back in 2012, BenQ seemed devoted to VA, and then something happened.

“BenQ’s line-up of monitors from the multimedia EW, to the stylish VW, ergonomic BL and general purpose GW series now takes full advantage of VA panel technology and LED backlighting,” said Chung.

There is a BenQ VA LED monitor for every application, from entry level to premium models in display sizes ranging from 21.5” – 27”.

Besides, a current generation VA computer monitor tends to have only 3000:1 native contrast.

Early TN monitors had about 600:1 native contrast and are now up to about 1000:1.
 
I disagree on the office productivity front. The advantage of IPS panels for staring at text all day is that the pixel matrix inherently allows more light to pass through, so pixels are more defined while having the side effect of being able to turn the backlight down so your eyes don't burn. The primary disadvantage to VA for this kind of work is it has contrast shift that is as bad as gamma shift on TN. If you're in a multi-monitor environment then you are going to need to compensate for the extreme loss in contrast when you are at slightly off angles, which negates any kind of advantage the higher static contrast ratio may have brought. The contrast on an IPS panel is consistent no matter what angle you're looking at it from.

If you're gaming or watching movies on a single monitor, then VA can be superior in some respects. Input lag and response time on VA are inherently lower, though, and those monitors that try to compensate for this are usually plagued by extreme ghosting when using overdrive or smearing when not. Again, these issues negate the static contrast ratio advantage that VA panels can have. Those VA monitors that do have acceptable input lag and response time usually sacrifice contrast ratio to do so (around 1500-2000:1). At that point you may as well just get a monitor with better color reproduction like IPS.
 
Do you know why my matte IPS needs Full RGB to have deep blacks while my VA looks very similar whether I use Full RGB or Limited 16:235?

With both my IPS and VA on limited, the text on this site is white on the VA but a light grey on the IPS. It's a big variation.

On Full RGB on the IPS, it's less a difference, but still significant.

Oh, when I take the IPS contrast up to 100 (I had it at 80), the difference closes more.

And the text on the VA becomes greyish as I take the contrast down to about 40 from the 70 level I had it at.

So I do think there's a noticeable difference in the contrast between units.

Does this explain why the IPS needs Full RGB to look good? I don't seem to notice a difference running the VA on Full or Limited.

Also taking the brightness on the IPS up makes the text whiter versus grey on this site.
 
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Do you know why my matte IPS needs Full RGB to have deep blacks while my VA looks very similar whether I use Full RGB or Limited 16:235?

With both my IPS and VA on limited, the text on this site is white on the VA but a light grey on the IPS. It's a big variation.

On Full RGB on the IPS, it's less a difference, but still significant.

Oh, when I take the IPS contrast up to 100 (I had it at 80), the difference closes more.

And the text on the VA becomes greyish as I take the contrast down to about 40 from the 70 level I had it at.

So I do think there's a noticeable difference in the contrast between units.

Does this explain why the IPS needs Full RGB to look good? I don't seem to notice a difference running the VA on Full or Limited.

Also taking the brightness on the IPS up makes the text whiter versus grey on this site.
Test to make sure you aren't getting black crush on your VA - it may be collapsing all of the lower light levels down to 0.
 
Do you know why my matte IPS needs Full RGB to have deep blacks while my VA looks very similar whether I use Full RGB or Limited 16:235?

With both my IPS and VA on limited, the text on this site is white on the VA but a light grey on the IPS. It's a big variation.

On Full RGB on the IPS, it's less a difference, but still significant.

Oh, when I take the IPS contrast up to 100 (I had it at 80), the difference closes more.

And the text on the VA becomes greyish as I take the contrast down to about 40 from the 70 level I had it at.

So I do think there's a noticeable difference in the contrast between units.

Does this explain why the IPS needs Full RGB to look good? I don't seem to notice a difference running the VA on Full or Limited.

Also taking the brightness on the IPS up makes the text whiter versus grey on this site.
I don't know what you mean because I am staring at an IPS monitor right now and white text still looks white whether I set it to limited or full. I also don't know what the RGB range has to do with the discussion at hand.
 
Yes, the text on my IPS has become white since I've increased the brightness. It was because I had both screens set to very low brightness, and at those low brightness levels text on the IPS was light grey while it still was white on the VA.



On this image, viewing it in a new tab on each screen, and at full size, there is noticeably more black crush on the IPS versus the VA. Is that atypical?
 
PC monitors are designed to run in full RGB. You should not be messing with this setting at all, or contrast ratio or black level or anything like that.

When you have correctly set monitors then yes VA will show very dark tones more and this is an issue of these panels. It is called gamma shift. You pretty much would need to move your head and close one eye to have opened eye perfectly aligned with the pixel you are looking at to have proper gamma.

