Official BenQ FP241W Thread !!! Info, Pictures, Reviews

waitandsee said:
You get what you pay for...bigger is not always better...I mean if you really want bigger buy the 32" Westinghouse for 799 from Newegg. Now that's a real deal because it's 16:9 and has all the inputs in the world...
Click to expand...
Yes you get what you pay for.
Westinghouse LTV-32W3 is TV and not real high definition, will not display 1080p,
The native resolution is 1366x768, it will receive 1080i signal and downscale to 720p.
I would not recommend it as computer monitor, you need to sit further away, otherwise you see the pixels.
 
belvedere79 said:
Let me know if anyone has any particular requests for sources, I'll see what I can do.
Click to expand...

Well, since we are taking requests here, do you have access to a scaler? If you do, can you feed it its native rez and play a DVD in the HDMI and see if correctly displays the image? Highly appreciate it if you can. Thanks!
 
Heinz68 said:
Can you explain little more about the stretching. (Motorola HD Cable}
The first picture looks like standard TV, not wide screen and not stretch on the sites.
Not sure what the lines are, if I'm right it should be black
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/3229/img0410pn1.jpg
Does the Motorola HD Cable box.has aspect ratio control ?
Click to expand...

My cable box puts out an HD signal, either 1080i or 720P, I tried both. I was watching ESPNHD at the time which puts a logo on the sides for non-HD content. The cablebox scales this up to 720P 1080i depending on how the cablebox is setup. So to answer your question it DOES have aspect ratio control, it was set to widescreen and 720P and 1080i. I showed screens of the cablebox settings here:
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7396/img0420vy7.jpg
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/2231/img0421gm8.jpg


Heinz68 said:
Samsung progressive DVD Player using composite:
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4682/img0468ne5.jpg
Great no stretching, aspect ratio most likely controled by the player

DVD Player SVideo
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/1483/img0481ji5.jpg
Again no stretching, aspect ratio most likely controled by the player
Click to expand...
Later in my stream of consciousness post I mention that in the DUNE scenes the black bars are encoded on the disc, I confirmed this with playback on my HDTV using my XBOX. I'll have to play around with the DVD player on these inputs more. I need to find some anamorphic sources and do some actual measurements (ie confirm displayed aspect ratios match the back of the dvd). Even if there is no stretching, these are 2 crappy inputs, composite and svideo putting out 480P.

Heinz68 said:
XBOX360 Via component
All stretch
No aspect ratio control
Next time please take the picture with flash or more light. Because of the black frame and dark background it's hard to see if there is letterbox or not.

Acording to this article the aspect ratio can be cotroled either by the TV or by the video source.
Click to expand...
I assure you there was NO letterboxing. Thats why I said that in my original post. As stated, for each input I re-explored the OSD on the monitor to see if any adjustments in geometry could be made and in each case no new OSD options to allow for 1:1 pixel mapping or at least the correct aspect ratio appeared. As for the sources, in each case I set them to output a 16x9 image in each case. I am not a moron, I own a properly set up HDTV and I assure you once again, I went through every pain to make sure everything was set up properly. I would have like to see proper 16x9 ratios myself, but as I concluded earlier, the benq is not capable of this.
 
belvedere... You connected the Xbox 360 via component... can you please comment on the colour vibrancy.... someone mentioned earlier that there isnt a problem with sharpness.. the only thing i need to know is how well colour comes through..

also I understand the screen will stretch the image to 16:10 resulting in a slight vertical squeeze... can you tell me if its noticable? Everything I have read on this monitor so far is positive besides the lack of 1:1 pixel mapping..
 
So would an ATI video card setup (x1900 CF) be able to display 1600x1200 games and 16x9 HD-DVDs (all played from COMPUTER), in 1:1 pixel mapping (black bars) via Cataylst drivers?

Or would an ATI user be forced to stretch everything?

I know ATI users won't be able to use aspect ratio scaling like Nvidia users, but if I was forced to play games that don't support widescreen in 1600x1200 and it was stretched, I would not get the BenQ.

