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The BenQ ZOWIE XL2730 is an accomplished gaming monitor with few significant flaws. The image quality is good out of the box, and can be calibrated to a superb level. The range of options for gamers is extensive, giving plenty of control over how image quality is balanced against response as well as the ability to pick out detail in shadows.
Then there's the 144Hz refresh and Adaptive Sync. The latter may not be quite as enticing for NVIDIA owners as G-Sync, but at least it works across adapters from AMD as well as NVIDIA. Unless you're after refresh overclocking, the specification is lacking very little for a TN gaming screen. Little touches like the headphone bracket and external S switch Arc controller will add to the joy of ownership, and only the slight paucity of USB 3 downstream ports blots the copy book.
The price of the ZOWIE XL2730 might be a little higher than some other 27in 2,560 x 1,440 gaming screens with a similar specification, in particular AOC's AGON AG271QX. But colour fidelity is better with the BenQ, and the price delta is not huge.
It's actually a tough call between these two because they are so very close in specification. Both are great gaming screens for the money, but the BenQ just has a little more to offer for those times when you're not gaming, with more non-gaming presets and better colour fidelity.
The BenQ ZOWIE XL2730 is available on Amazon UK for £460 inc vat.
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Pros:
- Great colour fidelity, particularly when calibrated
- 144Hz refresh.
- Lots of settings to improve performance for gaming.
- Adaptive Sync.
- S switch Arc external control device.
Cons:
- Slightly pricier than competition.
- Only two downstream ports on USB hub.
Kitguru Says: The BenQ ZOWIE XL2730 combines great image quality with tons of features for gamers, including 144Hz refresh and Adaptive Sync.
I believe this isn’t correct:
“Then there’s the 144Hz refresh and Adaptive Sync. The latter may not be quite as enticing for NVIDIA owners as G-Sync, but at least it works across adapters from AMD as well as NVIDIA”
Adaptive Sync isn’t supported on Geforce cards except their proprietary Gsync as far as I know?
I have the BenQ XL2730Z, bought just after Freesync monitors became available around April 2015.
Apart from dropping the ‘Z’ from the name and including ‘Zowie’ branding now, I’m struggling to see the difference!
Updated HDMI/DP ports? I’ll have to check specs when I get home.
Great monitor BTW 😉
its an excuse to keep the price high. They don’t want to have to lower price cause they have nothing new to put out so they invented a new brand called Zowie.
Yep, just checked those specs – it’s exactly the same! http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/benq_xl2730z.htm
The Quadros support it. NVIDIA cards don’t support FreeSync. But this monitor has Adaptive Sync, which is the more general standard.
The ZOWIE is about £300 cheaper than the XL2730Z on Amazon.co.uk. All very strange, but this is the first time we have looked at the screen and it’s still a goodun’ so well worth considering.
Yes, Quadros, which really isn’t what needs it, it’s gamers/Geforce that really benefits from it. It’s so silly, it’s surely just a driver issue, if only Nvidia would implement adaptive refresh support… 🙁
Something is definitely not right there then! I bought mine for just shy of £500 nearly 2 years ago. This certainly looks like it’s just a re-branding for Zowie. I can only guess that the price you see on Amazon, is because the original XL2730Z is no longer available, except via private sellers.
(Edit – Scratch that, just found the XL2730Z for £349.99 at Maplin! Hardly known for being a discount store either).
I agree it’s a fantastic display though, had some teething issues when I first purchased it and ended up being sent another screen via BenQ RMA, then I had to send it back again for a Firmware update, but after the initial hassles – I love this monitor!
Freesync makes such a massive difference in games and I really notice when I play on my Gaming laptop (1080p/60hz & no adaptive sync on laptop) versus my Desktop.
No, the GeForce supports Adaptive Sync too. It’s FreeSync that they don’t support. And G-Sync that the AMD cards don’t support. G-Sync adds extra hardware to the monitor, which is why the G-Sync screens are more expensive.
Isn’t Freesync just AMD’s implementation of Adaptive Sync, the VESA standard?
The main thing this is a great screen for the money. If you can get the older name for £349.99 then that’s probably an absolute bargain!
Yes, and I’ve read that you can still use Adaptive Sync with NVIDIA cards on screens that claim to support FreeSync. But FreeSync has some other things going on that are an improvement over basic Adaptive Sync. There is a theory that G-Sync is better than FreeSync due to the hardware taking the work away from the graphics card, but I’ve seen no scientific proof of that. I’m not even sure how you would test that objectively.
Okay, thank you for explaining that! 🙂
No worries. It’s really confusing and I’ve had to research things a lot even to get to the relatively meagre level of understanding I have!
Agreed! 🙂
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