BenQ XL2410T Zowie Special Edition Review

BenQ XL2410T Zowie Special Edition Review

Manufacturer: BenQ
UK price (as reviewed): £349.99 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): N/A

The world of gaming peripherals is odd – everyone bemoans the ‘gamer tax’, when manufacturers seem to charge an extra 20 per cent for gaming gear, and yet they’re increasingly turning to professional gamers to help design that hardware. We may be doing Emil ‘HeatoN’ Christensen (dubbed the best Counter-Strike player in the world) and Abdisamad ‘SpawN’ Mohamed (12-times worldwide Counter-Strike champion) a disservice, but we doubt if they have many qualifications in display device design. Yet these two top-level CS players have been roped in to help BenQ to design its first gaming-specific screen, the memorably titled XL2410T.


The end result is a feature list that reads a little like the disastrous car that Homer designed for his brother Herb. For example, there’s a DisplayMode feature that replicates the screen size of smaller screens pixel for pixel – the screen can display anything from 17in, 5:4 upwards, complete with black borders.

The reasoning behind this is that professional gaming tournament players use different screens, and switching from a 24in 1,920 x 1,080 screen to a much smaller one could throw your game. SpawN and HeatoN wanted to practise at home on a screen that was the same size as that used in a forthcoming tournament to familiarise themselves with it, but this feature will be genuinely useful for few other people.


The XL2410T Zowie Special Edition we were sent is bundled with a Zowie EC1 mouse and a Zowie Swift plastic-topped mousepad. The mouse is reminiscent of a Razer DeathAdder crossed with a Microsoft IntelliMouse, and is designed by HeatoN. It works well with the plastic pad (designed by SpawN), although the pad has a rough surface that might annoy some people. More to the point, we suspect that if you’re looking to buy a gaming screen, you probably already own a favourite mouse and pad.

Of more use to the kind of twitchy gaming that undoubtedly won SpawN and HeatoN their numerous accolades is the 120Hz refresh rate. While this means the screen is also compatible with Nvidia’s 3D Vision, of more use is the higher refresh rate that usually provides crisper images and less blur. As the panel is based on TN technology, it has a response time of 2ms, so objects should look crisp and sharp, even if they’re moving fast. If your gaming skills are honed to flick to pixel-wide slivers of heads peeking around corners, these two technologies should be useful.

Specifications

• Display type TN
  
• Dimensions (mm) 268 x 220 x 440-570 (W x D x H
  
• Available colours Black
  
• Connections HDMI, Dual-link DVI (with HDCP), D-Sub, headphone
  
• Viewable screen size 23.1in
  
• Maximum Resolution 1,920 x 1,080
  
• Contrast ratio 1,000:1 (static), 10,000,000:1 (dynamic)
  
• Brightness 300cd/m²
  
• Response time 2ms (grey to grey)
  
• Warranty Two years return to base