[Taisho]

I checked the monitor with a colorimeter, and the results weren’t too good, so I won’t be testing uniformity.
The settings interface in this monitor is unintuitive but gets better when acquainted. Overdrive (BenQ calls it “AMA”) is under “Color Mode”=>”Custom”. Available gamma options are “1”, “2”, “3”, “4” and “5”. It came out that our desired 2.2 is “2”. The default “3” is “2.4”. I’m happy that BenQ did not design Windows. “Desktop resolution 6” or “Refresh rate 4” would be no fun.
Out of the box we have the monitor set to “Game” => “RPG” profile. The color temperature is almost exactly 6500K, contrast 3100:1, and sRGB coverage is 90.2% at 97.3% gamut volume, but the colors are unbalanced.
On the “Standard” profile without any enhancements, the maximum brightness is only 190 nits but still way higher than I need. I set it to 95 nits. I achieved color balance at 6480K by changing the color temperature setting from “Normal” to “User Define” 87-94-85. Unfortunately, it significantly reduced the contrast to 2589:1 and sRGB coverage to 85.1% at 90.9% gamut volume, so another downgrade from my current monitor that has 90.3% sRGB coverage at 96.1% gamut volume and 3000:1 contrast ratio after OSD calibration.
The bottom corners are slightly more lit than the rest, especially the right one (power LED off), but it’s noticeable only in a dark room when displaying a 100% black background. Overall, the backlight performance was good in my unit.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your readings on the EX240N. I seem to recall some BenQ models even have a gamma setting of ‘0’ or ‘OFF’, which I always laugh at when I see. I honestly wish they’d calibrate things more carefully like they generally do with their ‘Professional’ or ‘Designer’ series monitors and include gamma values for the settings. They aren’t alone in having numbered gamma settings, but if they do that then I agree the default setting should track ‘2.2’ at least reasonably closely. They seem to have diverged a bit far from accurate gamma tracking with their ‘EX’ models in general – I noticed this with the EX3210U and for various ‘EX’ models I’ve received feedback on it’s a similar story. No setting seems to track ‘2.2’ accurately – some are better/closer than others and the deviations aren’t always major, but it isn’t as if they aren’t capable of calibrating gamma appropriately as they demonstrate on some models. 🙂

It’s a shame you had to make such major changes to the green channel on your unit – that’s always a real contrast killer. 🙁

[Azog]

Dear PC Monitors, you who are influential could ask BenQ to put the BenQ EW277HDR back into production, but updated with display port, refresh rate at 165 …
It could be an idea?
It seems to be one of the few flat VA with good image quality
it would only need an improvement in response times
do I make it easy?

[PCM2]

I can certainly pass on the suggestion, or at least that they consider putting a comparable model in production with good generous gamut. But ultimately, I wouldn’t expect anything to come of it. They’ve got quite a tight product development team which I have very little influence over. They certainly pay attention to feedback from my reviews, but they usually only change course if a large number of people/sources are telling them the same thing. Other companies also work this way, they slowly absorb feedback but are slow to pivot unless there is some sort of ‘critical issue’ identified. They’d really just see this as one voice and probably pay no attention to it. 🙁

[Azog]

once these things they did.
If a product was successful they just updated it.
I do not understand this compulsive need to change acronyms and panels.
The AOC bring out monitors like candies doesn’t make sense.
If they concentrated more on a few successful and updated models, maybe even via software and not necessarily via hardware.
They would get more results with relatively less expense.
ok I’m not the top manager of these companies.
But in my opinion like it was done some time ago, it seems more sensible to me.

[EsaT]

Might be simply that there are no such flat panels available anymore.
It’s not consumers who decide what kind products are made, but marketings scums manipulating fashions etc.

Like how 1920×1200 was replaced by inferior 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 by 2560×1440.
Same for neglecting IPS glow minimizing A-TW polarizer.
Heck, even contrast of IPS could have been improved no doubt earlier if companies had wanted instead of starting to improve it only now.
IPS isn’t any new tech and they’ve no doubt known for years what’s been limiting contrast.

