The EX3203R is a 32 inch 1440p 144Hz curved gaming monitor from BenQ with FreeSync 2 and
HDR 400, so let’s check it out and see if it’s a monitor you should consider.
The panel is 31.5 inches with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and runs at the 1440p resolution, so
2560 by 1440. It’s got AMD’s FreeSync 2 as well, which basically has some additional
features over FreeSync, including HDR support, low framerate compensation or LFC, and lower
input latency.
The panel also runs at 144Hz with a 4ms GTG response time, so decent for gamers. Now that
Nvidia are supporting adaptive sync in theory it should be possible to use an Nvidia graphics
card and not have tearing, however I believe you’ll need to stick to AMD graphics if
you want to take advantage of FreeSync 2. I tried using an Nvidia RTX 2060 with latest
drivers but the Nvidia control panel told me it was not validated as G-Sync compatible,
which I believe means it may work but results aren’t guaranteed. I was able to get it
working for the most part, any time I opened menu settings in overwatch though it would
briefly black screen, but no issues with the game play, and it was perfectly fine with
AMD graphics.
Just to clarify, Nvidia graphics will work perfectly fine for everything else, but adaptive
sync might be touchy.
I noticed some ghosting with the UFO test, I’ve recorded this it at 180 FPS and slowed
it down, so hopefully you can judge for yourself.
As you may have noticed it’s also got an 1800R curve which is fairly noticeable, but
after using it for a while I did start to get used to it. This always happens when I
swap to curved, I start to prefer that the corners aren’t so far away, but it’s personal
preference.
It’s also using a VA panel, and to me the colours look great with good viewing angles,
I couldn’t notice any changes even when looking at the screen on sharp angles, and
BenQ list that it’s capable of 178 degree viewing angles both vertically and horizontally.
In terms of colour accuracy, BenQ list that the panel offers 90% of DCI-P3 coverage. Unfortunately
my Spyder 5 software doesn’t test this, but we’re looking at 87% of sRGB, 61% of
NTSC and 65% of AdobeRGB based on my own measurements, so not great but I think acceptable for a
gaming monitor.
It’s got a peak brightness of 400 nits, although in my testing I was only getting
to 356 in the center with 100% brightness. Likewise BenQ specify a 3000:1 contrast ratio
and I was seeing 1490:1 at 100% brightness, higher than what we’d see from an IPS panel
as this is a VA which are known for good blacks. If I manually maxed out the contrast on the
monitor I was able to get a 407 nit brightness at 100% and a 1700:1 contrast ratio, I’m
guessing that the results may be better in the HDR mode, but when using that manual controls
are disabled so I wasn’t able to test.
This monitor is also VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified, so you are able to use it to view HDR content.
In my testing I did find HDR content to look better compared to SDR, but don’t expect
anything amazing. In my opinion HDR 400 is pretty low, I guess it’s better than not
having it at all, but proper I wouldn’t be looking at this purely with HDR in mind.
The bezels are fairly thin too, at around 9mm around the sides and top based on my own
measurements, and then around 2.3cm down the bottom with a subtle BenQ logo in the center.
I’ve taken a long exposure photo in a dark room as a worst case backlight bleed test.
There did appear to be a bit of bleed or glow, which does seem to be more common in curved
monitors, but I never noticed it during normal usage, and this will vary between panels.
It’s not all just about the panel though, taking a look at the rest of the monitor it’s
got a shiny silver plastic V shape stand with a hole in it for cable management. Overall
the stand was solid enough, but there was some movement when bumping my desk hard. I
wasn’t able to remove the stand, but apparently you can use a VESA wall mount transfer kit
if you want to mount it, otherwise there’s no standard mount out of the box.
The rest of the back is a matte silver on top and a textured black plastic towards the
bottom, overall a fairly professional look for a gaming monitor, no flashy RGB lighting
or anything like that.
The IO is on the back toward the bottom and faces down. From left to right there’s the
power input, 3.5mm audio output, two HDMI 2.0 ports, DisplayPort 1.4, two USB 3.1 Gen
1 Type-A ports, and USB Type-C port which can also carry DisplayPort signal.
Otherwise on the right, or left when you’re sitting in front of the screen, there’s
a Kensington lock. On the opposite side, there are 6 dedicated buttons for interacting with
the on screen display as well as a power button.
Overall I found the OSD pretty easy to navigate, I prefer having buttons underneath rather
than around the back or a joystick. There are options for picture in picture or picture
by picture, the usual brightness, contrast, sharpness, and colour temperature options,
low blue light options and more.
As for the included cables, you get an HDMI, full size DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort,
USB Type-C, and 120 watt power brick and cable, so yeah unfortunately no internal power brick.
There are only a couple of adjustments available, -5 to 15 degrees of tilt adjustment and 0
to 60mm of height adjustment. Unfortunately there’s no pivot or swivel available here,
however I think both of those adjustments are generally less useful for a curved monitor
anyway.
So far the monitor looks pretty good, but how was it to actually use day to day? I’ve
used a few 1440p 144Hz gaming monitors now, and I think they’re a great sweet spot for
many games as long as you’re graphics card is able to run at that resolution with decent
frame rates. After getting used to the curve I was finding that it does help in regards
to immersion, and for gaming I didn't personally have any issues in terms of being able to
see the pixels while sitting at my normal distance from the screen, about 60cm or 23
inches away, and that’s after coming from my usual 32 inch 4k screen.
As for console support, basically playstation and xbox will work no problems, but I don’t
think either support 1440p at 144Hz, so you might not get what it’s capable of, I’m
honestly not too sure when it comes to consoles so you’ll have to do your own research.
I’ve also used the monitor to edit a few of my recent videos and it’s worked well.
32 inches is my usual size for video editing, but I usually have a flat 4K screen. While
I still personally prefer 4K for that type of work I had no issues using this, which
is honestly a better option if you do both a mixture of content creation and gaming as
you get that 144Hz refresh rate with FreeSync.
For updated pricing check the links in the description, as prices will change over time.
At the time of recording it’s going for around $600 USD on Amazon, or $750 AUD here
in Australia.
So what did you guys think about the EX3203R gaming monitor from BenQ?
I've been using it for weeks now and haven't had any major problems worth calling out,
there were a few small things as discussed like ghosting and bleed but I didn’t find
these severe. Overall the screen looked great and offered a smooth experience with that
combination of high refresh rate and freesync 2.
The curve is going to come down to personal preference, every time I swap over to one
of these for testing initially it feels a bit weird, but I get used to it pretty quick.
I end up noticing that it’s nicer to have the far corners closer to me compared to a
flat screen, especially with a larger 32” screen like this. After I swap back to a flat
one the corners always feel out of reach, that’s the best I can describe it. Otherwise
the VA panel performed well in games, 144Hz at 1440p is a pretty nice place to be if you’ve
got the GPU power behind it especially combined with FreeSync, and adaptive sync also seemed
usable with Nvidia graphics. I wouldn’t be getting it solely for HDR, but I guess
the option’s there and it does make HDR content look a little better.
Let me know what you thought of BenQ’s EX3203R gaming monitor down in the comments, leave
a like if you found the review useful, and of course subscribe if you want to see more
tech videos like this one.