30-32" 4K for photo editing: what's the best choice?

Hi Didi and welcome,

For your uses, I agree that a ~32″ ‘4K’ UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution would be appropriate. It’s worth remembering that various issues can and do crop up with pretty much any monitor model. The modern monitor market is a bit of a minefield to be honest, where high price by no means guarantees a model that’s going to be free from issues. The UP3216Q certainly appears to be below par, though. It’s a bit of a dated model now and used a (at the time new) backlight technology which was a bit tricky for manufacturers to implement. And which made uniformity issues common.

With that said, a suitable and more modern alternative with similar capabilities but a newer and less problematic backlight design would be the BenQ PD3220U. I’ve been chasing BenQ for a review sample for as long as I can remember, but they’ve been unable to provide one. It’s the successor to the BenQ PD3200U which I’ve widely recommended on this forum and elsewhere on the website. It offers a wider colour gamut (you mentioned wanting a wide range of colours) and offers good flexibility in the OSD. Users have reported excellent factory calibration, with a range of accurate presets and colour space emulation settings. Tight factory calibration is something BenQ seems consistently good at with their recent ‘PD’ series models, and a very nice and solid design. And also one which many find attractive, although that’s not necessarily something you prioritise.

I’m not sure exactly what the minimum luminance is (that is to say, how bright it would be with the monitor set to ‘0’). But BenQ were really the pioneers of ‘eye-care friendly’ monitors and the first to widely adopt flicker-free backlights and Low Blue Light (LBL) settings. They usually have a good low minimum brightness level as an extension of this, especially on their PD and similar series models. I’ll see if I can dig up any data on this and will post it here if I find anything.

Are you specifically needing to work with the Adobe RGB colour space? That model doesn’t fully cover the space, particularly lacking in the green region. It offers very good DCI-P3 coverage but falls a bit short of Adobe RGB (~87%). You can run the monitor and the main laptop display at the same time and display different content on each screen, yes.

I thought that might be the case. Adobe RGB has been something of a long-established extended colour space. DCI-P3 is more recent but is something that’s being increasingly adopted by content creators. I hope you enjoy the monitor and it delivers the sort of experience you’re after. Your support is also appreciated. 🙂

The problem with the curved models is they all use VA panels. As covered in our reviews of such models and summarised in our panel type article, they lack the consistency of IPS-type models. There are perceived gamma and saturation shifts that affect shade representation at different points of the screen. Certainly not recommended if photography is a primary goal. Instead, stick to the recommendations in this thread. I’d also add the BenQ EW3280U to the list for consideration. Whilst not aimed at photographers, specifically, it is certainly an impressive monitor for colour reproduction and in various other ways. It doesn’t offer good ergonomic flexibility, although it can be VESA mounted. It doesn’t offer good Adobe RGB coverage, but offers good DCI-P3 coverage and has an effective sRGB emulation setting – as with any monitor, profiling with your own colorimeter or similar device is recommended for colour-critical work.

Apologies if I wasn’t clear, but the reason I don’t recommend those VA options has nothing to do with the curve. It is due to the panel type, which is why I nudged you towards our article on the topic. The colour consistency and perceived gamma shifts have nothing to do with the curve and in fact if you view other threads or read the reviews you’ll see comparisons are drawn with flat alternatives. And the curved models are actually better in that respect. But they are simply no match for an IPS-type model for colour and gamma consistency. And are therefore not suitable for the accurate and consistent colour reproduction required for anything but very basic hobbyist level photography, or where a suitable second reference screen is available for comparison. So the idea of the curve has to be dropped because there are no curved IPS-type models available that fit the bill.

A few other points:

– The PD3220U is a wide gamut model.

– Whether you want a wide gamut for photography depends on the intent of the photographs, as covered earlier in the thread. If you want to distribute them digitally or admire them on a wide range of screens then sRGB is appropriate. If you’re viewing them on this monitor only or other screens with suitable gamut, the DCI-P3 colour space can be nice. For printing purposes Adobe RGB might make sense – some also like that for digital distribution, but DCI-P3 is becoming more popular these days due to its rise as an HDR standard. It works nicely for ‘normal’ SDR content as well due to the balanced extension of the gamut beyond sRGB in all regions rather than the green-heavy extension of Adobe RGB.

– The LG 32UL950 is not flicker-free, an important negative that was brought up earlier in the thread and which I feel is unacceptable for a modern monitor. And thankfully relatively rare. It was brought up on other threads related to the monitor, but that information wasn’t known when it was mentioned earlier in this thread.

That’s all correct. I’m not sure what you mean by “next level that will do the work”? But you’d be looking at the sort of models covered earlier on the thread as alternatives. There’s nothing I’m aware of that would be priced between the EW3280U and those somewhat more expensive alternatives, if that’s what you’re asking. Pricing and availability is very volatile at the moment as well, so perhaps there are some models that might usually slip between those but don’t at the moment.

