Best monitor for photo editing : which one?

Rikybrain

Rikybrain

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Hi All !
I’m planning to upgrade my current setup (iMac 27” - 2019) to a MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip, paired with an external monitor. My primary use is photo editing—I’m not a professional, but I’m a passionate hobbyist.
After diving into a lot of articles and reviews, I’ve narrowed down my shortlist to the Apple Studio Display (the Pro Display XDR is way out of my budget) and the BenQ SW272U.
I’m stuck on making the final decision. I’m very familiar with Apple’s quality, attention to detail, and excellent support, but I only recently came across BenQ during my research, so I have no firsthand experience with their products.
Has anyone here had the chance to work with both monitors? If so, I’d love to hear your impressions. Or, if anyone has any specific recommendations or experiences to share, I’d really appreciate your insights.

Thanks so much for your advice!
R.
 
I’ve never owned a BenQ myself, but they’re now common among Mac and PC creative pros and should be a safe enough choice.
Some background…

15-20 years ago, if you wanted the “best” display for photo editing and graphic design:
Eizo ColorEdge and NEC SpectraView provided accurate, wide gamut color with hardware-level calibration. They were the gold standard.
Apple displays were pretty good, but not quite at the level of Eizo or NEC.

BenQ started appearing as a sort of budget general purpose display. But then they starting going upmarket, and developed what is now their own line of pro-level factory-calibrated wide gamut displays with hardware calibration.
Apple displays got better about 10 years ago, finally going wide gamut and then adding support for HDR, and Reference Mode presets that support advanced calibration.

A couple of years ago, after Sharp bought NEC, NEC discontinued the SpectraView line, disappointing many photographers. (I own one.)

With NEC out of the picture, where we are today is choosing between Eizo ColorEdge, Apple XDR, BenQ’s pro line, and the Asus ProArt line.
The Apple Pro Display XDR is great (high resolution, wide gamut, reference modes, and HDR), but very few can afford it. (The Studio Display is good, but not at the level of the Pro Display XDR.)
Eizo is still known for extremely high quality, but they’re also still expensive.
BenQ is becoming quite popular because they offer many of the same features as Eizo but at a lower price point.
Asus is also a relatively new contender with their ProArt line. Like BenQ, a few years ago they started selling wide-gamut displays that claim accurate factory calibration, in BenQ’s lower price range.

Although it’s nice that BenQ and Asus have entered the pro color display market, some say their quality control is not quite as tight. Apparently you have to watch out for issues in areas such as uniformity and in the quality of the driver software. So the BenQ and Asus pro displays appear to be a level below the Eizo, NEC, and Apple pro displays in both price and quality. That doesn’t mean they’re bad; they’re just not quite as good as the established high end. They’re probably more than good enough when the budget is very limited.

If you buy a BenQ pro level display (wide gamut, hardware calibration), it should at least be pretty good, and its color performance would probably be much closer to one of the other pro brands than to a common consumer display.

(Edited to include Asus too)
 
Last edited:
At 400 nits, it marginally qualifies to be an HDR10 monitor.

This year I purchased 2 32” ASUS ProArt HDR monitors. Rated at 1000 nits and 1600nits. I’ll never be able to go back to a smaller or less bright monitor.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Maureen_S. said:
I am in the same upgrading situation, and have decided on the MacMini. Monitor selection has landed on the ASUS ProArt and I am looking at the 32" vs 27" models. They have some differences other than size, and the 27 inch seems to a bit better in some categories. Advice? This link provides the detailed spec comparison.
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/product-compare?ProductID=15371,29648&LevelId=displays-desktops-monitors
Click to expand...
I have the following two 32" monitors
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/product-compare?ProductID=19218,15392&LevelId=displays-desktops-monitors

