All posts

The Everyday Mac Display - BENQ MA270U

12:03 video

As a Mac user, one of the biggest issues we have is finding a monitor that has the design, the display quality, and the features we expect, for a price that isn’t exorbitant. This new BenQ display tries to group together everything we care about as Mac users in a display that is less than $500. And I think they did it.

The MA series comes in a 27-inch and a 32-inch version. They are purpose-built for Mac users, to give you colors that match your MacBook, the integration we expect, and a design that doesn’t look like an RGB nightmare.

This video was sponsored by CalDigit, my dock partner.

Design

The design of the MA series is clean and minimal, with gray and black tones. The three bezels around the sides are not the most modern in terms of size, and the bottom bezel bulges out a little with the BenQ logo embedded. There are some vents on the top, and the case bulges around the back where the aluminum-looking stand attaches.

The stand is made of steel wrapped in plastic, and it actually looks pretty good. The base has a poly leather area you can use for storing little things, or for resting the back of your MacBook on in clamshell mode.

The stand is fully adjustable. Measured at the top of the 27-inch display, it goes from just under 18 inches at its lowest position up to about 22½ inches. The display can also tilt up and down, swivel side to side, and rotate 90 degrees, and it will auto-pivot when you rotate it if you’re using the Display Pilot software. This stand is much more stable than others I’ve tested, showing minimal wobble when I push the desk. Or you can remove the stand and use a VESA-compatible mount.

Overall, the design fits what many Mac users will want: something that matches the minimalism of a MacBook and does not distract from the display itself.

Bezels

Say what you will about the size of the bezels, but as I’ve learned over the years, bezel sizes don’t actually matter when you just use the device. You don’t notice them, and they give you a gap between your work and the world around you.

However, I did notice a slight gap between the bezels and the frame, which may result in dust accumulation. You may want a can of air or an electronic duster just in case.

Ports

First, this display has an integrated power supply. You connect a regular power cable and that’s it. No giant external brick. Compared to many other displays I’ve used in the last couple of years, this is nice.

On the back you’ll find:

  • A USB-C port for connecting your computer, which also supplies up to 90 watts to charge your MacBook, laptop, or tablet
  • Two HDMI 2.0 ports for computers or game consoles
  • A built-in USB hub with one USB-C port that provides up to 15 watts for charging devices or connecting accessories, plus a USB-A port
  • On the bottom of the display, another USB-A port and a headphone jack

The USB ports are capable of USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds at 5 gigabits per second. But if you want to run the display at the full 4K 60 Hz, those ports will only run at USB 2.0 speeds. I would find 4K at 30 Hz pretty unacceptable for my regular use, so I would leave the USB ports at 2.0 speeds and use them for things like mouse dongles.

If you need more for things like external SSDs or SD card readers, I would still recommend a dock or a hub from my channel partner, CalDigit.

Display performance

The MA series features a 4K display at 60 Hz with a nano matte cover. According to BenQ, the 27-inch gets up to 400 nits of brightness for SDR content, supports HDR 400, has a 1200:1 contrast ratio, and covers 95% of the P3 color gamut. The 32-inch version is listed at up to 500 nits SDR, 600 nits HDR, a 1300:1 contrast ratio, and up to 97% of P3.

I was only able to get my hands on the 27-inch version, but I tested it. In my initial visual testing, I was pretty surprised how well it did, especially for a display under $500.

With the default M-book color mode, the display does indeed match my MacBooks really well. Side by side, I can’t see any difference. I’ve used higher-end BenQ displays with M-book mode, and those might be slightly better than the MA series for matching Macs, but damned if I can see a difference. The picture on these displays looks like it came from Apple.

When I test other cheap displays, and even more expensive ones, backlight bleed and color uniformity have been an issue. The backlight bleed on the MA270U was very good, with a slight bright area at the lower right corner. Cycling through a number of patterns, it seems to have consistent color across the display, which is a rarity at this price.

I also checked it with a color calibration tool:

  • Peak brightness: about 402 nits, right in line with the spec
  • Contrast: 950:1, a bit lower than I expected
  • P3 color: 98%, a bit better than the stated 95%

I ran the same test on the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro, and the Apple Studio Display to see how close they all were. From my visual perspective, the MA display looks extremely close to Apple’s displays. If you were going off of this alone, it would be hard to justify spending another $1,000-plus on a Studio Display over this BenQ just to get a display that matches a MacBook. The full reports are linked below.

As far as HDR on the 27-inch, I basically saw no effect with it turned on. This is an LCD backlit panel, and the SDR and HDR brightness are the same. The 32-inch version has a slightly brighter HDR, so maybe that does something, but I wouldn’t buy this and expect any HDR goodness.

