BenQ BL2405HT PC Monitor Review

Taking care of business. And your eyes.

by hodg100
Tech Review

1

Recommended
BenQ BL2405HT PC Monitor Review
MSRP: £149.99

What is the BL2405?

This PC monitor is aimed at the business market but would be equally suited to non-specialist domestic use, i.e. it’s not sold as a dedicated gaming or photography display and nor is it especially suited for home theatre requirements. The BenQ BL2405HT boasts their exclusive Flicker-free technology and Low Blue Light Modes, for comfortable viewing over extended periods and a flexible adjustment system to maximise placement opportunities. At the time of publishing (October 2016), the BL2405HT is widely available for between £140 and £150.

Specifications

The BL2405HT features an LED backlight to illuminate the 24-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) TN panel with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a pixel pitch of 0.267mm. BenQ claims a native contrast ratio of 1,000:1 and a dynamic contrast of 12 million to one with the Dynamic Contrast setting maxed out. Pixel response time is quoted at two milliseconds, grey-to-grey, with promised viewing angles of 170 degrees horizontal and 160 degrees on the vertical axis.

Design & Connections

The BL2405 features a fuss-free, all-black design with a 2cm wide bezel all around the matte black screen. It is by no means a designer looking monitor but equally is the epitome of the term non-offensive and should slip unobtrusively in to any given environment. The BenQ is not entirely without features, there are some buttons on the right edge to power on/off, access and use the menu system, control the volume and to enter, and toggle between, the pre-set picture modes. Also, running along the bottom bezel are some manufacturer logos and ones to denote it’s an LED display and that it carries HDMI connectivity.
BenQ BL2405HT
The BL2405HT features BenQ’s Ultra-Flexible Height Adjustment System (HAS) that should mean it can be positioned at almost any required height, or angle. Attaching the screen to the stand is merely a case of clipping in the neck, at the back, and then finger tightening a screw on the circular base-stand to affix the neck of the stand to it and the process took us less than a couple of minutes. Once assembled, the HAS affords 11cm of vertical travel, 45 degrees of swivel, either way, and a total of twenty degrees tilt, with 5 degrees forwards and 15 degrees backwards available.
BenQ BL2405HT
All the connections are downwards facing and placed at the rear. It’s a fairly standard set of inputs and outputs with a connection for the power cable (the PSU is internal so there’s no ‘brick’), a 3.5mm audio input and one out for headphones or desktop speakers, an HDMI 1.4 port, a 24-pin DVI-D input and a D-SUB (VGA) Port; the only other option we would have liked is a DisplayPort input but most will be satisfied with what’s on offer with the BL2405.
BenQ BL2405HT

Menus

The menu system is, naturally, accessed via the Menu button on the side panel and is split in to five areas - Display, Picture, Picture Advanced, Audio & System. It has to be said that it’s not much fun to navigate around using the buttons but you get the hang of how selections work fairly quickly. The Picture Menu contains all the standard user controls – Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness and, if you select the User picture mode from the Advanced menu, you can also adjust other parameters such as Gamma, Colour Temperature, Hue and Saturation. There are a number of Picture Modes available, including sRGB, Photo, Movie, Game, Standard, Eco and Low Blue Light with the latter offering various pre-sets for multimedia, web browsing and the like.
BenQ BL2405HT
BenQ BL2405HT

Colour Accuracy

Once again, the out of the box accuracy of the sRGB mode, which you would hope would be the most faithful to a standard, wasn’t particularly impressive and there’s very little in the way of manual control to improve it. In fact, if you want something resembling close to the sRGB standard, you are best served by the Standard Picture Mode with the User Colour mode selected and moved two or three notches down on the Green slider. With the review sample, at least, and we’d expect retail models to behave similarly, this got average greyscale errors down to acceptable(ish) levels at somewhere around 4 – 5, as we can see from the charts and figures to the left of the image below.
BenQ BL2405HT
The graphs and numbers to the right reflect the calibrated results using Calman RGB software and while improvements are modest, the reduction in greyscale errors was reflected in more neutral greys and whites and, subsequently, colour accuracy also received a small boost although, in all honesty, it was more difficult to spot by eye. Overall the BL2405 produces reasonably accurate images and, for its intended use away from colour critical tasks, these are good enough results but we’ve seen better in the class.