Note, one is 1000 nits and the other is 1600 nits. If you want to take advantage of of the HDR processing in LrC, you will need to up your game. 400 nits barely qualifies for HDR10. My https://www.asus.com/ca-en/displays-desktops/monitors/proart/proart-display-pa32ucg-k/ comes with TB3 ports
 
clee01l said:
I have the following two 32" monitors
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/product-compare?ProductID=19218,15392&LevelId=displays-desktops-monitors

Note, one is 1000 nits and the other is 1600 nits. If you want to take advantage of of the HDR processing in LrC, you will need to up your game. 400 nits barely qualifies for HDR10. My https://www.asus.com/ca-en/displays-desktops/monitors/proart/proart-display-pa32ucg-k/ comes with TB3 ports
Click to expand...
Thanks for the more detailed information.
 
Maureen_S. said:
I am in the same upgrading situation, and have decided on the MacMini. Monitor selection has landed on the ASUS ProArt and I am looking at the 32" vs 27" models. They have some differences other than size, and the 27 inch seems to a bit better in some categories. Advice? This link provides the detailed spec comparison.
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/product-compare?ProductID=15371,29648&LevelId=displays-desktops-monitors
Click to expand...

In general, it looks like the PA27JCV is somewhat better, partly because of the 5K vs 4K resolution, and partly because the ports are more up to date. But in terms of color specs, they seem similar. If you want more details about color accuracy, uniformity, etc., see if the models have been tested on a review website such as rtings.com.

The main question is: How do you need to deliver your final edited images? That can tilt the decision one way or the other, because it determines what you need for color gamut, dynamic range, precision, resolution, etc.
Which of the following are most important for your work? (This question would apply to Rikybrain too)
  • Print (CMYK commercial press, or desktop photo printer)
  • Web/mobile (web sites, mobile apps)
  • HDR (being able to edit with the HDR Develop controls in Adobe photo apps, editing images for use in HDR video productions…)
  • 4K video editing (video color standards…)
  • Sharp text rendering (page layout, writing)
  • More space to spread out tool palettes and panels
It’s not easy to find one affordable display that does all of those things well, so knowing your priorities helps narrow down the decision.
 
Conrad Chavez said:
I’ve never owned a BenQ myself, but they’re now common among Mac and PC creative pros and should be a safe enough choice.
Some background…

15-20 years ago, if you wanted the “best” display for photo editing and graphic design:
Eizo ColorEdge and NEC SpectraView provided accurate, wide gamut color with hardware-level calibration. They were the gold standard.
Apple displays were pretty good, but not quite at the level of Eizo or NEC.

BenQ started appearing as a sort of budget general purpose display. But then they starting going upmarket, and developed what is now their own line of pro-level factory-calibrated wide gamut displays with hardware calibration.
Apple displays got better about 10 years ago, finally going wide gamut and then adding support for HDR, and Reference Mode presets that support advanced calibration.

A couple of years ago, after Sharp bought NEC, NEC discontinued the SpectraView line, disappointing many photographers. (I own one.)

With NEC out of the picture, where we are today is choosing between Eizo ColorEdge, Apple XDR, BenQ’s pro line, and the Asus ProArt line.
The Apple Pro Display XDR is great (high resolution, wide gamut, reference modes, and HDR), but very few can afford it. (The Studio Display is good, but not at the level of the Pro Display XDR.)
Eizo is still known for extremely high quality, but they’re also still expensive.
BenQ is becoming quite popular because they offer many of the same features as Eizo but at a lower price point.
Asus is also a relatively new contender with their ProArt line. Like BenQ, a few years ago they started selling wide-gamut displays that claim accurate factory calibration, in BenQ’s lower price range.

Although it’s nice that BenQ and Asus have entered the pro color display market, some say their quality control is not quite as tight. Apparently you have to watch out for issues in areas such as uniformity and in the quality of the driver software. So the BenQ and Asus pro displays appear to be a level below the Eizo, NEC, and Apple pro displays in both price and quality. That doesn’t mean they’re bad; they’re just not quite as good as the established high end. They’re probably more than good enough when the budget is very limited.

