(Music) Hi, welcome back to the photoshoptrainingchannel.com, I'm Jesus Ramirez. In this video I'm going
to talk to you about the PD3220U 4K 32 inch monitor, by BenQ, aimed at designers and creatives.
I'm very excited to talk to you about what it can do and some of the most helpful features.
Now before we get started, I do want to mention that this is not a paid advertisement. BenQ
did send me a monitor over for review, but I was not paid or instructed to say anything.
Everything in this video is simply my opinion. Alright, let's jump right into the review.
The BenQ PD3220U is a professional grade monitor geared for creatives. This 32 inch 4K monitor
is certified and validated by both Pantone and Calman, which means that this monitor
is all about accurate color representation. Although I'm using this monitor on a windows
machine, this is a Mac friendly monitor. You can connect it to your Mac device via thunderbolt
3. Let's look at some of the monitor's key features. This monitor has impressive color
spaces, it can reproduce 100% sRGB and 95% Display P3. It also has HDR10 content support.
You can probably tell by now that this monitor is all about color accuracy. BenQ guarantees
that all colors will be accurate out of the box. All monitors are calibrated at the factory
and you even get a calibration report inside the box for your specific monitor. You can
of course calibrate the monitor to your needs and you probably should do so every so often
so that you can maintain accurate color representation as time goes on.
The viewing angles on this monitor are fantastic. I didn't notice any color shifts as I adjusted
my monitor. The viewing angle is of 178 degrees, which is much better than what I had before
in my old Dell monitor. To be fair, my old monitor was not a professional grade monitor
like this one, so obviously there's going to be a difference. The monitor is 32 inches
at 4K and it feels massive. I first noticed that when I was in Photoshop and I did a technique
that you might've seen me use before where I open the same document in two windows. I
usually do that with my two monitors that I have here. I usually place one document
in one window and the same document duplicated on another so that I can work with details
on one side and what the overall image on the other. So I usually do that with two monitors,
but with this monitor I was able to do it with just the one monitor and it still worked
great because of all the space that I have. And I was able to view the documents with
no problems. By the way, if you want to know what I'm talking
about, let me just jump into Photoshop and quickly show you how to open up the same document
in two windows. What you want to do is go into the window menu, and from here arrange
new document for, then select the document. Once you have the two tabs open, you can go
into window, arrange to a vertical and Photoshop will place the two windows side-by-side. Then
you can zoom into one window and zoom out the other. Any adjustments that you make in
one window will automatically be applied to the other. Again, this helps you work on both
details and the overall image at the same time, which is a huge time saver.
This is one of the many advantages of having a lot of real estate and in a 4K monitor.
The objects in this monitor look very sharp. It comes with a thirty one and a half inch
panel with a 4K resolution at 3840 by 2160, with a pixel density of 140ppi, which is a
great pixel density, especially for a monitor this size. Most monitors as large as this
one don't really have that except for maybe the LG ultra fine monitors, so the pixel density
is a big plus for the PD3220U. The PD3220U support virtually all color garmets currently
used by professionals. That's a feature that is usually reserved for high end monitors
with huge price tags. This monitor also has a built in KVM switch,
or keyboard video mouse switch, which allows you to run two computers with the same keyboard
mouse and of course monitor. One way that you could use this feature is by connecting
both your desktop and laptop to the same mouse keyboard and monitor, or a PC computer and
a Mac computer controlled with the same keyboard and mouse. So it's a great feature that I
think that a lot of designers will enjoy. Another great feature that designers will
love is the dual viewed mode, which allows you to view two different color modes on the
same monitor side by side, so you don't need a second monitor to see how your designs will
look on different devices. When it comes to connections the PB3220U has
two thunderbolt connectors for daisy-chaining, which means that you can have two monitors
that connect to each other and only one connects to your computer. One of the thunderbolt 3
ports supports 85 Watt power delivery, which will allow you to charge most 15 inch class
notebooks including a Mac book. I actually use this feature to charge my Google pixel
mobile device. It's a feature that I really enjoy using. The PD3220U also has a display
port 1.4 connector and two HTDMI 2.0 ports. There's also USB 3.1 ports, a USB type C port,
and you also get a headphone Jack as well. One cool feature that I haven't seen in too
many monitors is the hotkey puck T2, which allows you to customize shortcuts to your
preferred features. This dial enables you to easily adjust the brightness, contrast
and volume of the monitor. At first, I thought that the puck was a little gimmicky, but the
more that I use it, the more that I enjoy it. It's actually much easier to adjust the
settings of your monitor with the dial, than having to reach over behind it to find the
button. And as you're working you can quickly adjust the settings on the fly, which makes
it very, very useful. So the puck is actually a very cool feature.
