BenQ GW2270H Review

Ah, BenQ -- probably the only monitor manufacturer I can name without a thought. We’ve covered a lot of them recently, probably because their range is ever-growing, with a monitor for pretty much anyone. The GW2270H 21.5inch monitor takes things down a notch, though that’s not a bad thing.

The GW2270H seems more designed for everyday users, rather than being aimed at gamers, and that much is obvious from when you take a look at the ports it has open on the back. A standard VGA port, a headphone socket and two HDMI ports are the only things there apart from the power socket. The maximum resolution is 1920x1080 pixels, so it is clearly not designed for those wanting a 4K experience.

The build quality of the monitor is excellent, and the stand is very easy to clip together. I hate stands that require you to break out a screwdriver, so was more than happy that this didn’t need one. The stand allows the monitor to tilt quite far back compared to most monitors I’ve encountered. The box also contains a power cable, VGA cable and an HDMI cable.

Amongst the features it boasts are a flicker-free backlight, a low blue light mode and 3000:1 Native Contrast Ratio. What those basically boil down to are: it goes easy on your eyes. The brightness can be set to four presets, depending on what you’re doing, or can be set manually It also has a 178°/178° viewing angle, which meant that my wife could comfortably view what I was playing even when she was looking from the side of the screen.

As it didn’t seem suited for a gaming PC, I decided to forgo testing it with my computer. The HDMI slot on my graphics card still has a little plastic shield on it, and I wasn’t about to remove it… I plugged it into my PlayStation 4 and gave it a whirl instead.

I usually use a 37 inch HD TV for playing console games on, but despite the drastic size reduction the games I tried out still popped. Of course, I had to use a headset for audio, as monitors don’t have speakers, but I’d have used headphones if I had it hooked up to the PC anyway.

If you’re looking for a smaller sized monitor that will run you under £100, then it’s perfectly adequate, and has a range of display options.