Please answer if you know, this would be the deciding factor for me to buy this monitor. ;)
 
Has any one noticed any input lag? These monitors are not available in the UK for another week or so, at least I can't find one to buy... But after a freinds experience with the otherwise fantastic samsung 244t I'm curious...
 
notorious hsg said:
belvedere... You connected the Xbox 360 via component... can you please comment on the colour vibrancy.... someone mentioned earlier that there isnt a problem with sharpness.. the only thing i need to know is how well colour comes through..

also I understand the screen will stretch the image to 16:10 resulting in a slight vertical squeeze... can you tell me if its noticable? Everything I have read on this monitor so far is positive besides the lack of 1:1 pixel mapping..
Click to expand...

Its hard to to a side by side comparison, but with the factory settings (the brightness was jacked all the way up as to be explected) the colors did seem to jump out at me much more so than my ancient 18" lcd (TN panel i think). From my subjective view, colors were good, not a huge diffrernce from my DLP HDTV (although i was 3 feet from the lcd while examining).

I was not bothered by the horizontal squeezing you describe (though I would call it more of a vertical stretch). When I go to sports bars or other peoples homes and see the 4x3 content stretch to 16x9, I notice, 16x9 -> 16x10 is significantly more slight.

hallgl said:
ATI + BenQ
So would an ATI video card setup (x1900 CF) be able to display 1600x1200 games and 16x9 HD-DVDs (all played from COMPUTER), in 1:1 pixel mapping (black bars) via Cataylst drivers?

Or would an ATI user be forced to stretch everything?

I know ATI users won't be able to use aspect ratio scaling like Nvidia users, but if I was forced to play games that don't support widescreen in 1600x1200 and it was stretched, I would not get the BenQ.

Please answer if you know, this would be the deciding factor for me to buy this monitor.
Click to expand...

Hmm... I just tested this out (X800XL with latest drivers) and contrary to the catalyst option below, games don't appear to be going 1:1. Just tested a couple games and they all stretched:
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7905/catalystgp8.png

However, I know the folks over at http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/ have workarounds for many games that don't natively support widescreen, if you want to play in full 1920x1200. The catalyst setting for "use centered timings" only seems to apply for the desktop, I just tested that as well, so at least HD-DVD/BD should display right by forcing the desktop resolution to 1920x1080. Maybe if enough of us drop a line to the ATI catalyst devs here the feature could be added.
 
hallgl said:
So would an ATI video card setup (x1900 CF) be able to display 1600x1200 games and 16x9 HD-DVDs (all played from COMPUTER), in 1:1 pixel mapping (black bars) via Cataylst drivers?

Or would an ATI user be forced to stretch everything?

I know ATI users won't be able to use aspect ratio scaling like Nvidia users, but if I was forced to play games that don't support widescreen in 1600x1200 and it was stretched, I would not get the BenQ.

Please answer if you know, this would be the deciding factor for me to buy this monitor.
Click to expand...
Yes, stretch everything. If the software or player have stretch control, awesome. Like, Nvidia, Half-Life 2, Quake4, some DVD/HD hardware players, and so on. I'm confident that ATI will support fixed aspect ratio, they're just slow behind Nvidia on drivers. Spam them with requests.

DeftonesXP said:
Danger posted some screenshots and it seem to be 25ms average
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LoL, so naive. There are too many variables. Please go read some reviews. Maybe like http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/05/26/viewsonic_overdrive_lcds/ (BenQ FP241W use the same panel technology)
or
http://www.behardware.com
 
Notorious HSG - the color reproduction on component in via xbox 360 is perfect. The stretching is not noticeable, I think black bars would be more distracting.

Hallgl - I'm using ATI with catalyst drivers, and I can't get 1600x1200 to not be stretched. Really looks awful playing LOTR BFME2 all stretched out. I can play in smaller resolutions and it doesn't stretch, but puts black bars above, below and on each side of the image. I plan to upgrade to an NVidia 7950 GT when I build a new system to allow 1:1 mapping.

Flake - no lag whatsoever. You'll be happy with it.
 
Danger posted some screenshots and it seem to be 25ms average
Click to expand...