As for the BenQ monitor I checked its review on tftcentral and it seems to use the same panel as was in BenQ VW2420H. Colors on this thing were all wrong and it had W-LED backlight that was close to 10000K so colors so black was basically blue.
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viewing_angles_small.jpg

AVOID!!!
 
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For most uses I don't know why color accuracy and gamma shift are issues.
 
For most uses I don't know why color accuracy and gamma shift are issues.
Contrast ratio is not an issue either.
Yet there is N-th thread about the same damn IPS vs VA discussion where you pulled some ancient crappy monitor just because it supposedly has high contrast ratio.
Who cares?
 
Contrast ratio is not an issue either.
Yet there is N-th thread about the same damn IPS vs VA discussion where you pulled some ancient crappy monitor just because it supposedly has high contrast ratio.
Who cares?

You sound pissed about having spent your load on IPS technology with 1000:1 contrast when VA was achieving 5000:1 back in 2012.

Said BenQ Australia’s general manager, Chee F. Chung,
Twisted Nematic (TN) LED and In-Plane Switching (IPS) panels only come with a 1000:1 native contrast ratio, where VA LED panels boast an ultra-high native contrast ratio of 5000:1, bringing astonishing colour depth and definition from the brightest whites to the deepest blacks with the greatest subtlety and clarity.

So your IPS screens achieve the same static contrast ratio as 2012 TN screens, and the BenQ manager raves about the benefits of the superior contrast afforded by VA.
 
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By all means: get this BenQ monitor 😃
Also get something to pick your eyes out as it might become useful 🤣
 
VA shines with dark colors, blacks, and dark modes. If you're concerned about productivity and eye and brain comfort, you should be using a dark background and light text, and IPS will never give you as good an experience in this context as VA. Period.
 
Eye strain is caused by blue light, and any modern monitor made for productivity is going to have blue light mitigation. If your black point is below 0.2 your brain is not going to care to notice the difference between black and white when calibrated to 6500K. I coded for literally entire days on a TN panel with a black background and light text and never had an issue with eye fatigue or strain. So long as your display is properly calibrated, when you get down to it, the type of panel is not going to make a difference. The benefits of an IPS panel are going to give you a greater return with its viewing angle and color accuracy advantages.

I see we're not going to change your mind, so I'm just offering counterpoints now for anyone visiting the thread.
 
Eye strain is caused by blue light, and any modern monitor made for productivity is going to have blue light mitigation. If your black point is below 0.2 your brain is not going to care to notice the difference between black and white when calibrated to 6500K. I coded for literally entire days on a TN panel with a black background and light text and never had an issue with eye fatigue or strain. So long as your display is properly calibrated, when you get down to it, the type of panel is not going to make a difference. The benefits of an IPS panel are going to give you a greater return with its viewing angle and color accuracy advantages.

I see we're not going to change your mind, so I'm just offering counterpoints now for anyone visiting the thread.

I have a 5K IPS at work and a 5120x1440 super ultrawide VA at home. Other than the resolution difference I haven't noticed any real difference using them. I also used a 8-bit TN panel for years at home and yeah, it has some minor viewing angle issues but when sitting in front of it, it looked fine and was accurate for sRGB. Yes, my VA has more depth to its image even in sRGB mode thanks to its massively better contrast ratio.

I am not buying any of this "X panel type or feature causes eye strain" thing. It's too individual to pare it down to something simple as that. Some are sensitive to PWM backlights, others are not etc.

Also dark background and light text is not necessarily more comfortable to read either. In daylight I vastly prefer light background and dark text, in the evening the opposite works better.
 
VA shines with dark colors, blacks, and dark modes. If you're concerned about productivity and eye and brain comfort, you should be using a dark background and light text, and IPS will never give you as good an experience in this context as VA. Period.
VA shines in dark colors because each eye get different cone for changing gamma and it produces false stereoscopic-like effect 🤣

I have a 5K IPS at work and a 5120x1440 super ultrawide VA at home. Other than the resolution difference I haven't noticed any real difference using them. I also used a 8-bit TN panel for years at home and yeah, it has some minor viewing angle issues but when sitting in front of it, it looked fine and was accurate for sRGB. Yes, my VA has more depth to its image even in sRGB mode thanks to its massively better contrast ratio
VA panels come in different varieties and can differ a lot in how severe gamma shift issue is on them. Same goes for response times.
While models with better viewing angles are passable I highly doubt can be said about some old A-MVA BenQ from 2012...
 
IPS because maybe, just maybe if will have the brightness needed for sunlight or outdoors (noting that not all IPS panels have high brightness, but at least it's possible).

