In Standard mode, the PD3200U consumed 44 watts of power (it does not offer a power-saving ECO mode). That's more efficient than the same-size BenQ PV3200PT (57 watts), the BenQ BL3201PH (56 watts), and the 34-inch Dell U3417W (56 watts). Conclusion Monitors like the BenQ PD3200U give us hope for a 4K future. It performs brilliantly, and the large screen size really gives you an insight into how a large 4K monitor can improve your productivity.

On the right-hand side of the monitor are two HDMI 2.0 ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, mini DisplayPort, SD card slot, two USB 3.0 ports and a 3.5mm audio port. With HDMI 2.0 you can now use HDMI to display 4K visual at 60Hz, which means you can also plug a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X into the monitor and use it as a display for those.The various modes bring some enhancements, although ones such as CAD/CAM mode will only be of use to a small market of professionals. If you’re buying this as a business monitor for your work you'll be pretty impressed with its performance, especially considering its price. The solid aluminum upright supports a full range of movements including 45° swivel, 5” height, and 25° tilt. You also get an impressive portrait mode. We can imagine the ease of editing orchestral scores or working on poster-sized graphics when the panel is rotated.

Looking at contrast and color gamut, you can see this monitor scores well, but doesn’t quite compete with the top contenders in this arena. The HP Dreamcolor z32xfeatures a wider color gamut, hitting 98 percent of the sRGB space, and 92 percent of the AdobeRGB color space. Even the LG 27UD88-W beat out our BenQ PD3200U, hitting 77 percent of the AdobeRGB space, to the BenQ’s 75 percent. There has been a lot of interest in ‘4K’ UHD screens (3840 x 2160), with users keen to make use of the pixels for both work and play. As we explore in this article, there is a lot to like about the resolution. But there are also some issues, particularly when it comes to relying on scaling on the desktop, something that is more pertinent with smaller screens. The BenQ PD3200U spreads its pixels out across a 32” screen area, potentially reducing the reliance on scaling whilst still providing an excellent pixel density. We certainly had a lot of positives things to say about the predecessor to this model, the BL3201PT/PH, so it will be interesting to see how this one performs in similar test scenarios. The monitor also put in a good contrast performance, much in line with its predecessor. The static contrast was close to what was specified, perhaps just a touch lower than the predecessor but within expected inter-sample variation anyway. Plus, the tighter factory calibration may come into play in that respect. There was certainly noticeable ‘AHVA glow’, but as with the older model this was somewhat subdued compared to what you might expect from an IPS-type model of this size. It was definitely still there and still a ‘feature’, though, eating away at some of the detail for dark shades in the affected regions. Particularly near the bottom corners of the screen. Responsiveness was also similar if not slightly improved over the older model, with low input lag and a convincing 60Hz performance. Pixel responsiveness was good enough to provide a pretty much optimal 60Hz experience, without obvious overshoot or trailing adding significantly to perceived blur. There were light traces of each here and there, but added a small fraction to the moderate perceived blur that exists on any 60Hz sample and hold LCD. As per factory defaults, but the gamma target has been raised. This gives many shades a deeper than intended look, that’s quite striking and may be appropriate for some users (hence this is an option rather than an enforcement). To be fair, that’s the kind of improvement we saw from the HP Dreamcolor z32x also, which improved on its initials core of 1.68 by hitting .84. It’s important to point out that even though the Dreamcolor’s overall color error is lower than the BenQ’s, once you get under 1.0, the variances are rather minor. The LG 27UD88-W also improved, going from 3.97 to 2.34, but that’s still a little outside what you’d want from a professional monitor.

As above but more effective in reducing blue light. The image appears noticeably warmer, especially when you first change to this mode and your eyes haven’t adapted. You get a good selection of settings with the PD3200U. In addition to Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness, and Color Temperature settings, you can choose one of eight Picture Modes, including REC. 709, sRGB, CAD/CAM, Animation, Standard, Low Blue Light, Darkroom, and User Defined. There's also a DualView feature that lets you view two windows side by side using two different picture modes. As with the BenQ PV3200PT, the PD3200U contains an Ergonomic menu with an Eye Protect setting that uses an embedded sensor to detect ambient light levels and adjust screen brightness. It also has a light meter and a timer that reminds you to rest your eyes, as well as a presence sensor that puts the monitor into sleep mode when you're not there. This monitor doesn't have the individual six-color Hue and Saturation settings that you get with the BenQ PV3200PT and the Dell U3417W, but it does have two sliders for increasing or decreasing overall Hue and Saturation levels.