I posted with it approx 4ms lag which you will not notice at all. I played more last night and absolutely love it. Once I test the HDMI, its a keeper.
 
Anyone know of a US-based retailer selling this thing with a zero-dead-pixel guarantee? NewEgg's got a great price, but they're policy is 8 dead pixels before they'll do a return and NCIX doesn't have any in stock yet. Any recommenations?
 
You try Froogle:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q...mozilla:en-US:official&lmode=online&scoring=p

I took a risk with Newegg.com, but knowing BenQ from the customers review, they put out quality products, so I felt they have strict dead pixel defects during manufacturing.

I have no dead pixels (luck I guess), tested with DPB, dead pixel buddy. I assume all the BenQ FP241W buyers have no dead pixels too. All of us got no dead pixels.
 
DangerIsGo said:
I posted with it approx 4ms lag which you will not notice at all. I played more last night and absolutely love it. Once I test the HDMI, its a keeper.
Click to expand...

I just looked at your shots again.. It looks like 40ms, not 4ms.

.00 is hundreths of a second (which you have in your shots)
.000 is ms. So, 40ms is .04 seconds, right?

Anyway, I was guessing from the pics maybe not a full .04s, but maybe less. 35ish ms, then? Anyway, about 2ish out of 60 frames per second. 1/30th of a second lag time. *shrug*

Jim
 
Exactly what I was about to say... like Jim Robbins noted, the last digist that you see on the screenshots are 1/100th of a second. So if we look at the most obvious screenshots :

20ms: http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input2.jpg
30ms: http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input4.jpg
30ms : http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input8.jpg
30ms : http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input9.jpg
30ms : http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input11.jpg

that's about a 30ms average... which is the usual LCD lag... this is not a CRT ;)
Dell's 2407 is measured about 32 to 40ms... which uses a different pannel but almost the same technology
 
This is the worst thing for me. A lot of people don;t seem to notice the lag, but I found myself wanting to smash the otherwise excellent 244t!! Where as I've seen other eople suggesting that input lag isn't an issue or even doesn't exist!!

I'll just have to wait til there's a few more reviews...
 
Hey Flake, if you don't want LCD lag, go buy yourself a CRT :p
We are stuck with this lag untill the next technology...
 
I had read somewhere that the samsung 244t had closer to 60ms lag time or worse? Anyway, I can't remember for sure, but that would be about twice as much lag as the BenQ here. 1/15th of a second lag, or about 4 fps behind... Anyway, that would probably feel more noticeable in a fast game then the FP241W. Again, I don't have the BenQ, but when someone other than newegg has them available, I'll be pretty darn tempted to pick one up. Of course, I'd love to see a company in the US offer that no dead pixel thing for an extra few bucks. I'd pay extra to be certain that I don't get dead or stuck pixels!

Later...
 
DeftonesXP said:
Hey Flake, if you don't want LCD lag, go buy yourself a CRT :p
We are stuck with this lag untill the next technology...
Click to expand...

I agree. All LCD's lag, read it yourself from a review site, they bench a handful of LCD monitors:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/632-1/lcds-images-delayed-compared-to-crts-yes.html

Really, go buy yourself a CRT, if it's utmost important to you.

The next technology, SED and (new) Laser Display won't be available at "COMPETITIVE PRICE" until 2009 or later. I'm getting old, I do a lot more programming and artwork than gaming nowadays. (I was a competitive ex-clan Quaker player since Quake2). I play Quake4 now occasionally, my railing (sniping) still great. :)
 
The Beast said:
Single-link DVI connection
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Doesn't this mean that graphics cards have to use a "reduced blanking interval" to drive the full 1920x1200 resolution? And doesn't that degrade the image quality?

I have a Mac G4 MDD that I want to set up the FP241W on. I may have to upgrade my video card. It seems like most of the ATI cards say they use a "reduced blanking interval" to drive 1920x1200 resolution. I'm still trying to figure out what nVidia cards might work on a MDD G4 with this monitor.
 
As far as I know the difference between single link DVI and dual link DVI is just bandwidth.

