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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you a review of yet another photo editing
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monitor from the company BenQ. This is the SW270C. Now, over a year ago, I brought you a review
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of the SW271, which is a 4K, you know, specific monitor for photo editing. In this case, we have a 2K
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QHD resolution of 2,560 by 1,440 pixels. That being said at the moment I'm actually running it in
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4K due to the nature of what I'm doing and what that allows me to do is that you know
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because it's a passive device it can display 4K just fine and in this case and I've had no
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you know negative effects and so as a byproduct of that I can switch between the two
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monitors in my workspace without changing. resolution and what happens in that so everything kind of stays the same size and has the same
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look. And so I've actually been really happy with this, you know, configuration of this, you know
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I do a lot of different work where I need a lot of workspace. And so I'm running this dual
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monitor setup has been a great thing for me. However, I'm not here to talk about dual monitors
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I'm here to specifically talk about the SW 270C. And so if this is an IPS panel, which means that you have
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178 degree viewing angle from either position, which is really great. Obviously, when I have a wide setup here, I want to be able to look when I'm looking towards a side for it to be uniform all across
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And that's actually something that they do really, really well. Actually, a new technology in this is their uniformity technology, which as far as I can tell, works somewhat similar to what some other manufacturers might call quantum dot, and it includes elements of local dimming
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Basically what it is is making sure that throughout the display, rather than just having kind of a singularity that at different places all throughout, it's assuring that groups of pixels are performing in a similar fashion
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Byproduct of that is you get a really, really consistent color rendition across, and so really great for that
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Now, in this case, you get 99% of Adobe RGB, you get 97% of the P3 space, you get 100% of the S3.000
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and so you have the ability to view just about any kind of color display and you can set it up to work with a wide variety of different video formats and color spaces and so it really really useful not only for photo editing but also for video editing as well because of that capability Included they have the G2 version of what they call their Hotkey Puck and it definitely upgraded versus the original one
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and that it is more substantial, it has a more premium feel, but they've also added a rotary wheel that gives you more quick control
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So from this, you have the ability not only to cycle through different color spaces
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and so if you want to quickly switch between those, You also have shortcut access to some of your main functions, display functions
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and so you don't have to go through the actual menu settings to get to them. And so it's useful for that
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Another thing that's just kind of a basic thing, but a useful one
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is when it comes to the coding of the screen. And obviously there is some variety of the different kinds of codes you can get
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My particular workspace here is that I have an office with a lot of windows that I'm facing right now
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And so I get a lot of ambient light that comes into the room
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And so having the right kind of coding helps to eliminate reflections for me
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It also helps me to be able to see things brightly and without interference from that ambient light
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And so that is another feature that I personally like as well
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Now, one of Ben Q's special features is the ability to have a color calibration built right into the monitor itself on a hardware level
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Now, all of their monitors, including the SW 270C, those that are high-end calibrated displays
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they come with a certification, they come with a calibration report already
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But beyond that, you have the ability to plug this right into the monitor itself
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and to run calibration with their proprietary palette master element calibration software
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So the good news about this is what it does is, I've done it both ways before with other monitors
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I've used, you know, spider's own software for doing calibration. What I've found, however, is sometimes there's quirks where the profile didn't display correctly or inconsistently
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Through this process, you're not dependent upon software or software glitches, but you're able to actually run your profile and so that it is hardware calibrated
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and so the display itself is calibrated. And, of course, you can run that calibration in different color spaces
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is you can do multiple calibrations and access them quickly, choosing through different ones
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And so I find that to be very useful. I also find it useful to have two monitors here of the same type
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where I can run the same kind of calibration. And what that allows me to do is to get more uniform color across the two
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And so something that I certainly like when it comes to that One thing I will point out you need to watch for just a thing that I ran into running two of these monitors is I was getting unsuccessful calibrations
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and it turns out that there was a conflict taking place because I had two of them connected with a data cable
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going back to my tower at the same time. And so when you're running calibration
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just be sure to unplug one USB cable from the one you're not calibrating
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and so you don't get interference or conflict between the two. After I learned that, I found that I could run calibration perfectly without any kinds of issues
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The SW270C also fully supports HDR content through a couple of the various inputs
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So not only does the SW270C include kind of the standard connection cables, you know
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HDMI, display port, things like that, and now also has a USBC connection
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And so that's Sunderbolt 3 compatible. It gives you an option of sending video, audio
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data and power over the same cable. And that's where it comes in really handy to me on a photographer level
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If you were around watching my initial Canon EOS R review, you'll know that one of the things
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I complained about is that unlike most of the cameras I was using from Sony or Fuji, you
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couldn't just plug any USBC cable and charge it. It needed something that had power delivery built into it
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Well, the good news is that the SW 270C's U.S.W. 270C's U.S
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USB does have 60 watt power delivery. And so finally, I can plug in a USB C port and boom, I can start to charge it right from the power signal coming from the monitor
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Very, very useful, and I've been pretty delighted since I've recently added a Canon EOS R to my own kit
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So I'm really happy about that. The other thing if you're connecting multiple sources is you actually have the capability, or not even multiple sources, but connecting multiple cables maybe from, even from one video card
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is you actually have the option of doing something that called gamut duo where you can run two cables in and you can do a picture by picture where you can run two different color spaces simultaneously on the same monitor and then you know obviously you can do some of your edits based on you know for example you could be working in the adobe rgb space for master edits but then also wanting to see how it's going to look in s rgb for viewing on the internet for example well you can run both those color spaces size
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side which certainly can be very useful. Now unfortunately for me at least there is one criticism
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from the SW 271 that I retain for the SW270c and that is while I like having to USB 3 ports along the side and also having a card reader there which is very useful the nature of them is that it quite far back in there there it recessed and
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getting to and so you definitely have to have kind of visibility to get around and to look to
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see where you could connect in if you're connecting a USB device and for for the actual card
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it's it's a pretty far reach back there and so I I would prefer to be a little bit of
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closer to the bezel itself, particularly the card reader, for more easy access to it
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And that, unfortunately, remains the same as before. It does come with a shade all around
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I'm not using it at the moment because of my setup, but it does come with that
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And so if you're in a scenario where, you know, either if you're running it in vertical or
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horizontal, you can set up that, you know, the shading to help with that
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Very, very useful. Now, one final positive thing that I'll point to, if you are kind of considering
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between the two monitors, and that is that if you don't need the native 4K resolution display
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and the 2KKKKD is high enough for you, then you can actually get the SW270C for $300 cheaper
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Its retail price is $799 for the 27-inch version as opposed to $1,099 for the SW-271
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And so, and I have found actually it's a very, very competent display
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In fact, it does one thing a little bit better than what the SW-271 does, and that in the SW-271, I occasionally get a little bit of a blip, just a black blip for a second
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And I don't know if it's a disruption coming from the video card, but I've used it on multiple video cards
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I've used it with multiple connection cables, and I got the same result
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I don't get it with the SW-270C, and so there must be something there, maybe even just in the power cycling
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that has been improved as a part of that. Into the day, however, I'm really impressed with these displays
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Obviously, I do a lot of photo and video editing because of the nature of my work
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and I've been very, very happy with these as monitors. And so if you're looking for a great 27-inch monitor
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and this display works for you in terms of resolution, check out the BenQ SW-270C
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Take a look in the description down below, and I'll throw a linkage there. If you want to go and check it out
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and get more information for yourself, And of course, there's the typical links to follow me on social media, become a patron, sign up for my newsletter
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