BenQ EW3880R 37.5 inch 4K UHD Curved Monitor
BenQ EW3880R 37.5" monitor combines ultra slim bezels with hidden cable management. Complementing BenQ with Low Blue Light Technology and Flicker-Free performance for extended viewing comfort, industry-leading Brightness Intelligence Technology delivers exquisite details in any ambient lighting environment. With the ideal combination of LED and VA technologies, EW3880R delivers a new level of visual enjoyment with truly authentic colors, deeper blacks, higher contrast, and sharper details. On the other hand, it has 4K UHD (3840x1600) resolution. Expansive 178° horizontal and vertical viewing angles ensure uniform viewing for multiple people in the room. BenQ Eye-Care Monitors are certified by TUV Rheinland, global leader of technical and safety certification, for Flicker-Free, and Low Blue Light performance truly benefiting human vision. The first brand of Eye-Care monitors in the world, BenQ is committed to safeguarding vision health at the forefront of viewing comfort and enjoyment with this permanent addition to its monitor product line. BenQ’s Color Weakness mode allows users who with color vision deficiency, the color to customize the amount of red or green displayed on the monitor with red and green filters. Once the red and green are neutralized, the mode ensures a comfortable viewing experience for all users and helps users to clearly distinguish between different colors. Additionally, BenQ’s color weakness mode also helps improve the viewing experience for people with Protanomaly (red-weakness) or Deuteranomaly (green-weakness) while allowing users to adjust the level of color weakness mode. It also have variety of connectivity like Display port, etc.
BenQ EW3880R Monitor Review
We’ve seen some massive PC monitors launch in the last few years, but the BenQ EW3880R, with its 21:9 aspect ratio, is one of the widest and most interesting currently on offer. Its 38-inch (37.5-inch viewable) screen has great presence (before you even turn it on) with its subtle brown speaker grille and stand. It looks like something that would almost fit into a living room.
Sporting a 3,840 x 1,600 resolution, it’s capable of displaying a crisp and detailed Windows desktop and allows for four (count ’em) full-sized A4 windows to be placed next to one another. This can be a great productivity boon for those working with multiple documents, browsers and, especially, spreadsheets. However, we found that turning our head to look from one end of the screen to another could get a bit tiring on our neck. Still, there’s a subtle curve to the screen that reduces the amount your eyeballs need to refocus as they pan from side to side, and this helps with viewing comfort. There’s also BenQ’s TÜV Rheinland-certified anti-flicker and blue-light filter technology that's claimed to further prevent ocular fatigue. Ultimately, we loved working on this display, but it is one that's more designed for multimedia and productivity than gaming.
Our first thought, when looking at a screen this shape and size, is that it must be great for that latter use. However, while we were impressed with how the UHD graphics and textures of Far Cry 6 looked on the screen, the low 60Hz refresh rate quickly reminded us that this isn’t suitable for fast-paced action games and racers – if you're used to one of the newer high-refresh gaming displays, your eyes will very quickly complain about motion blur, image tearing and skipped frames.
Nonetheless, BenQ is keen to promote the video performance of the EW3880R and we were certainly impressed. The 10-bit IPS panel is great for watching movies, TV and video content generally – especially demo reels tailored for the panel's native resolution. Colors are bright and vibrant, while gradients (both chromatic and monochromatic) are smooth with no obvious stepping.
The 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 300-nit brightness rating are somewhat mediocre, however. Detail can get lost in particularly dark and bright areas. BenQ attempts to address this with its HDRi (simulated HDR) technology but, frankly, we found it more miss than hit – it could easily make images worse, and seldom improved matters. We’re being picky though, as most movie content generally looked great. Just note that you’ll usually have some form of letterbox bars near the sides of the screen as even supposedly native 21:9 content (of which there’s plenty on streaming sites like Netflix) doesn’t always fill the whole panel.
Also particularly noteworthy are the screen's built-in speakers. The large grille at the bottom helps hide two 3W speakers and an 8W sub. These are substantially superior specs compared to other multimedia monitors, and it shows – sound gets loud and punchy, vocal fidelity is great, bass is strong and treble stays clear. Very impressive.
The usual array of monitor adjustments (and connections) are available to tinker with, but we seldom strayed far from defaults. A remote is included too.
If it had a higher refresh rate for better gaming capabilities the EW3880R would frankly be brilliant, but even without it’s fantastic for work and play regardless. It’s expensive, but fairly priced in this 38-inch ultrawide space, and many cashed-up casual computer users will love it.
Performance
We loved working on the BenQ EW3880R. Its ability to display four, full-sized A4 documents (and then some), huge spreadsheets and large graphical working areas was a productivity dream – you rarely need to waste time and effort switching between windows, no matter what you’re doing. The Ultra HD 3,840 x 1,600 resolution kept everything crisp and in sharp relief. It’s evenly lit and all the eye comfort features, married with the matte screen, really meant that our eyes didn’t get fatigued after prolonged periods of work. Just note that if you’ve got any kind of neck injury, you may experience soreness by looking left and right more than you ordinarily would.
We were generally impressed with its multimedia prowess too. The IPS panel supports 95% of the challenging DCI-P3 color space for enhanced accuracy and we felt multimedia content looked above average in terms of motion smoothness and contrast. However, enthusiasts may lament the less-than-top-tier color vibrancy and brightness. Playing with the HDR settings in Windows and on the monitor can improve certain content types, but the results can quickly get away from you if there’s too much light or dark on screen, with it easily becoming hard to see anything. Still, we’re nitpicking a bit – video generally looked really good and there were smooth color (and monochromatic) transitions with minimal banding.
Naturally, you’re going to frequently see pillarboxing (aka reverse letterboxing) with video, as most TV shows and movies are not natively 21:9 formatted. We seriously appreciated the 21:9 content available on Netflix and Amazon, as it could take up the whole screen. However, you’ll find that many videos leave black bars to the sides of the screen, as they don’t stretch beyond a typical 16:9 widescreen resolution. Still, we were impressed at how the pillarbox bars, for the most part, stayed almost true black and weren’t too distracting.
We really wanted the EW3880R to work well for gaming, as the outlook isn’t far removed from a real-life cockpit in a race car. We didn’t mind that menus in games don’t support 21:9, although they can look a bit weird with pillarbox bars to the side. Cutscenes with actual letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the screen got a bit annoying, but they are relatively rare occurrences. Most importantly, using the entire screen for actual gameplay can be very immersive… especially when walking through the jungles of Far Cry 6.
The problems manifest when you get into gunfights or scenes with fast-and-frantic motion, as the 60Hz refresh rate and modest 4ms grey-to-grey pixel response time quickly show their limits – motion blur is rife, while dropping frames and image tearing happen in a way that many gamers have evolved past coping with. While we were generally happy with Far Cry 6's performance due to its general slow pace, if you’re planning on playing competitive shooters or racing games, you may want to step up to a monitor with gaming-grade refresh rates. That all said, flight sim players and strategy gamers who benefit from extra UHD real estate might just love it.
A special mention must be made of the speakers. There are two 3W units plus an 8W sub. These combine to produce some of the best audio we’ve heard from any monitor we've tested. Fidelity and clarity is good all the way from bass to treble, and they get impressively loud and punchy. There are a range of fairly-standard audio modes available for tinkering with, but everyone’s preferences will vary on those.
