BenQ BL3201PT (BL3201PH)

Responsiveness in games and movies

On BF4 the level of blur was as low as you can hope for from a 60Hz sample and hold display. There were no apparent weaknesses in pixel responsiveness that would cause conventional trailing on top of the perceived blur from eye movement. There was a moderate degree of overshoot during some transitions, however. Some fairly noticeable ‘snail slime’ bright trails could be observed when moving past medium-dark greys (e.g. tree trunks or certain vehicles) with slightly lighter shades in the background (e.g. blue sky). These weren’t as bright or obvious as on some monitors and most users shouldn’t find them problematic. They don’t generally jump out at you and catch the eye and some users wouldn’t notice them. There were also some semi-transparent dark trails visible in some places, where certain lighter shades (e.g. brightly painted buildings) moved against darker shades (e.g. deep blue sky). These were very faint and could only really be observed if you knew what to look for.

On Dirt 3 there was a moderate degree of blur, particularly when manoeuvring around the track at speed. The rapid spinning antics of Gymkhana produced a level of blur that was mildly sickening at times. This was very much in-line with what you’d see on even the fastest 60Hz LCDs, however. As with BF4 there was a bit of overshoot here and there. This was most pronounced as a semi-transparent ‘snail slime’ trail behind trees as you moved past them with daylight sky behind. This was again not something that was too obvious and wasn’t something we really noticed when playing the game normally, but it was there when looking out for the issue.

To round off the responsiveness testing, we fired up our Blu-ray movie test titles. The pixel responsiveness did not impose any limitations here and we did not observe any overshoot. The fluidity is limited by the frame rate at which the titles run (~24fps), but that isn’t a fault of the monitor.

The ‘4K’ UHD experience

In this article we take a look at the ins and outs of the 3840 x 2160 (‘4K’ UHD) resolution on a 28” screen, with a pixel density of 157.35 PPI (Pixels Per Inch). With its larger 32” screen, the BenQ BL3201PT (BL3201PH) yields a still impressive pixel density of 137.68 PPI. We actually found this screen quite useable without using scaling, although this will depend on individual preferences, eyesight and viewing distances. The viewing distance during our testing was around 70cm, a distance from which text looked very sharp but readable. It did feel very small at first, coming from a monitor with significantly lower pixel density, but this was something that we adapted to quite readily after getting used to the new monitor. The image below shows the desktop with its rather small icons and other elements.



If you do find things too small then you can apply scaling in Windows, for example ‘Medium – 125%’ as detailed in our main ‘4K’ article. Also be aware of the issues raised with respect to some applications not scaling ‘cleanly’ and others refusing to scale at all. The high resolution and large screen leant itself very well to multitasking, for example working on a document with lots of content visible whilst also browsing a large chunk of a website. This is illustrated in the image below, which is just there to give an indication of how much information can be displayed at once. Even with this tremendous amount of content visible on the screen everything remained very sharp and clearly defined.

If you commonly use applications such as those above, you can of course adjust text size without having to adjust the scaling used by the Operating System itself. We sometimes used these application-specific zoom controls to make text a little larger for viewing comfort. When reading small typeface with fatigued eyes in the evening, for example.

The experience when gaming was largely comparable to on the smaller models we’ve tested, aside from the fact that the larger screen provided a more engrossing experience in our view. One game we’ve been playing a lot recently is GTA V (Grand Theft Auto 5), on monitors of various resolutions and sizes. We found that playing at the 2560 x 1440 resolution on a 27” screen gives a nice boost in overall clarity and detail compared to playing at 1920 x 1080 on a screen of similar size. But playing this game at 3840 x 2160, even on a relatively large screen such as this, really takes things to a completely new level. Things had a distinct ‘4K’ look to them in terms of the overall clarity and detail on some textures. As you gazed into the distance on this screen there was a sharpness that is simply lacking on models with slacker pixel densities – including current 2560 x 1440 models of any size (down to 23.8”).

