As someone who uses their PC for a myriad of purposes; work, content creation, streaming, video, etc. It’s very important to find a monitor that can perform, look great and be affordable there is a market that so vast. Spending hours and hours researching can be laborious and confusing when there are so many brands, sizes and specs. The BenQ EL2870U is a great out of the box 4K monitor that has many great features and supports FreeSync.

The design and ergonomics of the BenQ monitor are a tad frustrating. The stand is fixed and doesn’t allow for any height adjustment, and when sat on a desk can be quite low to your eyeline. Because of its fixed nature there also isn’t an ability to turn it and have it landscaped which can be useful if coding or in a streamers world, for the chat. The stand itself supports reasonably well but when bumping the desk, it did have a wobble and bounced a small amount. Being able to put together the stand and screen with a single screw gives you a nice and quick setup.

From a performance aspect I found when testing the new Ghost Recon game that the 4K really showed how beautiful the landscape and world is especially with the HDR setting on top. Coming from a non 4K monitor the boost in brightness and smooth colour textures really stood out to me and with a game like Ghost Recon which is set in a very open world jungle setting, the monitor handled everything really well. I also gave Batman Arkham Knight a test out and with something almost the opposite of Ghost Recon, a dark and gloomy game, it was also outstanding. Being able to push all the settings to their maximum limits there was no doubt that the monitor could handle it and provide me the best experience.

Even though the monitor is capped at 60hz, it still provides some really beautiful gameplay. Putting it through its paces with Escape from Tarkov, a more faced paced shooter that relies on quick aiming movement, I found the lower refresh rate to be evident. However, I don’t believe this really compromised the gameplay too much, but for more experienced players who could notice this they may require something higher. Coupled with a 1ms response time this does make up for the lower refresh rate though and still allows a premium gaming experience.

Given that I sit on a computer for the majority of a day, it’s really important to me that I’m able to protect my eyes. BenQ have done a great job in adding a blue light reduction setting which I find made the world of difference. For me playing in a low light setting sometimes can prove to be difficult on the eyes but by adapting the blue light directly on the monitor provided me with an option to try and reduce the harm. I did notice a small amount of glare from the screen when I used it in a well-lit environment, however it is definitely not a deal breaker. One aspect that was a nice touch, was that the monitor includes a Brightness Intelligence+ ambient light sensor, meaning that if you change the light source in the room, the monitor will adjust for you, so no more giant source of light hitting your eyes.

Taking a moment to talk hard about the specs of the monitor, there are few parts that stand out, first is that the screen size is a nice 28 inches, meaning you get a lot of screen space, but when you pair it with the PPI of 158, it means that those 4K visuals will also pop. PPI is the number if pixels within a square inch of a screen, every device, from your phone, to your tv, all has a set range, the more a device has the sharper an image will look. The EL2870U does not contain the most in a screen, most phones have around 400 these days, but for the price point, it is one of the most packed on the market.

We all know how expensive it can be to put together a really great PC, and with so many options available on the market it can incredibly overwhelming. But BenQ have brought their A-game with fantastic 4K monitor that will perform for anyone on a budget. If you’re looking for something that will give you amazing colours and with the HDR provides an option that is truly unreal in the price range. I would suggest pairing this with a more manipulative stand to give you the optimal height and manoeuvrability but that is just being picky.