Refresh rate, and 4K vs 5K

I know many of you will complain about the refresh rate, 4K versus 5K, and the matte display.

My Studio Display and my MacBook Airs are all 60 Hz, and I somehow get by just fine without even realizing it. The MA has a five-millisecond response time, and I had no issues with casual Mac gaming.

I’ve been pretty hard on 4K displays over the past couple of years. I strongly suggested 5K displays like the Studio Display were superior and 4K was crap. I changed my tune at the beginning of this year for multiple reasons. It is true that 5K has a sharper image when scaled to my preferred 1440p size on a 27-inch Mac display, but that is only when pixel peeping. At about 24 inches from my eyes, I can’t see a difference.

Is 5K a better resolution than 4K for a 27-inch Mac display? Yes. But there are no 5K displays anywhere near $500, and the next closest, the Samsung ViewFinity S9, is terrible in many ways.

Matte coating and speakers

Matte and glossy displays each have their advantages, and the reduced glare on this display is exceptional. It easily masks hard lights shining right at the display, and with windows directly behind me, I had zero reflection issues. Side by side with a glossy display, the matte display does look a little less sharp and a little washed out, but on its own it looks pretty great.

On the bottom of the MA display are two built-in three-watt speakers. These speakers are not good. They do output sound, but that sound lacks any semblance of bass, high end, or mids. The 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air are louder and produce more bass.

But they are there if you need them. If you use your laptop in clamshell mode, use a Mac mini, don’t want to spend money on external speakers, or want a cleaner desk, then they output sound, and they don’t seem to rattle or distort, so that’s a plus.

Mac integration and Display Pilot

One of the main reasons I like the Apple Studio Display is how well it integrates with the Mac. You can control the volume and brightness with the Mac keyboard and not mess around with a dumb on-screen display that looks like it’s from the ’90s.

BenQ does have a very clean, basic on-screen control for volume, brightness, and input. But the Display Pilot software is what enables the integration, and it’s where you do all the other configuration.

There are two parts to the app: the menu bar item and the settings window. The menu item gives you quick access to features like Focus Sync, which changes settings automatically based on your Mac’s Focus mode, plus blue light limiting and resolution. The settings window lets you choose what shows in the menu item, and the advanced settings cover things like USB speed, power, and input scanning.

There are quite a few configuration options in this software. As a Mac user buying this monitor, there really isn’t anything you need to do except plug it in and turn it on. But here’s what I changed:

  1. In the Display Pilot menu, click the three dots.
  2. In Preferences, click Brightness and enable keyboard control. I also disabled software dimming, but that’s a personal preference.
  3. In the advanced settings, I enabled USB-C awake and always-on charging so my MacBook is always charged up.
  4. I disabled auto-scan, so when I put my Mac to sleep, the display doesn’t search the other inputs before going to sleep. It will still pop up for a second saying the input isn’t seeing anything.

With keyboard control on, you can control the brightness and volume from the Mac keyboard, but the cursor needs to be on the MA display. The overlay looks a little bit off because it’s trying to look like the Mac pop-up and it isn’t, but it works.

When waking from sleep, the display wakes in about three seconds, which is way faster than other displays besides Apple’s own.

One other cool feature is Desktop Partition, which works like other window managers on the Mac. Start dragging a window and you get a pop-up layout to drop it on, and it resizes and places the window for you. It has worked pretty well, but it can be a bit buggy, and I have seen it crash the Display Pilot app a few times. macOS Sequoia also has some new window management built in, so this may be redundant, but it’s cool that they’re trying stuff.

Should you buy it?

BenQ promised a display that looks like your Mac and integrates like an Apple display, and they basically did it. I think the colors, the screen uniformity, the design, the build quality, and the integration software all deliver on that promise.

With the 27-inch version listed at $460 and the 32-inch at $600, these are probably the best displays you can buy for your Mac in that price range, as long as you don’t care about high refresh rates. I can definitely recommend them.

Would I replace my Studio Display with one? No, no way. The Studio Display is a superior package. It’s brighter and has better integration, better speakers, a glossy display, and a built-in mic and camera, for whatever that’s worth. But the Studio Display is about $700 more expensive when it’s on sale, and that only includes a tilting stand.

So for less than half the cost, you can get about 90% of what the Studio Display offers. Maybe 88%. That’s a pretty good deal for most of us.

In this video

  • 0:00 design
  • 1:40 bezels
  • 2:00 ports
  • 4:16 display performance
  • 7:32 matte and speakers
  • 8:25 integration and display pilot software
  • 10:48 should you buy it?

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

Watch on YouTube

Keep reading

Related posts