[Azog]

even the abandonment of 16:10 I don’t understand.
I understand the desire to give a wide aspect that is perhaps only useful for movies.
But 16:10 is more balanced.

[PCM2]

16:9 also provides a wider FOV for most games because they use Hor+ scaling, just as 21:9 can expand that further. I do agree, though, that this was forced down consumers throats whether they like it or not. And for productivity purposes ‘the more the merrier’ when it comes to vertical pixels!

[BaronPampa]

I’ve read a report on reddit claiming that new LG 24gq50f-b is a flat, 24″ VA with very good response times even for dark colours, i.e.no ghosting;).

[PCM2]

That is discussed earlier in this thread. Does seem to be a decent option and certainly impressive for a budget VA model, though “no ghosting” is inaccurate. 🙂

[PCM2]

I’ll shortly be reviewing the LG 24GQ50F as it’s certainly interesting. Plus, it has been a while since I’ve tested a model of this sort (last would be the AOC C24G1 and that was curved).

[Taisho]

I think You won’t be disappointed and the LG 24GQ50F-B deserves wider attention. After 30 days, I finally got mine. During this shipping adventure from Greece to Poland, it was returned from North Macedonia to the seller due to some label problems. Despite the claimed 53 euros shipping, it was “only” 40 at checkout, 200 euros total. My impressions, for now, are mostly related to response times, I didn’t use the calibrator yet.

No dead pixels. An external power adapter puts the coil whine off the table. There is also a set of traps for an average buyer:

1. Energy saving mode must be turned off in OSD, as it dims the screen when scrolling and brightens it up right after, so annoying!
2. In the default Gamer 1 mode, the so-called “Black stabilizer” is set to 50 out of 100 on default. In fact, it’s not any “stabilizer” because 50 is an already inflated value and it should be set to 0 for our desired VA contrast.
3. The reduction in ghosting from 144Hz to 120Hz is significant. However, I would rather expect the users to give a 1-star review to this monitor because “165Hz doesn’t work” (via HDMI) than lower the refresh rate to the one that has a better refresh rate compliance and is a multiple of 24 and 60Hz for the best video experience on top of it. I understand the manufacturer though, not pushing what the majority would consider “an inferior 120Hz monitor”.

The response times are so good that it takes some effort to find something to expose its VA weaknesses. The “Fast” overdrive setting at 120Hz limit is the best combination from my tests despite being slightly worse visually than “Fastest” on testufo. The latter however creates shimmering in quite a few scenarios. Examples:

1. CPU radiator image (my favorite test subject). Issues would be more pronounced if the crucial area was bigger.
“Normal” – minor smearing in a small shadowy area.
“Fast” – very minor smearing in a small shadowy area, less than on “Normal”, hard to detect without looking for it, and “proper” scrolling speed.
“Faster” – fairly visible smearing in a small shadowy area, however less distracting than in my previous VA monitor.

2. Discord avatar icons. Discord in general is now a great experience.
“Normal” – no problems
“Fast” – no problems
“Faster” – some avatar icons splashing black trails, though less so than in my previous VA monitor

This confirms that testufo is a useful approximation but can be misleading on higher overdrive settings or monitors with high overshoot overall. Something I have seen You stress in reviews after the settings had been checked in practice.

Overall, my experience with this monitor has been great so far. I no longer fear the dark (websites) and there is no ghosting during GPU/CPU radiator panning shots on Hardware Unboxed to steal the show. Discord is finally distraction-free as well.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your feedback. That’s great to see you’re happy with the 120Hz response behaviour of the 24GQ50F, especially given the journey the monitor went through to get to you! Definitely agree that broader assessment is required than just pursuit photos on Test UFO. VA models in particular can have very specific transitions that can show weaknesses (including overshoot and other overdrive artifacts). You certainly might come across these when gaming or even on the desktop, even if the transitions shown with Test UFO don’t capture them. 🙂

[Taisho]