If you buy a BenQ pro level display (wide gamut, hardware calibration), it should at least be pretty good, and its color performance would probably be much closer to one of the other pro brands than to a common consumer display.

(Edited to include Asus too)
Click to expand...
Thank you! Very clear and insightful. Following your and other forum members' comments, I'm also considering Asus ProArt PA27UCX-K. Eizo is above my current budget (EUR 1,500 ca.). Given your statement "some say their quality control is not quite as tight" I'll navigate the web to get feedbacks about that.
 
clee01l said:
At 400 nits, it marginally qualifies to be an HDR10 monitor.

This year I purchased 2 32” ASUS ProArt HDR monitors. Rated at 1000 nits and 1600nits. I’ll never be able to go back to a smaller or less bright monitor.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thank you!
On your reply I added Asus ProArt PA27UCX-K to my short list.
I fully agree that higher nit are preferable...
nit apart, what's your opinion on its overall quality.
May I ask you to mention main strengths and weaknesses according to your experience?
 
Maureen_S. said:
I am in the same upgrading situation, and have decided on the MacMini. Monitor selection has landed on the ASUS ProArt and I am looking at the 32" vs 27" models. They have some differences other than size, and the 27 inch seems to a bit better in some categories. Advice? This link provides the detailed spec comparison.
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/product-compare?ProductID=15371,29648&LevelId=displays-desktops-monitors
Click to expand...
I can’t offer much help (this is my first time buying an external monitor—I’ve always worked on an iMac), but given my budget, I’m leaning toward investing in a high-quality 27” rather than an average 32”. I’m already accustomed to a 27” screen, and while 32” would undoubtedly be better, I feel that 27” is already more than satisfactory for my needs.
 
Rikybrain said:
Thank you!
On your reply I added Asus ProArt PA27UCX-K to my short list.
I fully agree that higher nit are preferable...
nit apart, what's your opinion on its overall quality.
May I ask you to mention main strengths and weaknesses according to your experience?
Click to expand...
I was so impressed with the ASUS PA32ICG (1600nits, TB3 port) that I purchased the PA32UCR (1000nits) Prior to the ProArt series, I owned a BenQ EW3270U. I keep a 27" Sceptre (350 nits) to evaluate HDR images in SDR.
 
Rikybrain said:
I can’t offer much help (this is my first time buying an external monitor—I’ve always worked on an iMac), but given my budget, I’m leaning toward investing in a high-quality 27” rather than an average 32”. I’m already accustomed to a 27” screen, and while 32” would undoubtedly be better, I feel that 27” is already more than satisfactory for my needs.
Click to expand...

For perspective…32" might not be "undoubtedly" better. For example, many 32" displays are 4K (3840 x 2160 px, or 8.3 megapixels), which is the same pixel width and height as many 27". In that common case, 32" is the same number of pixels (no increase in pixel dimensions) over a larger physical area, so the ppi resolution is actually lower on the 32". The pixels end up looking a little coarser at 32", which many would say is not an improvement.

The time when 32" actually gets you more work area and finer detail is when the manufacturer gives it a panel with more pixels than 4K. One example is the Apple Pro Display XDR, because its 32" panel is 6K (6016 x 3384, or 20 megapixels).

You can get more pixels while staying at the 27" size, by buying one of the options with 5K panels (5120 x 2880 px or 14.7 megapixels), such as the Asus ProArt PA27JCV, Apple Studio Display, or LG UltraFine 5K.

Another reason a 32" might not be better than a 27" is when the other specs aren’t better. For example, if the 27" has better color accuracy, better uniformity, dynamic range, etc. For many photographers, better color is a higher priority than more pixels or larger physical size.

Right now, the 27" size gives you more choices than 32" when it comes to resolution, color, and so on. 27" is a good size for general photography and for that reason it’s a very popular size. You probably don’t need to go 32" unless you understand specifically how it’s better for your work than the 27", since the larger diagonal inch measurement alone does not inherently make 32" better than 27".
 
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