Image Quality

In terms of its primary purpose in keeping workers chained to the desk with no cause to complain of eye-strain or headaches, we found the BenQ BL2405HT to be a success. It is also well suited to bright environments with a maximum light output above the manufacturer’s quotation at 253 nits (cd/m2). In darker situations the BL2405 didn’t impress as much with some reasonably obvious light pooling visible in the corners of dark screens and there’s not a great deal of contrast performance on offer either but that’s not really an issue, unless you plan on watching TV/Movie content through it, which isn’t something we would particularly recommend. In case you’re interested, we measured black at 0.14 nits, against a peak white output of 253 giving an On/Off contrast ratio of around 1,800:1 but intra-frame (ANSI) performance didn’t approach anything like that at about 750:1, calibrated.

General screen uniformity – other than the corner bleed – was perfectly good for web browsing, documents and general everyday office use with none of the panel banding apparent we could see with fast video content which is, again, not what this monitor is designed to display. That said, we can envisage the BL2405 being used as an auxiliary gaming display when the main TV is in use, particularly streaming Xbox One to a Windows 10 PC – which was how we were set up – in which case you are likely to notice any banding effects and the fact that motion isn’t the smoothest at high velocity, which is a bit of a shame given the input lag was measured at just 14 milliseconds.

The main use of the BL2405HT during its time with us, however, was as a monitor for reviewing Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, for which the Low Blue Light modes proved invaluable. Such is the nature of the work that it requires a lot of concentration and, more pertinently, the need to stare at a screen for hours on end. Not once did I suffer the same sort of headaches I have with other displays – particularly cheapish notebooks – and nor did the eyes unduly dry out or become sore during the protracted use. There’s probably no better recommendation I could offer the prospective business customer than the fact the BenQ BL2405 is an extremely comfortable display to use over extended periods.

Video Review

Conclusion

Pros

  • Very comfortable to use over extended periods
  • Highly adjustable stand
  • Decent connectivity options
  • Low input lag

Cons

  • Could have been more accurate in sRGB mode
  • No Display Port

BenQ BL2405HT PC Monitor Review

Should I buy one?

The BenQ BL2405HT is a monitor designed for business use and, as such, fits the bill very nicely. The design is simple black and unobtrusive but the positional adjustment mechanism is nifty and means it could be placed just about anywhere. The suite of connections incudes HDMI, DVI and D-Sub as well as an audio in and a headphone jack output which will be ample for most, but it would have been nice to have the option of a DisplayPort input. The out of the box colour accuracy in the sRGB mode was a little disappointing, although the BL2405 isn’t sold under any pretence of being suitable for colour critical work. In any case you can do a little better in the Standard mode but even then, you’d probably missing out on arguably the best feature of this monitor - and certainly in terms of prospective productivity – namely the array of Low Blue Light modes that we found to greatly help to minimise eyestrain over extended document scrutiny sessions. The BenQ BL2405 also boasts a low 14 millisecond input lag for gamers although it’s motion handling isn’t the smoothest and nor would we strongly recommend it for multimedia use. When all’s said and done, the BenQ BL2405HT is made for business and takes care of it – and your eyes – with aplomb. Recommended.


MORE: Monitor Reviews


Scores

Design

.
.
8

Connectivity

.
.
.
7

Out-of-the-box accuracy sRGB

.
.
.
7

Calibrated sRGB

.
.
.
7

Black Levels & Contrast

.
.
.
.
6

Bright Screen Uniformity

.
.
8

Dark Screen Uniformity

.
.
.
7

Viewing Angles

.
.
.
7

Input Lag

.
.
8

Pixel Response

.
.
.
.
6

Value for Money

.
.
.
.
6

Verdict

.
.
8
8
AVForumsSCORE
OUT OF
10

Our Review Ethos

Read about our review ethos and the meaning of our review badges.

To comment on what you've read here, click the Discussion tab and post a reply.

Related Content

Samsung CF591 (C27F591FDU) PC Monitor Review
  • By hodg100
  • Published
BenQ BL2205PT PC Monitor Review
  • By hodg100
  • Published
BenQ XL2730Z Gaming Monitor Review
  • By hodg100
  • Published
Samsung S34E790C Curved Monitor Review
  • By hodg100
  • Published

Latest Headlines

Ring video doorbell users facing a 40% price hike
  • By Ian Collen
  • Published
Samsung officially unveils the S24 smartphone series
  • By Ian Collen
  • Published
CES VIDEO: Sony Stand Tour
  • By Phil Hinton
  • Published
Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi Certified 7
  • By Ian Collen
  • Published
Apple Vision Pro set to launch in February
  • By Ian Collen
  • Published
Back
Top Bottom