I tried to calibrate the LG 24GQ50F-B, and it showed some significant weaknesses. I set the Black stabilizer to 0, leaving all other settings at default. The color temperature out of the box is on the very cool side, 7800K. The contrast is short of the promised 3000:1, at only 2460:1. Changing the default contrast setting from 70 to 74 results in 2630:1, so there is a way to gain some contrast, though it surely depends on other settings. 70 seems optimal with the initial ones based on lagom.nl test. Still, the dark shades are harder to distinguish than I would like. The default gamma Mode 2 lands at 2.07 and Mode 3 that I choose for further adjustments is at 2.25, and 2.20 after I change the contrast to 74. The worst part is that warming up the temperature, be it manually or with the default “warm” color setting that lands about 6680K, results in greenish and yellowish ghosting. Fortunately, I have a personal preference for cooler temperatures, so I will accept some compromises.

I would say that the gamut and coverage are good for my taste, though they take a hit after balancing the colors. Fortunately, the saturation of 6 colors can be adjusted through OSD to regain the coverage, I’m amazed by this feature. I’m sure that the reason behind the greenish & yellowish ghosting is the overextended gamut in this region. After balancing RGB – not even fully, the overextension becomes worse, to the point that these colors start splashing when scrolling websites or dragging a window full of folders in File Explorer.

The below results are from the defaults for Gamer 1, with the following adjustments – Black stabilizer is set to 0, and gamma to Mode 3. Brightness is toned down as well, not that this matters.

As a reference, the below image shows the before and after calibration results for the BenQ EX240N that I returned. The most annoying issue apart from low gamut coverage and colors looking very off even after calibration, was certainly green and yellow ghosting.

I had some initial success correcting the gamut through saturation of 6 colors – I was able to come a bit lower with temperature and balanced colors without ghosting while achieving a 91% sRGB coverage, so this monitor definitely stays. I have no clue about the hue setting yet, especially if it has some specific effect on the gamut charts, so I will check it later, hopefully, it can supplement the saturation setting. I have seen the contrast fluctuate between 2250:1 and 2650:1 depending on settings, so quite disappointing, but not a disaster. Definitely, a price to pay for better response times.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing further impressions and data for your LG journey! It’s interesting that the correction in white point for your unit from native (~7800K) to 6500K was sufficient to significantly erode the gamut. Normally it would take a more significant colour channel adjustment to have a significant or ‘clear recordable’ impact on the gamut. But it can certainly vary between models as some will require really dramatic adjustment to drop down that much and others will only need a few points knocked off some channels.

Your observations regarding the colourful (green to yellow) ghosting are very interesting as well. Typically wider gamuts do bring out such instances of colourful ghosting more strongly. Colour temperature (or colour channel balance) can certainly have an effect as well. In fact I noticed some of this colourful ghosting on the Odyssey Neo G7 when running with Low Blue Light (LBL) settings. That’s quite an extreme example as it has both a wide colour gamut and a colour temperature with said settings of <5000K. Anyway, I'm glad you like the LG enough to keep it and that its strengths in responsiveness counteract its weaknesses for you. 🙂

Edit: Having tested this a bit myself (briefly and purely by eye so far), it appears that ’50’ is actually the correct neutral point for ‘Black Stabilizer’. If you decrease that it starts crushing things together at the lower end, particularly for dark shades. But it doesn’t appear to affect contrast. Other manufacturers often have a similar feature which you can decrease in this way below the neutral point to give a ‘deeper’ look to things. If you increase it above ’50’ you will be adversely affecting contrast and gaining that ‘competitive edge’ due to superior visibility in dark areas.

[Taisho]

I made a few more adjustments and the contrast ratio tanked even further, now sitting at a miserable 2150:1, but the color temperature is 6580K, and colors are close to perfectly balanced. RGB is at 46-48-44. If I lower it to a similarly balanced 45-47-43, the loss of contrast is almost exactly 100 points. Saturation Red 59, Green 44, Blue 52, Cyan 65, Magenta 53, Yellow 48. There is still a very faint yellowish aura on some content when scrolling fast and slightly visible yellow training in a few worst-case scenarios. On “Normal” overdrive it’s at a distracting level basically all the time. On “Fast”, it’s a concern only in these worst-case scenarios. If I can’t solve it at the current color temperature, I will try my luck with slightly colder colors, especially keeping in mind the contrast ratio with warmer colors.

