BenQ Unveils SW321C: A 32-Inch Pro Monitor with Wide Color Gamuts & USB-C
by Anton Shilov on March 23, 2020 4:00 PM EST
BenQ has introduced a new 32-inch professional-grade display designed for photographers and post-production specialists. Dubbed the SW321C, the monitor is for professionals who need wide color spaces like the Adobe RGB and the DCI-P3, as well as HDR transport support. And, like many other contemporary displays, BenQ’s new LCD is equipped with a USB Type-C input.
Under the hood, the BenQ AQColor SW321C uses a 10-bit 32-inch IPS panel featuring a 3840×2160 resolution, a 250 nits typical brightness, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, a 5 ms GtG response time, a 60 Hz refresh rate, and 178° viewing angles. The monitor uses a LED backlighting that is tailored to ensure brightness uniformity across the whole surface of the screen.
The LCD can display 1.07 billion colors and can reproduce 99% of the Adobe RGB, 95% of the DCI-P3, as well as 100% of the sRGB color gamuts, all of which are widely used by professional photographers as well as video editors and animation designers who do post-production work. Meanwhile, the monitor has a 16-bit 3D LUT (look-up table) and is calibrated to DeltaE ≤ 2 to ensure fine quality of colors and color gradients. The LCD can even display content in different color spaces at the same time side-by-side in PIP/PBP modes.
As for HDR support, things aren't quite as stellar there. The monitor supports HDR10 as well as the relatively uncommon HLG transport format. However the monitor doesn't have the kind of strong backlighting required for HDR, let alone a FALD setup necessary to deliver anything approaching pro-grade HDR. So the inclusion of HDR support seems to be largely for compatibility and checking HDR content, rather than doing actual content editing in HDR.
As far as connectivity is concerned, the display is comes with one DisplayPort 1.4 input, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a USB Type-C input. The latter can deliver up to 60 W of power to the host, which is enough most laptops. All the connectors support HDCP 2.2 technology that is required for protected content. In addition, the BenQ SW321C monitor has a dual-port USB hub and an SD card reader that is certainly useful for photographers.
Since we are dealing with a professional display, it is naturally equipped with a stand that can adjust height, tilt and swivel as well as work in album mode. In addition, the SW321C comes with BenQ’s hockey puck controller to quickly adjust settings.
| Specifications of the BenQ AQColor SW321C | |
| SW321C | |
| Panel | 32" IPS |
| Native Resolution | 3840 × 2160 |
| Maximum Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| Response Time | 5 ms GtG |
| Brightness | 250 cd/m² (typical) |
| Contrast | 1000:1 |
| Viewing Angles | 178°/178° horizontal/vertical |
| HDR | HDR10, HLG |
| Backlighting | LED |
| Pixel Pitch | 0.1845 mm² |
| Pixel Density | 137 ppi |
| Display Colors | 1.07 billion |
| Color Gamut Support | sRGB: 100% DCI-P3: 95% Adobe RGB: 99% |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Stand | adjustable |
| Inputs | 1 × DisplayPort 1.4 2 × HDMI 2.0 1 × USB-C |
| Other | Dual-port USB hub CD Card Reader |
| Launch Date | Spring 2020 |
The BenQ AQColor SW321C monitor is currently listed by BenQ Japan, so expect it to hit the market shortly. Exact pricing is unknown, but this is a professional-grade display, so expect it to be priced accordingly.
Related Reading:
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
25 Comments
View All Comments
inighthawki - Monday, March 23, 2020 - link
It's a few years old, but is this the kind of thing you're looking for?https://www.anandtech.com/show/11846/philips-preps...
ValiantEffort - Monday, March 23, 2020 - link
Perfect. Thank you.jeremyshaw - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
Not to be silly, but why not get a seperate USB-C dock? It's a lot easier to find a good screen and a good dock seperately, than it is to get a good screen/dock combo, IMO.I eventually went with the Dell WD19 (vanilla) and use it with two different monitors.
I will admit, I'm still not smitten with USB-C docking, but the Dell dock seems to be a really decent compromise.
lilkwarrior - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
A 2020 4K monitor w/ less than 600 brightness for content creators; severely limited in value as a result.Dug - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
Not really. There are very few monitors that are actually color accurate and can display high nits without distorting the color range.If you look at 99% of monitors, the sdr and hdr brightness peak is almost the same, but what most people don't realize is that peak brightness can rarely hold on for more than a couple of seconds.
dmeerpa - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
This monitor is out since end of 2019 in Belgium.I had a BenQ SW320, had a lot of issues (white spots, dead pixels, unable to have a acceptable delta E after hardware calibration, ...) with it a a lot of replacements (I guess 5 times and I used it max 6 months).
The last one was replaced 2 months ago, but that screen also had issues, 2 big blind spots, and grayscales had an massive delta E.
So asked again for replacement. Due to the Covid-19 Benq had difficulties to swap it and after a couple of weeks waiting, they today brought me a brand new SW321c instead.
This evening I start calibrating, hope to have a positive result this time.
I can not say a bad word on the customer service, but the quality of the SW320 was a nightmare.
dmeerpa - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
So I got the monitor, it has some pluses, I really like the anti-reflex coating. With the SW320 you saw a lot of reflexion from everywhere in room.I got 5 SW320 and this SW321C is the first where tha factory calibration is really close to my hardware calibration, dark grays (shadows) are even better in factory calibration.
Screen uniformity is amazing. Maximum I got was 236nits, but at that level the lowest value on the screen that I could find was in the right corner, with still 232nits, that's only 4 nits difference.
BUT the illumination is a nightmare when viewing dark images. This became visible when it became dark outside and I didn't had any lights on. You can see spots in the 4 corners, which are clearly visible with the naked eye and have a red/orange tint.
fred666 - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
is there any cheap 32 to 37" 4k monitor / TV?DanNeely - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
Monoprice has a basic 32" 4k/60hz monitor for $350. I haven't seen anything a few inches larger that's not an ultrawide; the next popular size for people who want bigger in 16:9 is 40/43" TVs.https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=27772
fred666 - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
I checked 43" TVs. They are cheap. But just a bit too big to fit on my desk. 40" could maybe fit, but it seems to be discontinued.