Review: BenQ MA270S

Overall verdict: this is a mediocre computer monitor, as expected of BenQ, but it will do its job.

Contents

Why you want this

This product conveniently appeared on the market just a few months before I decided that I needed a new monitor to complement my MacBook Pro. Given that the market has very little competition/few options, this is as of writing likely the best thing I can buy to satisfy my main requirements:

  • It has the same pixel density as Apple Studio Display, which is 218 PPI. This is a necessity for comfortably using macOS, and especially if you intend to use the display together with a MacBook.

    A slight caveat is that MacBook displays have slightly higher pixel density than this, but you may adjust scaling in System Settings to match, so that your mouse cursor appears at the expected location when you move it across displays.

    Personally, I prefer for macOS to run at exactly 2× scaling. 5K at 27" is a good combination here.

  • It is glossy, which ever so slightly improves picture quality.

    BenQ’s Nano Gloss is surprisingly a bit less reflective than my MacBook Pro 2021 screen.

  • Unlike the Apple Studio Display, it can do KVM switching, and it has a bunch more ports.

The so-so

  • The maximum brightness is passable. Specified at 450 nits, I scarcely have issues looking at the display against a window. It could be higher, and certainly not lower.

  • All ports for peripherals are downwards-facing, on the bottom of the device. This creates visual clutter. On the other hand, they’re easily reachable this way.

The bad

  • Uniformity is superficially alright when you enable uniformity compensation—​in fact this gives me slightly higher overall brightness as well—​but edges of the display remain very noticeably dim:

    Backlight
    Figure 1. What the panel looks like to me in daylight conditions, almost exactly

  • Viewing angles are worse than on my MacBook Pro 2021 screen.

  • You cannot configure almost anything on the monitor directly, except for brightness, sound volume, and video input. The control knob has a particularly miserable wiggly feeling to it.

    To change any advanced settings, you must do it over DDC, either through BenQ’s Display Pilot 2, or through Better Display (to the extent that it knows about them, as they’re only semi-standard).

    macOS itself also cannot report or control the brightness or sound volume, but either of the two applications will at least bind the respective keys so that you may adjust those.

  • The monitor is kind of slow to wake up from stand-by (about 6 seconds). This will keep annoying you.

  • While it’s in stand-by, it doesn’t output any sound. Odd.

Miscellaneous

  • The one USB-C cable for KVM switching of suitable length that I had on my disposal was unhappy to run DP Alt Mode at a sufficiently high resolution. Luckily, it turns out that when you choose HDMI ports 1 or 2 for video input, the monitor pairs these with that USB-C.

  • The integrated speakers might be rubbish, but I’m happy for the headphone output, because there is no issue with connecting it to a stereo amplifier. (Everything you plug into a MacBook’s headphone jack or Thunderbolt ports is plagued with horrible noise via ground.) Of course, it should be similarly possible to connect an external sound card to the monitor; presumably, this will prevent you from losing sound in stand-by mode.

Configuration

  • Use the M-book colour mode, leave Contrast at half, set Sharpness to zero, potentially disable iDevice Color Sync, fuck around with R/G/B until the white point mostly matches your MacBook.

    There are certainly more precise ways of colour matching, but this is the easiest one.

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