BenQ has been building some quality gaming gears for gamers under the brand of Zowie. The brand has quietly made its reputation of making some great quality hardware in the e-Sports segment. The BenQ Zowie XL2546K e-Sports monitor is a 240Hz display specifically targeted the professional gamers.
The Monitor is one of the important components that makes the experience better for the gamers. Especially the high refresh rate and features that enable the players to perform better in all conditions.
Design
The Zowie XL2546K e-Sports monitor is the successor to Zowie XL2546 which was released in 2016. BenQ has made some slight changes in the refreshed model compared to last year’s Zowie XL2546. In the new K-series monitors, BenQ have improved the height and tilt adjustment offering more space and comfort for the gamers.
Like the previous versions, the XL2546K comes with side shields which helps the players to avoid hitting light reflections directly on the screen. It has screwless design which makes it easy to remove and attach when required makes a tool-free installation. In terms of the design, like the Zowie XL2746S, the XL2546K is also coming with black and red accents making it attractive for the gamers.
BenQ has worked on the base stand smaller, yet it is sturdy and did not wobble on the desk. With the small base stand, the gamers will get more space on the desk and can adjust to their own comfortable position. In the Zowie XL2546K, BenQ has moved the navigation buttons to the rear side of the monitor to make the bezels less. With the button placement on the right side of the screen, we found the buttons reachable and very tactile in changing the settings. However, the lack of circular S-Switch placement was lacking on the base stand.
The e-Sports monitor comes with a headphone holder as well on the rear side and we found this very useful feature to accommodate the headphones. The monitor comes with a handful of connectivity options as well, including 3 HDMI 2.0, One 1.2 DP and a headphone jack.
The Fast Liquid Crystal based XL2546K supports an optional 5-way scroll S Switch to make the gaming mode switch handy while playing the fast-paced game scenarios. Like all other Zowie e-Sports gaming monitors, this gaming monitor are also having a minimalistic design without any flashy logos or lights.
Performance
The BenQ Zowie XL2546K monitor comes with a 24.5″ TN panel having a 1920x1080p resolution with a refresh rate of 240Hz which makes it suitable for e-Sports professionals and enthusiasts. Even though the Zowie monitors aren’t built for the daily tasks, the image quality we managed to get after the adjustments in the display settings were quite good and it was a pleasant view.
The features that packed in XL2546K for the gamers are quite a handful. Black eQualizer is one such feature which helps the gamers which will work to light up darker areas in the game without overexposing the lighter areas which enables to spot the hidden surprises in the gaming map.
The monitor also comes with Zowie’s exclusive feature Dynamic Accuracy+ (DyAc+) which helps the gamers to reduce the motion blur in certain games and deliver a better visibility. The Low Blue Light feature mutes the bright blue colours which affect the sleep quality, so being able to set the screen to a warmer tone for late night sessions is definitely a nice addition. BenQ has also added settings to disable this feature if you do not like the Low Blue Light feature.
The monitor also allows to share the custom settings to import/export to other Zowie monitors using their software. It also supports AMD’s FreeSync technology, which is aimed at avoiding tearing and reducing stuttering caused by misalignment between the LCD screen’s refresh rate and the content’s frame rate.
The gaming experience in the monitor with the 240Hz refresh rate is noticeable in certain gaming conditions with the hardware that has the CPU and GPU power to push the higher frame rate. In our extensive a month long review period, we found no ghosting, smearing or any noticeable light bleeds.
Conclusion
The Zowie XL2546K is definitely one of the most liked brand in the e-Sports industry. The brand has built their trust in making quality hardware. The XL2546K gaming monitor belongs to the same category with stellar performance and solid build quality.
The monitor offers various connectivity options and with its features built in for the gamers makes this device a perfect companion for the gaming. Unfortunately, BenQ did not add the support for USB and Mic in this device. It would have given more options for the users. However, with its stellar performance, we did not find these as a deal breaker for this e-Sports monitor. With its less than 1ms response time, this monitor will a good buy at this price.
The BenQ Zowie XL2546K gaming monitor is now available for purchase at AED 1789 at Amazon UAE.