I’ve edited your post as this isn’t really the place to discuss Amazon’s ratings system in too much specific detail. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to overall ratings, but the actual content of the user reviews. Particularly those marked as ‘Top Reviews’ (which means most people marked them as ‘helpful’), as they’re usually the most informative. You’ll also notice some of the most negative reviews are often given for pretty ridiculous reasons, such as people not getting on with speakers or one particular aspect that’s quite personal to them. Sometimes even because a certain cable wasn’t included that the manufacturer never claimed would be included – none of this is worthy of the 1 star ratings that sometimes crop up. Sometimes overly negative ratings are given when users receive a monitor with a dead pixel or sometimes far from major uniformity issues. The reality of the situation is that there are over 8 million pixels on these monitors and it isn’t all that uncommon for there to be some pixel defects or uniformity issues on monitors. Ask for a replacement and move on, or consider a different model. Quite often the complaints are not worthy of 1 star reviews, they’re from negative people who like to complain and would never have posted anything positive if they had enjoyed the monitor anyway. 🙂

Oh and be very careful as they aggregate reviews over various ‘related’ models. So the ratings and reviews for the EW3280U are mixed in with the EW3270U which is one of those flat VA models with Innolux panel I’ve droned on about on other threads and wouldn’t generally recommend to people. There are very few user reviews of the EW3280U. One of the top positive reviews is actually quite fair and balanced. But what stands out is some negative reviews due to the B.I.+ feature or HDRi (yeah they’re useless, but that doesn’t mean the monitor is). And somebody giving a negative review for a faulty monitor, although they “enjoyed it whilst it worked”. Fair enough, unfortunately it can happen with any model and it’s telling this user didn’t post positive feedback whilst they were enjoying the monitor. You can be assured that many more users were happy with the product that didn’t share their feedback. Because people are more inclined to post negative rather than positive things on the internet, it’s part of the human condition.

I also stay very tightly tuned to user feedback on various platforms – you’ll see some good feedback from users on our video reviews on YouTube, for example – and Reddit is a good resource for user feedback. I always reflect on user feedback and it helps shape my recommendations given on the website and forum. I’ve also been known to occasionally revoke ‘recommended badges’ due to issues that come to light due to user feedback. But that weren’t apparent during review – the fact we’ll do this is specifically mentioned on the page related to that accolade.

The EW3280U is about as cheap as the ~32″ ‘4K’ IPS-type models come. And there’s no reason to pay more for a VA model in this segment than the 328E1CA, because it isn’t going to get you something better. The IPS-type models are ‘less matte’ (lower haze value) than the VA models, so if there’s a lot of light striking the screen surface (which is not good on any monitor) then the VA route may be slightly better just in that respect. If the light just streams into the room and the window isn’t going to cause a clear glare spot on the monitor then it’s likely going to be fine either way. I don’t think the slightly better glare handling of the VA models would overcome the clear weaknesses for your colour-critical usage. And a bright room largely nullifies the contrast advantage of VA models – the IPS-type models look just as ‘contrasty’ in such conditions. The peak brightness of the BenQ EW3280U is slightly higher as well, which could help overcome the high ambient light levels. But I don’t think you’d be setting either model to full brightness so this probably isn’t something to concern yourself with.

Yes, expectations can certainly be raised by high prices. People are sometimes under the false assumption that paying more for a monitor gives them a free ticket to perfect quality control. It doesn’t work like that with monitors, unfortunately.

Do you own a colorimeter? If so then the EW3280U would be a better choice due to its larger gamut, which would give you more flexibility. If not the PD3200U might be more appropriate for its focus on good sRGB performance. The EW3280U’s sRGB emulation mode (Rec. 709) locks off colour channels and gamma and at least on my unit gamma sat at 2.4 there. The ICC profiles in our review might be worth trying, but it’s always best when they’re made using your own unit.

Yes, that’s certainly a flexibility you have with their returns policy. Seeing for yourself is always best. As covered in the review the EW3280U covers ~86% Adobe RGB. So significantly better coverage of that than many of the other options and similar to the more expensive PD3220U and the other ‘wide gamut’ options from others like LG and Dell.

Hi regaphysiks and welcome,

I’ve merged your thread with this one as it’s more specific to your needs.

As well as taking a look through the earlier posts in this thread, I’d recommend reading through this more technical thread. Others who have come to this thread should take a look as well. It offers comprehensive guidance that’s relevant to your choice. You’ll see that our recommendation is clear and that’s the BenQ EW3280U. Although the PD3200U gets a well-deserved mention for strong sRGB colour accuracy – it’s also covered earlier in this thread and it’s based on an AUO panel not an LG one. Compared to the LG Display panel used in some of the alternative wide gamut models, the AUO panel the BenQ EW3280U uses is simply superior in my view and it’s an excellent monitor for colour-critical work. I know the stand may not be what you were after, but you can mount it using 100 x 100mm VESA to an alternative and it’s worth doing that over compromising on an inferior monitor. You’ll get the most out of it if you own your own colorimeter or spectrophotometer, but that applies to any monitor really. You’ll also notice most of the models you listed are covered there.