The need for graphically demanding Anti-Aliasing methods such as MSAA (Multi-Sample AA) was greatly reduced, although by no means eliminated. That is useful due to the extra graphical horsepower required to process MSAA. Without any MSAA things still looked a lot less aliased than they usually would, but there were plenty of thin straight edges that would reveal those dreaded ‘jaggies’. Car roofs in the distance, lamp posts, fences and road markings for example. The steps of the jaggies were smaller and somewhat less noticeable than on models with weaker pixel densities, but there was still this shimmering quality during movement. Even enabling a low level of MSAA such as 2x made a good positive impact here, if you dislike such jaggies. We still feel the game was quite playable without MSAA even though we wouldn’t dream of playing with such things on models with significantly slacker pixel densities. The image below is simply to set the scene and in no way represents the graphical quality seen on the monitor first-hand.

When it came to texture detail on GTA V there was a certain look in places that really provided an extra layer of realism over lower resolution screens. Wood grain textures, some vegetation, road textures and certain uneven wall textures had a very detailed look. This was lost in places when you were right up against the texture, but that is due to the game being conservative rather than anything to do with the monitor itself. There were some textures that looked very impressive even when your character was very close, such as car tyres, leather, carbon fibre and other such vehicle model details. At the other extreme there were certain textures that looked quite flat and didn’t do the pixel density any justice whatsoever – character clothes and certain areas of ground, for example.

The experience on Battlefield 4 was very similar to this, and indeed similar to those documented on smaller screens here. In the image below, which is again just to set the scene, our character is on an aircraft carrier facing towards an island with a clifftop ruin at one end of it. The texture detail on the helicopter and runway is good and on the gun model is excellent. It is perhaps the clarity of objects in the distance that is most impressive, with the rocks of the cliff face, individual trees and the castle ruins all standing out nicely. And any enemies running about here are very easy to spot, too. Without MSAA things generally look appealing, but there is a bit of a shimmering look on thin edges such as the trees as you move the character. Even a low level of MSAA (2x) improves this significantly. The game certainly takes good advantage of the UHD resolution, even if there is untapped potential on some textures.

The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) provided this sort of mixture of highly impressive and less impressive elements as well. There was excellent distant clarity which was again one of the more impressive aspects of such a high pixel density. Many textures looked very crisp at a casual glance, including buildings, rocks and stonework. Up close they looked a bit flatter, again due to the textures themselves rather than any limitation of the monitor. Some ground textures and other objects were given textures that appeared quite flat from any distance really, so they looked a bit out of place. There were some creatures in the game look very crisp and detailed even when up close. The slimy Kwama and mechanical Dwarven Spiders looked particularly impressive. The image below is again just to help get the imagination going and does not represent what is seen first-hand.

As with games, UHD movie content looked just as impressive on this screen as on smaller UHD models. Unfortunately such content is still rather thin on the ground, but is something that should gather pace in the future. Overall we found that this screen size provided something of an optimal UHD experience. We didn’t need to rely on scaling, which can be hit and miss, whilst games and movies benefited in much the same way as on smaller UHD models. Meanwhile the large screen size provided a good level of immersion and a visually engaging experience.

Interpolation and upscaling

The monitor runs natively at the UHD resolution of 3840 x 2160. If you are connecting a device such as games console to the monitor, which doesn’t support this resolution, then you would run the monitor at 1920 x 1080 at the most. Alternatively you may wish to use a lower resolution as a PC user, perhaps because you don’t have the GPU grunt to push 3840 x 2160 pixels. The video below shows the ‘Display Mode’ scaling options that are available on the monitor. There are two options of particular interest; ‘Full’ and ‘1:1’. The former ensures the entire screen space is filled regardless of the resolution selected, using an interpolation process. The latter ensures perfect 1:1 pixel mapping, using only the pixels called for by the specific resolution you’re using and keeping the remaining pixels of the screen black (unused).

When the monitor uses its interpolation process (‘Full’ with a lower than native resolution selected) there is a degree of sharpness lost if you compare to running that resolution natively on a Full HD monitor of similar size. This isn’t as significant as we’ve seen on some models, but it does give things a bit of a softer look than they should have. When gaming, for example, the edges of objects and texture details simply don’t look quite right. By the same token it doesn’t look like the blurry mess that some monitors produce when running non-native resolutions. If you select 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) for the resolution, then things again look somewhat softer than running 2560 x 1440 natively on a WQHD monitor of this size. This softening is reasonably subtle, about as constrained as we’ve seen on a UHD monitor. We feel this resolution is quite useable when gaming with pretty decent texture detail – not ideal, but not disgusting either. With the large screen size any imperfections in the interpolation process are of course more evident than on smaller models, so whilst we may still declare the Dell P2415Q the king of interpolation that could be partly down to the relatively small screen.