The PD3220U monitor comes with three display modes assigned to help you deliver professional
results. You can quickly switch between them using the puck. These modes are the darkroom
mode, then animation mode, and finally the CAD/CAM mode. To be Frank with you, I haven't
incorporated these modes into my workflow. It doesn't mean that they're bad or that they
don't work. They're just simply not something that adds a lot of value to the type of work
that I produce. Now before we finish the review, I want to tell you a couple of things that
I didn't like about the monitor and also things that are missing that I wish were there.
So first of all, the refresh rate. If you're into gaming, this is probably not the monitor
for you. That refresh rate is actually quite low for a monitor of this price. However,
this monitor is intended for accuracy, not speed, so you are getting the accuracy, but
we're sacrificing a little bit of the speed that gamers will probably need. So you will
have to make a decision if you're a gamer. Do you want to spend the money on the quality
for the design and sacrifice the gaming speed? That's up to you to decide. But I just wanted
to warn you that the refresh rate is not as high as it could be. And another thing that
I wanted to point out is that the speakers are mediocre. You're definitely not going
to be impressed by them. Clearly BenQ was thinking more about color accuracy than sound
when designing this monitor. So keep that in mind.
And to be quite frank with you here, I'm just nitpicking. There's not a whole lot I don't
like about the monitor. The PD3220U monitor is quite good, however, there's some things
missing that I wish were included. So why don't we talk about those next. First thing
that I feel that is missing from this monitor is the ability to attach a shading hood, which
is odd because BenQ does offer that ability in other professional grade monitors. But
as far as I know, you can not attach a shading hood to this monitor.
Number two, is a dedicated built in memory card reader. It just makes it easier for me
to upload my photos into my computer if I can just directly plug them into the monitor
here on the side. But unfortunately I can not do that with this monitor. I can attach
an SD card reader via USB into it, but that just adds a little more clutter into my desk,
so I don't necessarily like that. Number three is this monitor can be a little
heavy, so it would have been nice to have maybe a carrying handle behind it so I could
move it around. So that's one thing that would be great to add in maybe a future release.
And number four, for some reason BenQ has been notably silent on it's Adobe RGB performance.
I did a little research, and from various websites I was able to see that it can perform...
I did a little research and from various websites I saw that this monitor can handle about 95%
Adobe RGB, which is good, but at the same time I'm not really sure why BenQ didn't advertise
it anywhere, so I wish there would have been a little bit more clear about that on their
website, or at the very least in the literature that came within the monitor. But that's just
one other small thing that I wish that would have been included.
Now let's talk about something that could be considered a downside. The price on Amazon,
the BenQ PV3220U currently goes for about $1,200, which is more expensive than your
typical consumer monitor. But again, this is a professional monitor designed for creatives.
I just went through some of the best features and to me this is actually a really good value,
especially if you compare it to something like Apple's Pro Display XDR, which costs
three times more and you still have to buy a $1,000 stand.
To be fair, the XDR has higher resolution. It has 6K instead of 4K. It has a higher pixel
density and it is a brighter monitor with better contrast ratio. But it starts at $5,000
and that's without the $1,000 stand that you probably will need. For creatives who don't
need 6K resolution, or don't have that kind of budget, the BenQ PD3220U is a fantastic
alternative which also offers some tremendous professional features that the XDR does not
have. I have been really impressed with his monitor.
I've really enjoyed using it. I've been using it for about 5 months now and it has become
my primary monitor. I don't intend to switch to anything else anytime soon. If you want
a monitor that gives you professional results, that works great with Photoshop, then this
is a monitor that I would recommend. To find out more about it, check out the Amazon link
down below in the description. Let me know down in the comments below what you think
about this monitor, and if you're planning on getting one. Thank you so much for checking
out this review. If this is your first time at the Photoshop Training Channel, then don't
forget to click on that subscribe and notification buttons, so that you don't miss any new Photoshop
tutorials. Thank you so much for watching. I'll talk to you again in the next video.