I liked the color separation with “Black Stabilizer” at 50 in lagom test, but it almost kills the blacks. Initially, I haven’t tested this setting with a calibrator and noticed that something is off based on how much light a 100% black image generated in a fully dark room. After changing it to 0, the light went down almost to the level that my former VA monitor emits, only minimally worse. Today I confirmed it with i1Display Pro. At 50, the contrast ratio was 402:1, at 5; 2090:1, and at 10; 1895:1.

[PCM2]

I have no idea why your 24QG50F is behaving like that, but I can confirm that mine doesn’t. ’50’ is definitely the neutral point for ‘Black Stabilizer’ on my unit and reducing it further does not affect black point at all. Furthermore, on various other LG models that have this feature ’50’ is the correct neutral point. LG doesn’t intend for users to have to choose between appropriate native contrast with massively crushed shades and messed up gamma or terrible contrast and appropriate shade distinctions and variety. It could be that some other settings you’ve tweaked are somehow affecting this or perhaps your profile is. Or alternatively, there could well be some odd firmware bug on your unit. Would you be able to either perform a factory reset in the OSD or use a different ‘Game Mode’ (e.g. ‘Gamer 2’ if that is still set to its defaults) without any ICC profiles applied?

Also, if you can confirm the GPU you’re using and that you’ve corrected the colour signal in case that is impacting things it would be great. And finally, if you’re using HDMI that the ‘Black Level’ is set correctly in the OSD. 🙂

[Taisho]

Many thanks for helping me out! Indeed the ‘Black Level’ was set incorrectly. It defaults to “High” after a factory reset and should be “Low”. I didn’t consider “Low” to be the correct value because combined with ‘Black Level’ at 0, the fake blacks were overwhelming the picture. Now everything works as described – the background does not get brighter unless raised to 60% or higher. The contrast is better now, starting at 2819:1. Still, there is a problem with green and yellow ghosting when Blue is lowered, so I will be taking care of it.

[PCM2]

Glad the issue was pinpointed. I hate the way LG labels the setting as it’s rather counter-intuitive, but the default setting of “High” (=Normal / Full /RGB 0-255) is actually correct if your GPU is outputting a Full Range RGB signal. Some monitors can work perfectly happily with a Limited Range RGB signal (the LG seems to be one) and that is what the GPU must be outputting if “Low” (=Limited/RGB 16-235) is selected and works correctly as you’re describing. Limited Range RGB is the default signal selected in Nvidia Control Panel for Full HD 120Hz on the monitor via DP or HDMI, incidentally.

[Taisho]

You were absolutely right that the default “High” goes well with “use NVIDIA color settings” => output “Full” selected. I now stick to this setting.

I played further with settings and calibration on my 24QG50F. First thing is that I was wrong about saturation or gamut volume having any effect on yellow or green ghosting. I must have combined it with RGB adjustments earlier. Now I separated it, tuning saturation and hue on different RGB levels, and it had no effect on ghosting.

Green ghosting only becomes a problem if we are close to the 6500K temperature mark, but the yellow one is encountered much earlier – I mean the only real way to combat it, is to keep blue at a relatively high level. The best I could achieve was RGB 45-50-47, perfectly balanced at 7200K, so unfortunately quite off from what I would like, at least 6800-6900K. The yellow ghosting with these settings happens only in limited scenarios and usually is barely noticeable, even when actively looking for it. The contrast is 2720:1, and the gamma is 2.19 but the sRGB coverage disappoints at 86.6%.

I don’t want to artificially improve sRGB coverage by boosting saturation which would only ruin the separation of colors. Therefore I only did a couple of slight adjustments; cyan at 54, yellow at 48, and magenta at 52. Yellow hue 48 because at 50 it had a green tint.

I use “Fast” overdrive, on Normal the yellow trailing is even harder to get rid of. Night mode in Windows is basically not an option, but I’m not a big fan of it and prefer low brightness.

[Author]

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