If you decide to use the ‘1:1’ option, then you are greeted with a black border around the image as mentioned previously. For the 1920 x 1080 resolution only half of the screen space is used, filling 16” diagonally with a large black area surrounding the image. The 2560 x 1440 resolution gives you a 21.25” image with what is still quite a large sea of black around it. It will really be down to personal preference whether you use the interpolation process of the monitor to fill up all of the pixels are instead go for a smaller and sharper image with a black border. We feel the interpolation process of the monitor is decent overall, but be aware of its limitations.

If you keep the monitor at its native resolution, but are watching lower resolution content (for example a Full HD Blu-ray or other video) then the GPU or software you’re using handles the upscaling. As usual this process is rather good and provides a good experience that is not far off watching that content on a screen natively matching its resolution. There is a very small amount of softening, but nothing to write home about.

Conclusion

We’ve now tested a number of ‘4K’ UHD monitors, each offering a slightly different experience to the last. From the humble 23.8” Dell P2415Q to the imposing ~40” Philips BDM4065UC and some 27” – 28” models in between. We felt that the 32” screen of the BenQ BL3201PT (BL3201PH) offered the most pleasant UHD experience. When using it for general desktop use we didn’t have to rely on scaling, which is certainly nice given that it can be quite hit and miss. Meanwhile the game and movie experience lived up to the ‘Ultra High Definition’ moniker, providing a similar level of detail and clarity to the smaller models we’ve tested. This is something lost from the experience on the ~40” Philips, which also excellent in many ways has a comparable pixel density to a 27” WQHD model. The screen size also provided an absorbing experience on games and movies without being too imposing.

Aside from the brightness and the cool tint, the image ‘out of the box’ on this monitor was quite workable and fairly well balanced. It was just the case of some slight adjustments on the OSD and things were right where they should be. Gamma tracking was very good, not necessitating switching to one of the other 4 gamma settings kindly offered by BenQ. We also found the ‘Low Blue Light’ modes to be well implemented and useful for relaxing evening viewing. With the OSD remote, too, it was very easy to switch between preferred daytime and evening settings. And if you prefer to simply adjust brightness in an easy to access way, you have the flexibility to do that with the controller as well. The overall build quality of the monitor was also excellent, with the super-solidly constructed stand of the BL3200PT making a welcome return.

We enjoyed the image quality offered by the AHVA panel, particularly impressed by how smooth the matte surface was. We have found a lot of the ‘4K’ monitors we’ve tested with matte surfaces to be a bit on the grainy side, so this was quite a relief. The contrast performance of the monitor was also pleasing overall. Whilst static contrast was nothing to write home about, although decent, the relatively low levels of ‘glow’ helped provide a more pleasing atmosphere in dark scenes. This was certainly no VA panel, but it was nice to see this much-maligned characteristic of IPS-type panels subdued a bit. Colours were appropriately rich and varied, with the generous but not excessive colour gamut giving a nice dose of extra vibrancy. This was complimented by the screen surface, too, which didn’t sap away the vivid look in the way that some matte surfaces do.

In terms of responsiveness the monitor was largely impressive, although not technically perfect. There was a little bit of overshoot in places when using the optimal ‘AMA High’ setting. This was eliminated by turning AMA off, but the downside was an unacceptable additional level of blur. On the plus side the overshoot was not at distracting levels, quite constrained overall and not something most users would find distracting or necessarily notice. The pixel responses were very snappy, too, letting the monitor make full use of its 60Hz refresh rate. In fact the BL3201PT (BL3201PH) comfortably outperformed those 28” TN panels with their hugely misleading 1ms response times, in practice. There were no pixel transitions that stood out as being noticeably slower than others, with the movement of the eye being the predominant cause of blur across a wide range of transitions. It is also worth mentioning input lag, which was pleasantly low on this model.

Overall this is a monitor worthy of praise. It is of a size that we feel complements the UHD resolution very nicely and it offers a very solid performance without any nasty surprises. No monitor is technically perfect and this is no exception, but it’s undoubtedly one of the best UHD models we’ve tested.

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