Dual can carry twice the bandwidth and therefore info than single.

To get the bandwidth you multiply the res by the Hz.

So assuming 60hz, you get 1920x1200x60 = approx. 138mhz and therefore well within the 165mhz that a single link DVI cable gives you. You therefore don't need a DUAL DVI cable because you wouldn't be using the extra bandwidth.

Now for like a 30" LCD like Dell's 3007WFP with a res of 2560x1600, the bandwidth at lets say 60hz would be 2560x1600x60 = 245mhz and therefore you'd exceed the bandwidth of a single link cable and you would need the dual link which can do 165x2 or 330mhz max.

Suppodely HDMI has a super large bandwidth which is like twice as much as is needed for HDTV and so a true HDMI cable can not only hold the entire HDTV sig. but also audio with room to spare for the future...

Now what your graphics card can handle is totally separate from the bandwidth of the cable used. But yeah you need a really good graphics card with tons of graphics mem to drive that 30" lcd...that's a crazy amount of data and pixels to drive...

Correct me if I'm wrong with any of this...

Thanks

-WaitAndSee
 
DeftonesXP said:
Exactly what I was about to say... like Jim Robbins noted, the last digist that you see on the screenshots are 1/100th of a second. So if we look at the most obvious screenshots :

20ms: http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input2.jpg
30ms: http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input4.jpg
30ms : http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input8.jpg
30ms : http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input9.jpg
30ms : http://web.njit.edu/~ddo3/monitor/input11.jpg

that's about a 30ms average... which is the usual LCD lag... this is not a CRT ;)
Dell's 2407 is measured about 32 to 40ms... which uses a different pannel but almost the same technology
Click to expand...
The degree of error is too high for accuracy. I believe the program used can run at 1/1000th of a second and you would also need a camera capable at capture at 1/1000th of a second or higher (digi slr).
 
waitandsee said:
As far as I know the difference between single link DVI and dual link DVI is just bandwidth.

Dual can carry twice the bandwidth and therefore info than single.

To get the bandwidth you multiply the res by the Hz.

So assuming 60hz, you get 1920x1200x60 = approx. 138mhz and therefore well within the 165mhz that a single link DVI cable gives you. You therefore don't need a DUAL DVI cable because you wouldn't be using the extra bandwidth.

Now for like a 30" LCD like Dell's 3007WFP with a res of 2560x1600, the bandwidth at lets say 60hz would be 2560x1600x60 = 245mhz and therefore you'd exceed the bandwidth of a single link cable and you would need the dual link which can do 165x2 or 330mhz max.

Suppodely HDMI has a super large bandwidth which is like twice as much as is needed for HDTV and so a true HDMI cable can not only hold the entire HDTV sig. but also audio with room to spare for the future...

Now what your graphics card can handle is totally separate from the bandwidth of the cable used. But yeah you need a really good graphics card with tons of graphics mem to drive that 30" lcd...that's a crazy amount of data and pixels to drive...

Correct me if I'm wrong with any of this...

Thanks

-WaitAndSee
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation. What about the "reduced blanking interval"? Do all cards do this to drive 1920x1200 resolution? Are newer graphics cards better at driving this resolution (for movies, not games) than my four year old Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition?
 
cb474 said:
Thanks for the explanation. What about the "reduced blanking interval"? Do all cards do this to drive 1920x1200 resolution? Are newer graphics cards better at driving this resolution (for movies, not games) than my four year old Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition?
Click to expand...
Running vga should not be a problem. SL-DVI at 1920x1200 most likely should not be a problem. Got my 6 y/o radeon 7000/7200 running at 1920x1200 res.
 
DieHardcc said:
I agree. All LCD's lag, read it yourself from a review site, they bench a handful of LCD monitors:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/632-1/lcds-images-delayed-compared-to-crts-yes.html

Really, go buy yourself a CRT, if it's utmost important to you.

The next technology, SED and (new) Laser Display won't be available at "COMPETITIVE PRICE" until 2009 or later. I'm getting old, I do a lot more programming and artwork than gaming nowadays. (I was a competitive ex-clan Quaker player since Quake2). I play Quake4 now occasionally, my railing (sniping) still great. :)
Click to expand...