I still love my dell U2410. Can get very bright, has tons of input, has real Picture in Picture, soundbar, 16:10 (as the Lord intended it to be), etc... It might not have the contrast ratio that some want, but, it has the brightness advantage.
 
IPS because maybe, just maybe if will have the brightness needed for sunlight or outdoors (noting that not all IPS panels have high brightness, but at least it's possible).

I still love my dell U2410. Can get very bright, has tons of input, has real Picture in Picture, soundbar, 16:10 (as the Lord intended it to be), etc... It might not have the contrast ratio that some want, but, it has the brightness advantage.

One of the reasons eye comfort and health enthusiasts love VA panels is because they work better when brightness is turned down low due to their outstanding native contrast ratios.

Staring at a bright LED for hours on end isn't healthy.

Another point: have you asked yourselves what exactly it is about VA technology that facilitates this superior native contrast?

The point about this 2012 model achieving 5000:1 in its official specs is that they did this 8 years ago. The latest TN and IPS screens still aren't above 1000:1.

8 years ago, BenQ believed VA was clearly the superior LCD panel technology.
 
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IPS because maybe, just maybe if will have the brightness needed for sunlight or outdoors (noting that not all IPS panels have high brightness, but at least it's possible).

I still love my dell U2410. Can get very bright, has tons of input, has real Picture in Picture, soundbar, 16:10 (as the Lord intended it to be), etc... It might not have the contrast ratio that some want, but, it has the brightness advantage.
U2410 is very bright indeed 😎
I liked its backlight, somehow it was very pleasurable to look at.
AG coating is however not very good on this monitor. Also sRGB emulation could be better as it is not very accurate.
It also have quite high input lag of 33md. There is however game mode with 16ms input lag.

And did you know that while in game mode you can go to OSD and move cursor to sRGB mode and wait for menu to disappear and it will remain in this hybrid sRGB mode with 16ms input lag? https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U2410-Game-mode-preformance-with-sRGB-colors/td-p/3484480
With this trick it was pretty good gaming monitor for the time. Especially since response times were outstanding. Much better than I have on my gaming 60Hz IPS right now 😅
 
Another point: have you asked yourselves what exactly it is about VA technology that facilitates this superior native contrast?
The point about this 2012 model achieving 5000:1 in its official specs is that they did this 8 years ago. The latest TN and IPS screens still aren't above 1000:1.
8 years ago, BenQ believed VA was clearly the superior LCD panel technology.
GW2750HM is crap

If you are in to old BenQ monitors then the first that makes sense is GW2760HS.
viewing_angles.jpg

And for comparison this is GW2750HM:
viewing_angles.jpg

And GW2750HM does not have 5000:1 but more like 3500:1 and GW2760HS measures about 2300:1
BenQ GW2760HS is however very similar to modern VA and older S-PVA when it comes to viewing angles which like I said are passable.
 
U2410 is very bright indeed 😎
I liked its backlight, somehow it was very pleasurable to look at.
AG coating is however not very good on this monitor. Also sRGB emulation could be better as it is not very accurate.
It also have quite high input lag of 33md. There is however game mode with 16ms input lag.

And did you know that while in game mode you can go to OSD and move cursor to sRGB mode and wait for menu to disappear and it will remain in this hybrid sRGB mode with 16ms input lag? https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U2410-Game-mode-preformance-with-sRGB-colors/td-p/3484480
With this trick it was pretty good gaming monitor for the time. Especially since response times were outstanding. Much better than I have on my gaming 60Hz IPS right now 😅

Yes, it's probably not going to satisfy some gamers. But maybe not horrid at 1920x1200. Most gamers are so beyond those tiny resolutions now :) I've never understood the satisfaction at FHD (1080p), it was such a mistake so many many many years ago to make a step backwards.
 
Yes, it's probably not going to satisfy some gamers. But maybe not horrid at 1920x1200. Most gamers are so beyond those tiny resolutions now :) I've never understood the satisfaction at FHD (1080p), it was such a mistake so many many many years ago to make a step backwards.
1920x1080 made sense because it nicely match TV resolutions so you could connect console, tv box, etc.
To display 16:9 on 16:10 monitor without stretching image vertically you need scalers that can buffer whole frame thus added cost and with bad engineering also add one frame of input lag. Somehow these scalers added input lag even at native resolutions also... but I guess bad engineering is the name of the game in monitor/tv industry :(

I still use 24" 1920x1200 monitor as it's color quality is just stellar. It also nicely matches with 27" 16:9 as they have pretty much the same height. At 4K and no scaling I could not care less about additional vertical desktop space 😅
 
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