Moving on to color accuracy, the BenQ managed to steal victory from the jaws of defeat with a near-perfect score. With an average color error of 1.23, to the HP Dreamcolor’s 1.68, and the LG 27UD88-W’s 3.97, the BenQ wins by a significant margin. That means the monitor will outlast your current desktop hardware, and will see you through at least a couple years of hard use. The bottom line; a solidly built screen with a convincing performance in key areas, but some issues that could prove problematic to some users depending on their GPU and sensitivity to screen surface texture. Overall, then, there was plenty to like about the PD3200U. We would say that the tighter factory calibration and inclusion of HDMI 2.0 were nice additions and a lot of what we liked about the older model was retained. We still don’t understand the change of screen surface texture to a grainier one, given the haze value and hence glare-handling characteristics seem very similar. But then, we still feel many users would find the new screen surface agreeable. This is perhaps a moot point given that the older model is discontinued in most regions, but certainly something that BenQ should reconsider for future models. It isn’t a cheap monitor, but the overall build quality and image quality is solid as is the feature-set. The UHD resolution on a 32” screen also brings with it a very pleasing pixel density of 139.87 PPI (Pixels Per Inch). This brings with it excellent clarity and detail when viewing images or indeed when playing games. As with images, getting the best out of this requires that the game itself offers suitably high-resolution content. You always benefit from extra clarity, a reduced need for anti-aliasing and that sort of thing anyway – but truly admiring game content at this resolution requires suitably high-resolution textures and particle effects as well. This is something we explore in more detail in the aforementioned article and indeed in our BL3201PT/PH review. Although they are in no way representative of what you see first-hand when using the monitor, we’ve included a few photos of the monitor running a range of game titles. Particularly with the details cranked up (which brought out GTX 1070 to its knees, unfortunately), these titles looked quite stunning in many respects and certainly benefited from the high resolution and pixel density on offer here.Low input lag and well-optimised pixel overdrive allowed the monitor to put in a convincing 60Hz performance We also made some observations when viewing our Blu-ray movie test titles. Here, there were no noticeable weaknesses attributable to either slower than optimal pixel responses or overly aggressive pixel overdrive. The pace of action here is limited by the 24fps or so at which the content runs – which limits fluidity and also reduces the pixel responsiveness requirements. We also observed some higher frame rate movie content (60fps), which as you’d expect highlighted exactly the same sort of behaviour that our game testing did. There were again no obvious weaknesses, just a whiff of faint powdery trailing or overshoot here and there. Certainly nothing we found distracting and nothing that should bother even sensitive users. If it does, they’d likely be unhappy with any 60Hz sample and hold monitor.

The BenQ PD3200U is an excellent choice if you're a professional who works with CAD/CAM, graphics design, or other applications that require fine detail and accurate colors. Its 32-inch UHD panel delivered accurate colors and superb grayscale performance in our tests, and the display is equipped with plenty of features, including a built-in KVM switch, a fully adjustable stand, an SD card reader, and a USB hub. Prices have come down, but it’s still an expensive segment of the market — especially in the professional monitor market. That’s where the BenQ PD3200U really shines. Standing up against monitors that are three to four hundred dollars more isn’t an easy task, but the PD3200U sure makes it look that way. A sensitive camera and a small tool called SMTT 2.0 was used to measure input lag for the PD3200U. The monitor was compared to various screens of known latency, taking over 30 repeat readings to maximise accuracy. Using this method, we calculated 7.05ms (under 1/2 a frame) of input lag. This value is influenced both by the signal delay (element you ‘feel’) and pixel responsiveness (element you ‘see’). It indicates a low signal delay, which will come as welcome news to users sensitive to this sort of thing.With BenQ is pitching this as a monitor for professionals, color accuracy at any angle is important, and the 100% sRGB color gamut adheres to industry standards. It also boasts Rec. 709, which is a standard for video production.