Its not that lag is the be-all-and-end-all for me, I just want to wait until I can see quoted figures for it. Less than the 244t would be better, that's all.
I'd like to have more screen real estate, without the extra footprint... Like you I don't do too much gaming, but the 244t drove me crazy just browsing!!

Anyway, guess I'll just wait until someone quantifies it, and lag becomes a more general test.
 
Right now I play my second xbox360 on a 23" HP monitor.. It looks ok, but the color is washed out looking compared to my Sony LCD. I am wondering if this is closer to the real color vibrancy that is supposed to be there.
 
i love my new FP241 just as others have posted, no dead pixels, fantastic colors. etc.. though mine has developed a slight problem on day 3.. first started last night, and turned off while using it... i tried to turn it back on, but nothing happened.. checked all connection.. eveything in good shape.. made some dinner, came back to my PC and monitor turned on.. but turned off minutes later.. first thing that came into my mind was heat problems.. grabbed one of my house fans, pointed at the back of the LCD, things worked great for the next hour I left the fan blowing on it. removed the fan and within 5 minutes the screen went off again.. leads me to think yes some heat problem with my unit

getting an RMA from newegg right now, just wondering if any of the other owners are having the same issues..
 
Please let us know how the RMA process works for you at Newegg. One other guy on this thread thought his unit was bad, and newegg was going to make him deal directly with BenQ. Fortunately, he just had a bad cable.

Thanks...

Jim
 
Newegg issued me a RMA# and is taking care of it for me so far. my credit card was credited for what shipping costs they felt I would have to pay to ship the LCD back to them, then I went ahead and ordered another unit, once they receive my LCD they will credit my card for the reorder of the LCD..

I'm a bit leery about how Newegg is dealing with orders from my initial purchase of this LCD though, I haven’t had any issues in the past, but this last one I’d have to say everything that could go wrong did…

Placed the order in Tuesday night, added the “rush order” option and changed to 2nd day air, taking the gamble it would ship Wed. morning and I would have it Friday. No such luck. My LCD shipped Thursday night, and was in my hands Monday. Made a call, was credited back my “rush order” money since it didn’t ship the next day, but I lost out the $$ for the increase for 2nd day air shipping, they stated they shipped it within the 24-48hr window, what crap I say.

Story continues..

So this RMA/reorder I’m giving Newegg one last chance in my book, I ordered it first thing in the morning (Thursday), called them, they would only give me the cost of 3day shipping. Not wanting to go another weekend without a monitor I put up the money for next day, hoping it would show up Friday (tomorrow) in WI, far from most distro centers.

My guess is everything that can go wrong will, since it has so far. I’ll post the outcome of this Friday or Monday I guess, my gut it will arrive Monday.

I guess Newegg hasn’t made me to upset, just not sure about what future purchases I place from them. I guess this is just one of the issues of ordering online, when all the products I seem to want are never found in stores.
 
Everything worked fine for me with my order. I purchased with a debit card on Monday night @ 11pm. No rush order or anything and just 3 day shipping (as itll get here in a day since i live in NJ near the facility). Processed the next day but shipped out wednesday. Got here thursday evening. Gotta love Newegg :)
 
Ordered yesterday from Newegg and the product was shipped last evening as well. Received it today and hooked it up. So far I am very impressed. No dead pixels that I can tell (used the Dead Pixel Buddy util) and the colors look great. Configured WoW in 1900x1200 WS mode and I was blown away. Cables were a bit short for my setup but nothing too serious. If anything comes up I will post back in this thread.
 
The Beast said:
Tonight...images from Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Star Wars from a DVD player with HDMI output
Click to expand...

Any updates yet? I'm hoping against hope that it won't stretch 720 or 1080 to 1200. Thank you for the pics.
 
I tried out a regular DVD player today hooked up through s-video and it had black bars, it was stretched vertically slightly -- the difference between 16:9 and 16:10, i'm not sure whether thats different than some other people's testing results, if it is, I'll take pictures.
 
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